Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[KatalDT]

If all 6 of the people who posted before me can attend, I'll drop out. I know that excessive pressure on the GM just ruins the game for everyone.

Thanks. If all 6 come, you can probably still be on standby.


Edit: I'll also make up a Google docs spreadsheet for people to fill out their chars with or something.

[Paul]

I can make it, as long as something doesn't come up.

-edit-

I spent some time skimming the manual. Seems pretty bare-bones, especially in the equipment area. For instance, it mentions exoskeletons and has no examples of them. None of the equipment has any prices. It mentions credits and funds, but doesn't really explain the system that well. A lot of stuff is optional too.

I guess it's mostly left for the DM to come up with things, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what you decide to use

[KatalDT]

I can make it, as long as something doesn't come up.

Just to be clear, what would preempt it? I'd like to have a full group of fairly sure people - I mean if there's an emergency in the family or something and you need to leave that's fine, but if it's 'well my friends might want to chill so I'll make it if I can' that's not really a good 'maybe' excuse.

[Paul]

I can make it, as long as something doesn't come up.

Just to be clear, what would preempt it? I'd like to have a full group of fairly sure people - I mean if there's an emergency in the family or something and you need to leave that's fine, but if it's 'well my friends might want to chill so I'll make it if I can' that's not really a good 'maybe' excuse.

Guess I could have worded that better. Generally something doesn't come up, and it certainly wouldn't be something like "Oh hey, I think I'll go catch a movie instead." I mean things like: Work related stuff that I can't ignore (unlikely on a Saturday), death in the family, needing to drive someone to the hospital, being physically incapable of making it (stranded in traffic, power or internet outtage, my computer spontaneously combusts, beaten senseless by angry dwarf, etc), or otherwise emergency thing that requires my attention.

I'm pretty sure I'll be there, but you never know about these things.

[Dsarker]

What time is that GMT?

[KatalDT]

What time is that GMT?

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Good way to find out. Should be +5, so noon here is 5PM GMT.


Edit: Updated first post with players and status

[Fortis]

I can make that time. I was thinking of making a combat medic for my character, or something along those lines.

[Paul]

Spent a little bit reading the d6 space book this evening.

After taking the time to read over character creation I've got a pretty good idea what I'm doing for our game. Seems to be a fairly simple system. I'm thinking of doing a suave mercenary type, with 5d perception skilled in con and persuasion, 4d knowledge with street wise, and 4d agility with some skill in firearms. I'll probably take the Vengeful quirk, which should be fun to play in a crime theme.

Are you planning on making up custom equipment/weapons/vehicles for the campaign? The default stuff is quite bare, and some of it seems a bit odd (chainmail protecting almost as much as kevlar, yet able to be worn under any of the armors? what, is it mithril chain from the Hobbit? got the holes between the links filled in with bullet blockers?). How weapons function isn't always clear either, nor does it make a lot of sense in some cases.

For instance, using a heavy submachine gun full auto would consume all 50 bullets and deal 7D+2 damage, with -2D difficulty to hit. A regular burst fires 10 bullets and deals 5d+2 damage. A single shot would do 3d+2 damage.
A heavy semiauto pistol can fire "single as multi" two rounds and do +1D damage, for a total of 6d+1, with -1D difficulty to hit. The smg is firing 50 rounds, the semiauto is firing 2 rounds, yet the semiauto is almost as good. Single shots would do 5d+1, almost as good as the burst of 10 from the SMG. And the energy weapons don't seem to say exactly what you can do with them.

I didn't see any guidelines for starting equipment and money if doing a character without the templates either, unless I overlooked it. Just some confusing system for buying things using a "funds" score and rolling dice, which I guess is an optional feature if you don't want to keep track of a character's exact wealth.

[KatalDT]

For instance, using a heavy submachine gun full auto would consume all 50 bullets and deal 7D+2 damage, with -2D difficulty to hit. A regular burst fires 10 bullets and deals 5d+2 damage. A single shot would do 3d+2 damage.

7D+2 would average in the mid/low 20's. (24ish) That's with -2D to hit, so there is a disadvantage.

10 bullets would average 17 damage, with no hit penalty.

Single shot would average 11 damage, not much - but really, you don't single shot a heavy SMG - burst fire is best, with full auto at close range. So I feel that's sort of balanced.


As for the heavy pistol, your full auto vs. 2 shot point - that's 24 damage average vs 18 damage average - the 24 with -2D to hit, the 18 with -1D to hit. That's a 6 damage difference and a 1D hit difference - fairly balanced, I think. (I hope!)

So you'd need to take a look at the advantages/disadvantages between the two weapons.



As for custom weapon/armor - no, not for the first game. Let's keep it pretty generic for our first game, and after we finish we can talk about what would be better and what was unbalanced.


Edit: For starting money, there's a standard amount (I forget the exact number) only modified by any special abilities or advantages/disadvantages you take. I wouldn't worry TERRIBLY much about money for a one-off game though.

