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nifoc

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  • Birthday 08/30/1978

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  1. @Forar: For me the problem I have with D&D (mostly the later editions, but the older ones have not aged well either) mostly have to do with immersion. The clear division between combat, which is a tactial boardgame, and everything else, breaks immersion for me both as a GM and a player. That, and the fact that combat does not become more exciting as you level up, it just takes longer and is thus more boring, makes me want to skip combat altogether. This also makes me realize that D&D does not have a good rules-set for anything besides combat, and its combat is not a good rules-set for roleplaying. I have DM'ed about 50 sessions in D&D 4e alone, about twice that in 3,5 and only a few sessions in the earlier editions, and roleplayed in about the same amount before making these judgements regarding the game. I'll admit though, that for a "beer and pretzels"-gamenight it is usually easy to whip up a quick game, but I find myself turning more and more to Descent for a night of dungeonbashing. @Metalhed: You are correct in that I fear that "correct" placement of miniatures will be more important than using common sense and tactics that I can relate to real-world combat. My experience with miniature based combat also makes me dread the time it takes to set up each combat, in D&D a combat would start out as an hour and then escalate into 2-3 hours at 12+ levels. This makes any combat that is not necessary to the central plot just a waste of A LOT of time. Few games manage to keep combat interesting beyond 5-8 rounds IMO.
  2. Lots of RPGs use a mechanic whereby the players may alter their chances, the bennies in Savage Worlds, as pointed out above, FATE has its fate points, MHR uses Plot Points, Shadowrun has Edge etc. It is a way of placing some editorial control in the hands of the players when it comes to their characters. I would rather see a combination of dice, since dice automatically "reset" after each roll while cards need reshuffling which will make combat drag out due to cardshuffling, and a control hand. If the game uses 2d6 or a d12 as its base dice it would work great. Also, this pretty much sums up why I don't use miniatures in RPGs.
  3. Cards are, IMO, not a great randomizer mechanic for an RPG, in a miniatures game they are awesome, but the same is not true of an RPG. Knowing what cards you have drawn, and possibly seeing a control hand as well, will cause inaction amongst players who know they are in for a bad draw, the same way difficult rolls, with serious consequenses, stifles creativity in other games. A die does not have a memory, you could roll nothing under 10 on a d20 all night, but it will average out over time, a deck on the other hand does have a memory thereby introducing the knowledge that you WILL draw low sometime during the session. Using dice WITH a control hand does however give you a randomizer and a way to cheat Fate without worrying the card-counters. This part: is what I'm curious about, as it could be read in any number of ways, from "you don't need minis but you can if you want" to "you only need them during combat" to "you need them but we think it works fine". Of the 6 games listed, I have 5 in my bookshelf, the 6th being D&D. Of the others, 4 don't use minis (though you could if you wanted to), and WFRP uses standups but measures distance in such an abstract way that it is equally easy to use a page from a notebook to keep track of combat.
  4. Regarding miniatures: Earlier in this thread we were treated to a visit from the designer who said that miniatures are not needed. I would be interested in a clarification of this statement, the same thing is stated in the new Iron Kingdoms RPG and then they start the combat chapter by explaining the importance of base size and model facing which negates the claim that models are not needed. D&D 3.5 is sometimes stated to not require models, which is true if you ignore several of the rules. On the other hand Dark Heresy and its related games encourage the use of models but none of the rules require them in order to work. IMO requiring minis will severly limit the appeal of this RPG to anyone not playing the miniature game, and imposing such a limit on your own game, like PP did with Iron Kingdoms, just seems stupid.
  5. Sweden, so almost exactly halfway around the world. :D

  6. What damn country do you live in, I've been tracking the post about the RPG Kickstarter and got to say your views on RPG's are almost exactly mine. Hopefully we do see a leveless and non map reliant Malifaux as the genre and setting intrigues me. If you live anywhere in NSW Australia I'd love to game with you, if not then keep the purist RPG faith mate.

