OOC General D20 and Tabletop RPG Discussion Thread

2)Languages- Everyone needs to tell me what languages they're able to speak (other than Basic). Anything is open.

Huttese, Shryiiwook, Bothan

4)Any characters here have any particular haunts/regions/reasons to travel/reasons not to travel?

Vandal likes traveling back and forth to Nar Shaddaa and Tatooine to gamble and such (Pazaak or some other type of game you're using in the RP). Occassionally, he keeps up with the Swoop Racing and Pod Racing circuits and sometimes attempts to place a bet or two on a race.

In contrast, Vandal is wary of less traveled areas of Nar Shaddaa, because he owes some gambling debts that he doesn't wish to pay off. (My character twist of sorts. Do with it what you will.)

He also makes it a point to keep away from people he's gambled/cheated/met with before. "I make it a point to be like a shadow: seen during the day, hidden during the night."

 

*looks at skill section* So I managed to lose four or five points when I shifted things around. Oops. Anyway, good thing that's fixed now. Thanks for posting my sheet for me.

4)Any characters here have any particular haunts/regions/reasons to travel/reasons not to travel?

For mine, no. Riana stays mainly on Coruscant, but does travel if she's got a reason - like, say, if she's hired to do something. Or on a whim, whichever works.

 

I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth, I've just been busy with school work. However, I can say that I will have this RPG started up by May, after my exams are over, and then we can have some fun. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to start it even sooner than that, if I have the time.

Action, adventure, drama, intrigue, romance... let's see what sorts of things we can find.

 

Good to know you're still here.

Anyway, that's fine by me. Lookin' forward to it.

 

Hello?

 

Three weeks from tomorrow, my friend, three weeks from tomorrow, then my exams are over, and we can start this bad boy.

It is coming...

 

2 weeks for me

 

could anyone pm if they would teach me the basics of this type of game? Or post if you would like to help me?

 

I'm also looking for a d20 game via AIM. If anyone has any info, PM me the details...

 

I think you're in the wrong place dude.

 

How much longer now?

 

As of now, about a week until my stuff is over. Next Friday, assuming I don't get hauled off away from my computer. Don't worry, I'm even typing up the first post and saving on my hard drive. I assure you that I'm in.

And by the way, a little morsal to whet the appetite.

Game name:

Star Wars- Band of Thieves

That's right ladies and gentlemen, we've got a wretched hive of scum and villainy on our hands. Viva los banditos! Or something to that extent.

Just so I know you're here, all squad leaders call in.

GM Standing by.

 

President!

 

I'm present. Mitth can be 'president'.

 

Yes, he does deliver. Friday, just as I said. Band of Thieves is go.

 

Are we still doing the Online Dice rolling that is emailed to you or will you be doing all the rolling?

 

Well, unless you all feel otherwise, I'd be glad to roll the dice myself.

Anyone seen Zedd-Vega? Kind of hard to play a game without one of the two players in action at the moment...

 

I'm here.

I took a short break from TF.N (I asked to be banned for 24 hours) and stayed off for about 48.

I shall post shortly. Great job LightWarden.

 

Alright, rocking. Gentlemen, let's roll out.

 

Anyways, a few minor housekeeping details that don't affect the game at the moment.

Zedd-Vega:
Since I rarely see Jedi use blaster pistols, I'm offering you the choice of Martial Arts, Weapon Group Proficiency (blaster pistols), Weapon Group Proficiency (primitive weapons), or Armor Proficiency (light) instead of just gaining the feat Weapon group Proficiency (blaster pistols) with your first level of Jedi (which you already have due to your scoundrel levels anyways). Martial Arts is something I feel many Jedi have learned, judging from from the repeated examples of Jedi kicking and elbowing each other in the prequels and clone wars cartoons, and I have heard of Jedi who use personal armor. And who doesn't like primitive weapons. So anyways, you may pick between one of these:

Martial Arts
Weapon Group Proficiency (blaster pistols)
Weapon Group Proficiency (primitive weapons)
Armor Proficiency (light)

Instead of just only being stuck with Weapon Group Proficiency (blaster pistols), you may choose.

 

Upping for future use.

 

Thanks m'lady, was wondering where this one disappeared to.