[Poltifar]

For instance, using a heavy submachine gun full auto would consume all 50 bullets and deal 7D+2 damage, with -2D difficulty to hit. A regular burst fires 10 bullets and deals 5d+2 damage. A single shot would do 3d+2 damage.

7D+2 would average in the mid/low 20's. (24ish) That's with -2D to hit, so there is a disadvantage.

From the way the rules describe multi-shots and autofire, it seems the -2D is actually an advantage to hit (For example under the explanation for 'Single Fire as Multi' it is stated "It increases a character's chance to hit a target, as well as the damage.") which honestly is both confusing as strange, because if it increases both chance to hit and damage, why would you NOT use it? (Baring running out of ammo which is rather hard to do with a semi-automatic pistol if you bother to buy a few extra clips).

EDIT: Also, how long are you giving the 2 remaining people to reply?

[Paul]

7D+2 vs 6D+1 would be 26.5 vs 22, so only a 4.5 damage difference. I guess it depends on armor, the full auto one would be doing more total damage so would have better armor penetration.

Still seems odd that 2 bullets does 83% of the damage of 50 bullets. I guess it's assuming you're going to miss almost all of your shots with the 50 or something. The SMG basically has either 5 bursts of 10 for 5d+2, or 1 burst of 50 for 7d+2 with an easier time hitting. The heavy pistol has a choice between 4 shots at 6d+1 with an easier time hitting, or 8 single shots of 5d+1. And thats a gun with only 8 bullets. The pistol also has a range of 10x the SMG, but I suspect thats an error in the chart. Not to mention the question of what happens if you fire a couple bursts of 10 from your SMG then decide to do full auto with the remaining.

Then you have blaster rifles which are 7D with 30 shots, or fire two for 8D with 15 attacks and an easier time hitting. Superior damage, superior ammo capacity.

The main reason of my comment about a custom weapon/armor table was the availability and pricing and stuff though. Like whats available where we are, what does it cost, what can we start with, what we can carry (game doesn't seem to have any talk of how heavy items are or how much you can carry, other than comments about energy weapon ammo being lighter).

Theres also the optional encumbrance if you wanted to use that, which isn't really all that clear. It mentions a +4 or more agility based difficulty for each layer of armor, and elsewhere it says a layer of armor is +1, which technically would mean a bullet proof vest would be 9 layers for the 3D - a penalty of +36 or more? Unless the definition of layers here is different, but in that case how to determine the number of layers for the armor is left out.

Just a bunch of basic stuff that the game system leaves up to the GM.

Also, just out of curiosity: which combat system are we using? There are apparently two, a wounds system and a body points system - each with a different take on how to apply damage and how damage resistance works. The body points has strength give you extra body points, which is random (it says to roll it at the start, so I guess if you roll bad you might be fragile even with high strength, or vice versa - unless you wanted to just use an average value for the dice) and only uses armor for damage resistance, whereas the wounds system instead applies strength to the damage resistance every time you're shot, which I guess means armor would be less important for a really strong character vs weak weapons, and otherwise treats the characters the same when they actually get wounded.

A funny scenario with the way the wounds system works: Two characters wearing bullet proof vests with 4D strength get in a fight using knives. After scoring a hit, to actually damage eachother they have to roll higher using 3D6 than their opponent rolls using 8d6. To actually cause a wound they need at least 4 higher using the 3d6 than the 8d6 roll, with 1-3 causing "stun." I'd imagine these two opponents would be jabbing eachother with the knives for quite a while before one of them got hurt.

-edit-

I wouldn't worry TERRIBLY much about money for a one-off game though.

My guy is totally running around with a blaster rifle then, since it's listed as Medium cost the same as most of the other weapons (even though it's badass). Also, flak jacket

[KatalDT]

7D+2 vs 6D+1 would be 26.5 vs 22, so only a 4.5 damage difference. I guess it depends on armor, the full auto one would be doing more total damage so would have better armor penetration.

Still seems odd that 2 bullets does 83% of the damage of 50 bullets. I guess it's assuming you're going to miss almost all of your shots with the 50 or something. The SMG basically has either 5 bursts of 10 for 5d+2, or 1 burst of 50 for 7d+2 with an easier time hitting. The heavy pistol has a choice between 4 shots at 6d+1 with an easier time hitting, or 8 single shots of 5d+1. And thats a gun with only 8 bullets. The pistol also has a range of 10x the SMG, but I suspect thats an error in the chart. Not to mention the question of what happens if you fire a couple bursts of 10 from your SMG then decide to do full auto with the remaining.

Then you have blaster rifles which are 7D with 30 shots, or fire two for 8D with 15 attacks and an easier time hitting. Superior damage, superior ammo capacity.

The main reason of my comment about a custom weapon/armor table was the availability and pricing and stuff though. Like whats available where we are, what does it cost, what can we start with, what we can carry (game doesn't seem to have any talk of how heavy items are or how much you can carry, other than comments about energy weapon ammo being lighter).

