Lloyd Dupont

Do you happen to live in Heceta Beach?
Seems like a nice spot!  

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0362324,-124.1383112,1369m/data=!3m1!1e3

Or maybe Dunes City?, this place is huge! 😮
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.8825527,-124.1187748,1372m/data=!3m1!1e3

Incroyable, mais vrai!

28 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

but I also have been known to say, 'chacun a son gout, n’est-ce pas?'

Wow, I didn't know you were known for saying that, but hey "tout est possible, n'est-il pas?"  

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I believe that's called "being on the cast of Critical Role"   But joking aside, it's mindblowing to think about it, but we do live in a world where professional RPGers exist. Not only actual play YouTubers like Critical Role, but also professional GMs who rent their services by running games at customers' home parties.

Indeed.

Sometimes I think democracy is losing ground and the economy is worsening for common people in the last 40 years or so. But I wonder, is it natural negative bias?
And then you got this kind of information... 
But ha, well.. there always were professional entertainers, the profession simply just diversified, using new media!  

On 2/27/2020 at 6:24 PM, Sigtrygg said:

We first came across this concept with 5e - my players and I were often confused as to when to apply said rules so they tended to be ignored after a while.

Then we playtested Mongoose Traveller 2e. It has a boon/bane system in addition to MgT's plethora of target numbers and DMs. Basically you roll 2d6 for a task vs a target number set by the ref and apply +/- DMs as you can hoover them up. The boon/bane system adds rolling an extra die, if you have a boon you pick the highest 2 of your 2 dice on a bane you take the lowest two.

My players love it as a mechanic so much that it replaced a lot of arguments over +/-DMs, and when we went back to my CT houserules game I was forced to take boon/bane with me.

We have toyed with gaining multiple boon/bane dice and due to circumstance - you still pick the highest/lowest two from the number of dice you roll, but this was quietly dropped.

So when I finally picked up CoC Starter and gave that a spin my players quite enjoy the advantage/disadvantage way of doing things (I have toyed with adapting the MgT system, on boon roll 3d10 and pick the lowest % score you can make with two of the dice and vice versa for disadvantage but it tends to have a massive affect so it was dropped too). 

Since you used that with good success Sigtrygg I wonder....

I wonder if disadvantage / advantage rolls mesh well with bonus malus. I mostly ask because there are a few neat way in the rules to deal with skill over 100%, like:
1. in the case of melee the highest opponent inflict his skill over 100% as malus to the others.
2. in the case of missile weapon lots of malus apply to missile weapons.

But using disadvantage instead of malus take that away, and I am not sure they mesh that well....

I think I am still interested in that rule, but as a more exceptional case, like a divine stunt to reroll an attack or a dodge, or maybe a racial bonus.

thought so Sigtrygg....

Build your own interstellar cruiser in your own backyard!

Well that wouldn't surprise me...

Creating skeleton is cheap and permanent.. and the typical trope is that there are lots of them. And that the cleric does also destroy lots of them.
And let just guess, can you try it only once on a group of undead?

First I have to say that disadvantage and advantage cancel each other, so there is no confusion on that particular front...

Other than that.. yeah I found them confusing too... (between skill bonus and extra roll) 😕 
 

For definition sake (in case I get the name right, so you know what I am talking about)
An advantage (or disadvantage) roll is when you roll your skill a second time and take the (worst) best.

Call of Cthulhu has them. D&D5e has them. I can see how they feel somewhat more satisfying than a +20% bonus (it's not quite the same but it's an ok approximation).

Now my problem is that initially dismissed advantage rolls as a pointless gimmick. But they appear everywhere in my recent readings and I am considering them again...

However I wonder.. when would one (GM) go for (dis)advantage roll instead of malus / bonus?

Me think.. Perhaps I should use (dis)advantage roll in most circumstances. And only use skill/10 for impossible task.
But bonus / malus  works quite well for missile weapon and range. A 20% increment every so often is easy, but +1,2,3,4,5,6... disadvantage roll is quite cumbersome, wouldn't it?

Mmm.. it's a good question, one that me made pause for a little while...

And maybe one could argue that perhaps some stunt could be free...
Indeed, the typical one that unlock a combat effect / manoeuvre on a normal attack instead of a critical / advantage ought to be of the free kind.

But I am going to advocate below, with 2 examples, that some should definitely have limitations.

One is a stunt from Blood Tide, Flashing Blade, give a character an additional number of melee attack in a given round for a cost of 1MP + 1MP/attack.
I think we can all agree that, if such a stunt were to be introduced in the game, it would need to have some sort of limitation.

Also I like to think of (some) stunts as ultimate. A good ultimate is an ace card that you gleefully hold in reserve, not something that you dish every round or it somehow lose its ace value.
For example a stunt in Blood Tide give a damage bonus of +1D6 bonus damage dice . And for the sake of argument I could be considering a version that even give +2D6 or maybe +3D6, maybe requiring both martial and also allegiance prowess.
However I wouldn't like my dishing that damage single attack on every single round....

21 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It seems like a sound concept. 

 

RE: Fatigue Point

I always thought the objection to Fatigue was the hassle of dealing with  1% incremental penalties to skills, not the Fatigue Points. 

I had considered just tracking the penalties in 10% increments at CON intervals. So every time a character accrued their CON in Fatigue they suffered another -10%.