Anyways, my name is LightWarden, Star Wars fan, RPG fan, and big time Dice advocate.

At present, I'm not running an RPG, since all my players disappeared on me within a few weeks. However, since this is an information thread, questions can be answered, systems can be discussed (dice based RPGs such as D&D), and whatever else that has to do with the system.

I'll be posting some more stuff later. And don't be put off by the fact that so many of these posts are mine, this is a forum more than it is a classroom, so please post. Especially if you're a dicer, or wish to consider it.

 

Well, two and half months later... I guess I kept my word.

Anyways, as I said before, I'm a big fan of RPGs based around dice and numbers. Why? Well, I'll tell you.

Judging by the fact that you're in the RPG section of TheForce.Net, I assume you're already familiar with the basic premises of an RPG. At the core, it's pretty much one big group game of make-believe. Except with more stuff. You and the other players pick your characters and go out into the world. Often, there is some sort of plot, objective, or other storyline to provide you with a sense of direction. There are challenges to face, and maybe some very interesting discoveries to make.

So where do dice systems factor into this? As you may have realized, the dice and numbers are used for task resolution. In most of the RPGs that are played on this board, the success or failure of a character's actions are determined by the whims and will of the players (and sometimes the GM). This means if you want to smack a guy, you smack a guy. Well, sort of. You post that you attempt to smack him, and whoever is controlling the guy tells you if you succeed or not. When it's an unclaimed NPC or an action that doesn't affect other people, characters tend to succeed automatically.

With statistics and numbers, it provides a far less floaty method of task resolution. With your character's stats, it's easy to see what they're good at and what they're poor at, as well as their degrees of proficiency. A character who's really good at something should succeed at normal tasks in that area a majority of that time, and is able to succeed at incredibly difficult tasks with a better rate of success than someone who is unskilled at it. Plus you can throw challenges or even other players at players and let it be decided by a neutral arbiter.

Anyways, I'm pretty much going to use this thread for discussing the use of numbers in games on this forum. Feel free to stop in, and maybe we'll get something interesting done. There are plenty of systems out there to choose from, and I'm pretty sure that those of us who do know a thing or two about dice games would be happy to lend a hand.

More later.

 

I've been thinking about numbers in RPGs on these boards and have come to the conclusion that numbers, if used correctly, improve a game immensely. They add many benefits to an RPG. But I've found that players don't like games with too many numbers. So, I've got a project that this thread would be good for tackling. How could someone create a game that does use numbers and has all the benefits that using numbers brings but that doesn't make the players think that there are too many numbers?

 

Well, dontlookatmethatway, I've been thinking about that as well. We'd need a system that is simple enough that it's easy to teach, straightforward and flexible enough that it should be able to accomadate various challenges, versatile enough to allow the creation of various characters while representing their abilities, open-ended enough to allow for further creation of stuff, and balanced enough that you can have characters with vastly different abilities still be on the same playing ground. And if it's an established game system, it wold have to be free if we wanted to avoid having to bring down the whirlwind on our heads.

Tall order, no? Well to make a rambling tale of system checks short, the best solution would be some sort of point-based system open-ended enough to allow for all the things above. And with that, I think I might have found the best contender.

It's by the group Guardians of Order, and it's called their Tri-Stat dX system. I'm not sure if anyone else here has ever played either Silver Age Sentinels (a superhero RPG) or BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth- an anime RPG), but this is an adaptation of the system behind it. As far as I can tell, it seems pretty versatile, I've gone through and made various characters from various series just to see what sort of effects there are. In theory, it's pretty well-balanced, since characters built with the same amount of points could go up against the same types of challenges. It also allows for characters to specialize and build towards various roles in a group. That way there's a clear distinction of how skilled someone is at a particular area of expertise. So you can have examples where someone's better at something than another, meaning that it's more likely they'll succeed, but there's still the slim hope that the underdog could succeed. It's also very simple to explain. You roll two dice. If it's lower than the modified target number, you succeed. And of course, the system itself is free. And modifiable, though it probably might take some time to be able to calculate how much a new power should cost. While I still like d20, I think the Tri-Stat dX system might have better luck on this board. I've got some gripes with it, but it's pretty good for most characters and challenges, especially if you have a competent GM.