Theres also the optional encumbrance if you wanted to use that, which isn't really all that clear. It mentions a +4 or more agility based difficulty for each layer of armor, and elsewhere it says a layer of armor is +1, which technically would mean a bullet proof vest would be 9 layers for the 3D - a penalty of +36 or more? Unless the definition of layers here is different, but in that case how to determine the number of layers for the armor is left out.

Just a bunch of basic stuff that the game system leaves up to the GM.

Also, just out of curiosity: which combat system are we using? There are apparently two, a wounds system and a body points system - each with a different take on how to apply damage and how damage resistance works. The body points has strength give you extra body points, which is random (it says to roll it at the start, so I guess if you roll bad you might be fragile even with high strength, or vice versa - unless you wanted to just use an average value for the dice) and only uses armor for damage resistance, whereas the wounds system instead applies strength to the damage resistance every time you're shot, which I guess means armor would be less important for a really strong character vs weak weapons, and otherwise treats the characters the same when they actually get wounded.

A funny scenario with the way the wounds system works: Two characters wearing bullet proof vests with 4D strength get in a fight using knives. After scoring a hit, to actually damage eachother they have to roll higher using 3D6 than their opponent rolls using 8d6. To actually cause a wound they need at least 4 higher using the 3d6 than the 8d6 roll, with 1-3 causing "stun." I'd imagine these two opponents would be jabbing eachother with the knives for quite a while before one of them got hurt.

For instance, using a heavy submachine gun full auto would consume all 50 bullets and deal 7D+2 damage, with -2D difficulty to hit. A regular burst fires 10 bullets and deals 5d+2 damage. A single shot would do 3d+2 damage.

7D+2 would average in the mid/low 20's. (24ish) That's with -2D to hit, so there is a disadvantage.

From the way the rules describe multi-shots and autofire, it seems the -2D is actually an advantage to hit (For example under the explanation for 'Single Fire as Multi' it is stated "It increases a character's chance to hit a target, as well as the damage.") which honestly is both confusing as strange, because if it increases both chance to hit and damage, why would you NOT use it? (Baring running out of ammo which is rather hard to do with a semi-automatic pistol if you bother to buy a few extra clips).

EDIT: Also, how long are you giving the 2 remaining people to reply?

Yea, I got the fact it was making it easier to hit. The only downside is the ammo consumption, I guess it would only matter if you were in a situation where you needed to conserve ammo.

These are all good points. This is my first time GM'ng this so it's kind of up in the air. You seem to grasp this stuff pretty well so if you want, Sat or Sun this weekend if we could meet up and discuss all this via Skype or Vent/TS (I can host Vent or TS if needed) - that would be cool. Anybody else who's coming would be welcome to join to discuss it.

Also, I'll give the others until Sat to reply. If they don't reply by Sat 12:01AM EST, they're gone and anybody else moves up the list.

[Paul]

Well, if you want to I wouldn't mind - but I don't want to pressure you into it or anything. I just figured it wouldn't hurt to have an idea of what we should be starting with. I assume our game will include combat, and if someone was using the equipment of one of the presets (say a personal blaster and no armor, which is what one of them gets) vs other people using blaster rifles and flak jackets, they'd probably feel kinda useless.

[KatalDT]

Well, if you want to I wouldn't mind - but I don't want to pressure you into it or anything. I just figured it wouldn't hurt to have an idea of what we should be starting with. I assume our game will include combat, and if someone was using the equipment of one of the presets (say a personal blaster and no armor, which is what one of them gets) vs other people using blaster rifles and flak jackets, they'd probably feel kinda useless.

I wouldn't mind at all, it's a first game for me as much as you all.

[DarkerDark]

I'd love to join in on something like this as I was a big WEG D6 Star Wars player back in the day, but unfortunately, my weekends are booked.

I just wanted to remind you guys about the 'wild die' this system has. Hopefully the program you're running this in will be able to support it as it tends to influence a lot of rolls and makes the scenario mentioned below end much quicker:

A funny scenario with the way the wounds system works: Two characters wearing bullet proof vests with 4D strength get in a fight using knives. After scoring a hit, to actually damage eachother they have to roll higher using 3D6 than their opponent rolls using 8d6. To actually cause a wound they need at least 4 higher using the 3d6 than the 8d6 roll, with 1-3 causing "stun." I'd imagine these two opponents would be jabbing eachother with the knives for quite a while before one of them got hurt.

The old system had you add your full strength to the weapon damage, which lead to fairly funny scenarios of exceptionally strong people punching through power armor. Generally if a melee fight was taking too long as a result of weak characters wearing exceptional armor the GM started throwing in Stamina checks, whoever fails gets a "-" difficulty modifier for attacks coming at him. From there, all it takes is for someone to roll a "1" on the wild die when resisting damage which removes both the wild die and the next highest rolled die, quite often turning a "stun" into a "wound".

Yeah, the wild die. It is the great equalizer. You will both love it and hate it.