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Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

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[Kagus]

Blades in the Dark is kinda sounding like Old Man Henderson: The RPG.

[Digital Hellhound]

Blades in the Dark is kinda sounding like Old Man Henderson: The RPG.

Well, I don’t know. In what sense? You’re free to run a more grounded kind of game with it. It’s just that the majority of my group’s adventures and missions end with everything on fire and corpses everywhere, whatever the system or setting.

[scriver]

My copy of Shadows Over Sol: Siren's Call is supposed to arrive today. I've got about half a group put together at the moment. Excitement! I hope it works out for once.

I've never heard of this. I'm guessing it's science fiction?

[Kagus]

Blades in the Dark is kinda sounding like Old Man Henderson: The RPG.

Well, I don’t know. In what sense? You’re free to run a more grounded kind of game with it. It’s just that the majority of my group’s adventures and missions end with everything on fire and corpses everywhere, whatever the system or setting.

Henderson's character was based on a massive, rambling background that effectively accounted for every situation he could get into, and what it didn't account for could be fudged because the GM refused to read the entire thing and basically just went along with it.

It's what made Henderson as powerful as he was, he had an "in-character reason" written down that gave him access to every skill or item he could need on a whim. The whole mayhem and destruction and killing elder beings thing was really just an entertaining sideline to Henderson's player's vendetta against the GM.


This just sounds like it bypasses the requirement of an animosity-fueled obsession, and gives you Madman: The Improv off the bat.

[Mephisto]

My copy of Shadows Over Sol: Siren's Call is supposed to arrive today. I've got about half a group put together at the moment. Excitement! I hope it works out for once.

I've never heard of this. I'm guessing it's science fiction?

Yes. Shadows Over Sol is meant to support sci-fi horror (the full name, in fact, is Shadows Over Sol: Science Fiction Horror Roleplaying). It's also just a good hard SF system in general. It's received an award for having tech that doesn't outright break the laws of physics.

So, the first sizable supplement comes out - Siren's Call: Interstellar Colonization Roleplaying. Experience a different kind of horror - alien beings on an alien world, realizing you'll never see Earth again and anyone you left behind is dead, making hard decisions when it comes to managing your colony.

[scriver]

My copy of Shadows Over Sol: Siren's Call is supposed to arrive today. I've got about half a group put together at the moment. Excitement! I hope it works out for once.

I've never heard of this. I'm guessing it's science fiction?

Yes. Shadows Over Sol is meant to support sci-fi horror (the full name, in fact, is Shadows Over Sol: Science Fiction Horror Roleplaying). It's also just a good hard SF system in general. It's received an award for having tech that doesn't outright break the laws of physics.

So, the first sizable supplement comes out - Siren's Call: Interstellar Colonization Roleplaying. Experience a different kind of horror - alien beings on an alien world, realizing you'll never see Earth again and anyone you left behind is dead, making hard decisions when it comes to managing your colony.

Sounds pretty cool! Does the colony managing part mean it also features managetorial aspects?

Want to run a D&D campaign at uni. I have one friend that's interested. I tried the society but it was awkward as fuuuuuuuuuuck. Not because they were necessarily bad at socialising so much as it was their type of socialising and mine were pretty damn incompatible.

To be fair, your type of socialising is usually enjoyed alone in your bed- or bathroom, though

[Mephisto]

Siren's Call: Interstellar Colonization Roleplaying. Experience a different kind of horror - alien beings on an alien world, realizing you'll never see Earth again and anyone you left behind is dead, making hard decisions when it comes to managing your colony.

Sounds pretty cool! Does the colony managing partpretty cool! Does the colony managing part mean it also features managetorial aspects?

Some amount, yes. You do your adventurey shenanigans on the small scale, but then there's the concept of a "colony turn" where you fast forward a year and your decisions come into effect.

Super high-level overview, mind - that's all from various online descriptions. I haven't read that bit myself yet.

[scriver]

Reminds me of that old Arthurian legend game!

[Rolan7]

Flavia: floating pink blossoms
drift down, waft through the air
leave a pretty corpse

Cassandra: cherry blossoms bloom
three magical girls in hell
it's snowing on mt fuji

caulk the ice barrel and float across

[Jimmy]

Already one of our regulars has quit Pathfinder Playtest, and the rest seem about ready to wrap up as well.

Thus, I'm prepping for my 1st Edition Pathfinder game, where the group play a team of SWAT style guards.

I'm calling it the Primary Independent Guard Squad, or P.I.G.S. for short.

[Egan_BW]

Not the Tactical Breach Wizards?

[Rowanas]

Not the Tactical Breach Wizards?

i'm reminded of Eldritch Arsekicking.

[Mephisto]

Now that's a game I don't hear people talking about often.

[Cruxador]

That blades in the dark session sounds like a blast.

It's what made Henderson as powerful as he was, he had an "in-character reason" written down that gave him access to every skill or item he could need on a whim.

Honestly, this is how playing an older character should be. You only get old by living for a while first. Hand waving that as "and then he slaved away in a dead end job for thirty years" is not a great way to build an adventurer. Even ignoring the "then why is this a PC" question (which mythos-oriented games can answer easily) it's just not how humans work. Everyone finds something to keep them going psychologically, and if it's not work it's something else.

The problem, of course, is that writing decades of backstory before the game starts is a hassle. There are ways around that by allowing the addition of backstory details in play, either as a character trait, a full-on subsystem, or just informally as most people do anyway. Informal addition is least appropriate to contain mechanical benefits but is adequate as an explanation for why you're adding a certain skill to your character. As a trait works if you want one older character who tells stories from his past about why he's good at everything, though this requires a player who himself has at least some of the wisdom of age. And doing it as a subsystem is good if you want a narrativist game emulating other forms of media by having all PCs be fully realized characters whose backstories relate to situations they find themselves in and the main plot, and come up organically.

[Kagus]

Sure, people live full lives, but not everyone lives 320 pages worth.