  7. In order to get an awesome system: If the system will be designed by Dr Jenna Moran aka Rebecca Borgstrom, and works great without maps or minis, I will spend at least $250 on the kickstarter. It's friday night here in Sweden, time to hit the pub.
  8. While not a huge fan of SW, prefer FATE, I agree with everything else said by CRC. Possibly excepting the systems. Feng Shui was ok, but not something that inspires me as a great system, but it's fun. Deadlands depends, the first one, with the multiple different dices and cards was a mess, the SW one is ok. Cthulhutech; IIRC basic percentile dice, inherited a lot from Runequest, works fine but nothing new and exciting. WoD; simplistic system but no huge complaints from me. AFMbE; se above. Fantasy flight has done some interesting things RPG-wise (not including the 40k-games as the system was inherited from BI), both Warhammer RPG 3ed and the new Star Wars game are very interesting mechanics-wise.
  9. I agree, but then again I tell my players to create a group, not just a random bunch of individuals, and make sure that their characters have reasons to cooperate as I have no intention of getting a headache doing that for them while they have a shootout. That doesn't preclude us from playing out them meeting for the first time, just that we all know that's what's going to happen. I have discovered it prevents a lot of unnecessary problems if I just tell them to handle it themselves.
  10. There is IMO a huge difference between playing a human with strange ideas, and playing something whose brain does not process information in the way that humans do. Not saying that it is impossible to do, much like one can pretend to play someone suffering from a psychiatric maladie, just that it requires a lot of information on their society, information that might ruin the mystery of the Neverborn, to be able to pull it of convincingly. Consider it like this: We can assume that Lucius is human, which tells us a lot of things about him, needs (food, water, air etc), urges (all humans share certain urges, not all of them sexual) and the like. We know that Lilith is a Nephilim, but what does she need? want? or have the urge to? What motivates a nephilim? See the difference?
  11. On the one hand I understand and agree with Gruesomes sentiments. Revealing too much about the Neverborn, their psyche and social habits, i.e. making them playable, does remove the feeling of the Unknown from them. However I normally argue that one should BE ABLE to play anything, even one of the Tyrants without it breaking the system. That does not make everything, very much including the Tyrans in this one, suited for most playing groups. Some parts of the Neverborn (Silurids, Nephilim) might be an idea to include, but Nightmares and such become way too abstract IMO.
  12. Not really. In a game where you buy stuff with XP you can decide exactly where every point of your XP goes, if you don't want to buy that next Skill in the tree just now, but would rather your character focused on something else, particularly since he hasn't really been spending a lot of time with his coffin recently, then you can. In a level-system things are taken level-by-level. Sure, you might be able to choose where in the tree he goes, but he still gets +1 to combat and a Skill at this level. See the difference now? If you don't then we'll just agree to disagree and drop it.
  13. Whatever gave you that impression? I just stated that levels are not a good indicator of power as the games are not balanced. They don't. All I'm saying is that using levels as an indicator of power becomes useless if the games is not balanced with that in mind. I'm hoping for more mystery and horror and less combat as well. I understand the reason people want miniatures, I have stated that I don't like them in RPGs and would like to know if they will be a primary feature or not before backing this project. That is all.
  14. Disagree. Ideally this should be the case, but since no game is perfectly balanced it becomes next to useless. Just look at the Character Optimization boards of any D&D edition, or just the difference between casters and non-casters in previous editions of D&D. To me, the game is fine if it has a list of skills (and attributes if needed) and what they do, some rules for damage, combat and hazards, social interaction and status, rules for the magic of malifaux, gear, a small(ish) bestiary and costs (XP or money, depending) for the stuff. Some character creation and a gazeteer, that's all you need for a core book really. You don't need to waste space with classes, every character is customizable and you can start playing.
  15. I feel for you. Anima is originally a spanish RPG (and a minis game, and a card game) that is translated and distributed by Fantasy Flight Games, it combines a strong Anime-feel with European mythology. I'll admit to not being a big Anime fan and thus being somewhat hesitant at first, but now I like the game and the setting is growing on me. SOTC does suffer somewhat from being one of the first FATE systems out there. I don't really consider what it and Legends of Anglerre has levels though, as two people with 6 aspects can still be of vastly different "power", unlike D&D there are also other things to be good at than combat. Ideally, to me, the game should primarily be geared towards playing citizens of Malifaux. If a character has, or develops a relationship or even status within a power group in the city (like the Guild or M&SU) that should be the player's choice, not dictated by the game itself. ---------- Post added at 06:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:11 PM ---------- You do understand the difference between a level based system and having a skill-tree but free to spend your XP in any way you choose right? Mechanics don't make a story happen, but some in some RPGs story has to happen IN SPITE of mechanics and in some it is encouraged.
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