Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Lucky Coin]

I picked up a copy of "Heart - the city beneath" and the setting is pretty interesting but the mechanics look like they're going to be getting in the way of the game. I don't like the fallout mechanics or the poorly separated attributes. Really what shines is the setting, classes, and probably most importantly the Zenith abilities AKA: die a Glorious Death button.

Do you guys know of a system that can easily handle a weird, moderate lethality, narrative heavy horror-fantasy story or that's easy to convert/adapt oddball settings to? I know of GURPS and Fate but I haven't ever used or really looked into either of them. I was thinking maybe starforged but it's too focused on solo play. I'm considering just hacking the shit out of OSE or something but then I'm basically falling into the trap of forcing shit to run in DND when a different system would be better. Maybe Into the Odd or UVG would handle it but I don't know much about their systems either.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Then Werewolf is one for sure. @Scream Aim Fire has talked about the furry vore cannibals it was his immense displeasure to share a campaign with.

Read, weep, and vomit.

Glad to see my suffering is still of use to everyone.

The least abnormal & vore-fetishist Werewolf players & campaign.

Going to have to sadly agree. Seriously, there's some parts of the Werewolf community that seemingly views breaking the litany as their ultimate objective, rather than a bad thing. And of course, it's furries that make everything that extra bit horrific; reminds me of some of the shit I've seen out of the W40K fandom...

 

[Gingervitis]

Fuckin’ who, even? I can accept a bunch of guys sitting around, dick-in-hand, describing rape or how smelly black people are, but not at the cost of FATAL’s statistical nightmare system.

I could definitely see FATAL having an ironic fandom if it were released in the 10’s or 20’s.

 

[Ghostse]

Do you guys know of a system that can easily handle a weird, moderate lethality, narrative heavy horror-fantasy story or that's easy to convert/adapt oddball settings to? I know of GURPS and Fate but I haven't ever used or really looked into either of them. I was thinking maybe starforged but it's too focused on solo play. I'm considering just hacking the shit out of OSE or something but then I'm basically falling into the trap of forcing shit to run in DND when a different system would be better. Maybe Into the Odd or UVG would handle it but I don't know much about their systems either.

Supposedly you learn GURPS and then never need to learn another system again. Until you have players who can't be fucked to learn GURPs.

OSE doesn't handle horror that you can't bash with a sword very well, at that point you're just using a generic d20 system (see: gurps)

I would at the base of what you're describing try to adapt Call of Cthulhu. I'd say possibly Delta Green but that is made by people who hate you.
As much as I'm loathed to suggest it, you could also go with PbtA if you're just running unrelated oddball horror/fantasy stories.

Green Ronin's AGE system maybe would work but I don't know much about about it other than I've seen it pitched as "Less spergy GURPS"

You could try Savage Worlds too.
PAGING ALL SAVAGE WORLDS FAGGOTS, COME PITCH YOUR SYSTEM

 

[Snekposter]

I'd say that being a ruleslawyering insufferable asshole is what Mage is all about. It's only a problem if the players do it in other games.

Pretty much. I had a guy who had run it as a ST tell me the whole idea is to figure out how to make your Sphere do whatever the fuck you need done.

Supposedly you learn GURPS and then never need to learn another system again. Until you have players who can't be fucked to learn GURPs.

I tried GURPS and that whole one-second-per-round thing fucking sucked.

Do you guys know of a system that can easily handle a weird, moderate lethality, narrative heavy horror-fantasy story or that's easy to convert/adapt oddball settings to? I know of GURPS and Fate but I haven't ever used or really looked into either of them. I was thinking maybe starforged but it's too focused on solo play. I'm considering just hacking the shit out of OSE or something but then I'm basically falling into the trap of forcing shit to run in DND when a different system would be better. Maybe Into the Odd or UVG would handle it but I don't know much about their systems either.

I've had success with Storyteller/WoD. Its a pretty simple system once you get right down to it, and the dice pool mechanic means its pretty easy to adjust a target number on the fly. I helped a buddy whip something up using it for his homebrew setting that was heavily inspired by Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura. If you want you can send me a DM and I can get more into the nitty gritty of how we did it.

Glad to see my suffering is still of use to everyone.

Honestly, if it wasn't for your profile pic so perfectly matching your reaction to the events, I probably wouldn't have remembered it.

 

[Lucky Coin]

I would at the base of what you're describing try to adapt Call of Cthulhu. I'd say possibly Delta Green but that is made by people who hate you.
As much as I'm loathed to suggest it, you could also go with PbtA if you're just running unrelated oddball horror/fantasy stories.

Green Ronin's AGE system maybe would work but I don't know much about about it other than I've seen it pitched as "Less spergy GURPS"

Nah, DG and CoC would be nightmarish to convert to this setting. To give you an idea of what I'm working with the setting has a class that's essentially a living beehive character and another class that is a paladin of haunted choo-choo trains and wears armor made from old train parts. There's even a class that amounts to "you are in so much debt the God of debt took notice and made you his champion". The setup is that the PCs are delving into a mega dungeon point crawl where the demiurge that rules the dungeon doesn't understand meatspace creatures and is trying to give them what they most deeply desire, even if it kills them doing it.

The system that comes with the setting doesn't even seem up to the task, but maybe I'm wrong. I've only had an hour or two to look it over but what I'm seeing seems overly punishing. It could be that it's a system that expects you to roll very little.

My players will probably refuse to learn it anyway so I guess this is a pointless exercise

 

[AnOminous]

I could definitely see FATAL having an ironic fandom if it were released in the 10’s or 20’s.

F.A.T.A.L. is literally unplayable without basically making up replacement rules and/or cheating.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Honestly, if it wasn't for your profile pic so perfectly matching your reaction to the events, I probably wouldn't have remembered it.