I too thought of something like that. Then I forgot!
thanks for reminding me

I will write down a few alternate rules as try out suggestion reminder now!  

I guess I will give it a go...

It's not like I haven't submitted my player to many rules experiment! 😅

I loved stunts from the BRP supplement "Blood Tide" and I loved stunts in "Revolution D100"

Preparing my future scifi campaign I am trying to formalise all the home made home brew rule I plan to use neatly and try to write down neatly a plethora of start stunts idea.

In the particular case of combat stunts, I was going write done many inspired by Blood Tide, and just like Blood Tide I was about to make them cost MP.
But then it hit me....
What if I used Fatigue instead? 😮 

I guess sure, hey, why not?
The question is I am not playing BRP at the moment and I wonder if there was anyone here who are definitely NOT number lovers, yet use fatigue in their game easily enough with good effect?

Cooking fumble:

Everything was merrily simmering in my pot, ready for a beautiful Pad Thai!

Then it turns out, I was confused, I didn't buy tamarind past, I bought massaman curry paste! 😕

Mmm.. I might need this TShirt celebrating the achievements of Weyland Yutani Corp when I GM my scifi adventures!
Even though I don't plan on having Xenormorph and it will already be full of aliens.. it set the evil megacorporation tone that I like!

Rock version!

I know it's an old one, but since my thoughts were on that topic, I couldn't help but think (again) with some joyful glee...

If you are on a space odyssey to a mysterious planet, and the tone of the setting is one of mysterious alien horror...
(Which is not the tone I am going for, this time, unfortunately..)

Don't bring Baked Beans!
(Anyway, anyone knows that Baked Beans are made by Weyland Yutani those days. Which speaks volume! 😮 )
(Weyland Yutani, best R&D company, right? Definitely in my setting! ) 

Here is why!

If you really must ask.. it was a normal planet, with dark sky (light on oxygen) and with normal trees...
I was inspired by Arcanum (Master of Magic)

Even though I live in Australia now, I grew up and lived in France for a while. We love a lot of food over there, including mushrooms. Even more so for wild mushrooms!

What is the RPG connection you ask? 

Well you see, in my latest dark elf fantasy campaign people where kinda stranded in the world of dark elves, where the main staple food was giant bugs and mushrooms.
And even though, you know how it goes, we were just talking around a table, I couldn't get my players to agree that, at the very least, some mushroom ain't that bad.... They can't wait for their (imaginary!) character to go back home and eat "real food"! 😅🤣

Mushrooms just ain't much of a thing here in Australia!.. 😮 Oh.. and don't get me started on the possible edibility of giant bugs. I think it just didn't caught with them ether! 😛🤣

Ha.. missed that!
Anyway Norway looks beautiful! I have to move over there now!

As a side note, initially I planned the adventure to start after the capital planet have been set to ruin in a times of turmoil....

But I got a new better idea... Adventure will start before the coup and Antarian attack.
And in the first series of investigation the player will uncover a secret independentist society that is researching a method to lure the Antarian at some location (the Antarians being the big bag voodoo of MOO with a supreme technology, living in a parallel dimension, they are like Cthulhu, in a way! 😅)...

Then later when the Antarians will contribute to the downfall of the capital world... Player will have a clue as to whom is to blame! 😮 

I am thinking people only invest in viable system..

either there are mining opportunity, or ancient Orion relics, or maybe it's a fuel outpost (in those case it can super hostile)..

Otherwise.. it would at least have a terraforming potential.... (if not already agreeable to life, but those planets are uncommon).
Dry ice, btw, would be perfect for a planet with terraform potential! turning into greenhouse gas that will (slowly) warm the dead cold planet!

In the case of the players I am still undecided.. just want to make it dangerous.. and maybe I will have some unfortunate time outside the protective cities domes for drama purpose...

As a side note, there is one planet that I do indeed intend to be primitive. The Illithid planet (aka D&D mindlayers). Not because of regression or because Bulrathi were afraid of psionic powers, but because Bulrathi decided to make it a state secret and employ some Illithid in the secret service. 
So this planet is not being colonised.
I have no plan of adventure there in the near future.. it's just a bit of personal lore for fun for now....

Initial adventures would be on an hostile planet, people live under domed city (force field dome) outside of dome there is not enough oxygen and it's deadly cold.... not entirely decided on the biome yet, might be just an icy planet without oxygen (currently terraforming)... the idea is that it feels definitely alien and hostile to life... And the stellar system is set up for mining and the player's planet to be, hopefully one day in a remote future, an agrarian world...

I think there might be multiple approach /camps...

On one hand, for the pure horror lover... One is not really scared much nowadays.. but slowly losing control of your character could provide a fun simulation and minigame...

A different kind of horror lover could argue that slowly discovering that there are entity with a magical and technological might far beyond our grasp, with an hostile ethic and also both so far, yet so close in some way might be naturally scary enough.. and then there are... stupid people (cultist) who try to bring them here? That's scary enough, no need for SAN...
The only frustrating part here.. is that they will never come.. otherwise the game will end...

And finally, without being into horror at all, a menagerie of cold uncaring (or downright destructive) godlike creature that have a vague interaction with the world can provide an interesting background for adventures. Regardless one is into horror or not.

Ultimately it's your game, you play what you want!