Which one: the current one, taken from the movie "All's Quiet on the Western Front":

Spoiler: All's Quiet on the Western Front

or the one I had then; "That 2,000 Yard Stare", by Thomas Lea:

Spoiler: The 2,000 Yard Stare

In either case: yeah, I'd say they both capture my thoughts on the whole debacle. Seriously, furries just love to be as disgusting as possible; if I didn't have a friend group that was willing to play Werewolf with me, I'd have probably ditched the line entirely, frankly. I mean, the ordeal gave me some ideas for a group of antagonists, but... well, let's just say that I'm in no hurry to really remember the full campaign.

 

[Snekposter]

In either case: yeah, I'd say they both capture my thoughts on the whole debacle.

Yeah, they both do a good job of conveying the total shellshock and war-weariness your post conveyed, although "That 2,000 Yard Stare" with the total oblivion in the eyes is probably more appropriate then, with the newer one representing someone who's already seen so much horror they're no longer rendered catatonic and non-responsive but merely fatigued.

 

[ZMOT]

F.A.T.A.L. is literally unplayable without basically making up replacement rules and/or cheating.

there was an anon way back on 8/tg/ I think who ran it. from what I remember it doesn't even take that much work, and the circumference memes everyone knows are optional anyway.

 

[GhastlyGhost]

there was an anon way back on 8/tg/ I think who ran it. from what I remember it doesn't even take that much work, and the circumference memes everyone knows are optional anyway.

Character generation alone was a minimum of 20 separate d1000 rolls with table lookups.

 

[Janusz z Gliwic]

Do you guys know of a system that can easily handle a weird, moderate lethality, narrative heavy horror-fantasy story or that's easy to convert/adapt oddball settings to?

You could try Blades in the Dark. This system is as deadly as GM wants, and is very narrative heavy. It should be quite easy to convert to any setting you need, I know there are fan books made, never tried any though.

 

[Adamska]

Nahh, Blades in the Dark isn't that good of a system, mainly because it was a very spirited attempt to edit and "fix" the Powered by the Apocalypse system, and you can't really fix what's massively shit IMO. It still has the "you don't feel skilled because you are far more likely to partially succeed and complicate shit" mechanic of only sixes giving the result without complication; it's just a lot better at hiding them because you can get up to 4 shots give or take due to variable dice pools.

It also is still more restrictive in options a player can do in most systems given the relative lack of skills or actions, but unlike PBTA you actually have up to twelve. That actually does give you some freedom, but it's comical compared to even the ST system, let alone something that will goddamn kill you like Call of Cthulhu's D% system.

It's also still pretty hard to kill characters in the system, since you have a decent slew of options to undo it since again, it's an attempt to fix shit and has quirks from PBTA. It also adds literal shit in the form of a progress clock and spams loads of other variants like danger clocks. I legit am looking at this and frowning since it's some real videogamified bullshit. The flowchart bullshit for positions is a nope from me too. Also anything that uses socratic method bullshit, which it does for effects, is a sign the designers don't play games as much as they should.

If you want to kill some sons of bitches with d6s, just play Traveller; most crappy d6 systems are lowkey just reinventing a shittier version of it anyway.

 

[ZMOT]

completely missed this came out earlier this month: https://www.edge-studio.net/games/arkham-horror-starter-set/

I can already see the >boardgame >dicepool replies.

Character generation alone was a minimum of 20 separate d1000 rolls with table lookups.

it's not that bad, but then I'm someone bored enough I started to write a character generator for it during covid lockdowns, so I'm a bit biased. tbh some tables being wrong pissed me off more.
the real fun begins running combat

 

[Gingervitis]

it's not that bad, but then I'm someone bored enough I started to write a character generator for it during covid lockdowns, so I'm a bit biased.

Sauce?

 

[ZMOT]

Sauce?

stuck in some directory on some external drive somewhere, it was 4 years ago. if I stumble upon it might finish and upload it.
it was mainly rolling on all the tables, think I got it 60%-70% done (sans the optional circumference stuff I had no use for at that point). the genius idea was to auto generate characters to see what abominatios come out of it, like dwarf fortress, then maybe write a combat script remembering some anon on 4/tg/ made some threads about it way way back. thread might be archived on 1d4chan or whatever the name of the new cucked version is.
I do remember it has a table to codify how racist your character is towards other races (but that's like most of the game considering it's written by a stastician)

like I said I was very bored.

 

[What'sThePoint?]

 

[JJLiautaud]

stuck in some directory on some external drive somewhere, it was 4 years ago. if I stumble upon it might finish and upload it.
it was mainly rolling on all the tables, think I got it 60%-70% done (sans the optional circumference stuff I had no use for at that point). the genius idea was to auto generate characters to see what abominatios come out of it, like dwarf fortress, then maybe write a combat script remembering some anon on 4/tg/ made some threads about it way way back. thread might be archived on 1d4chan or whatever the name of the new cucked version is.
I do remember it has a table to codify how racist your character is towards other races (but that's like most of the game considering it's written by a stastician)

like I said I was very bored.

Wait the Devs for FATAL were honest to god statisticians? That makes some amount of sense.

 

[Adamska]

Technically it's not that bad to make a character in FATAL; the problem is that it's a pain in the ass to then apply the shifts in stats each result you get does, since each result does modify shit you have to track. I gave it a shot a while back, and it just was way too longwinded of a system to ever use, and that's before realizing you have to use higher level algebra to use magic at all.

Especially if you try to do it digitally, since haha good luck trying to find a fillable sheet that isn't shit. Similar issue with RIFTS tbh, since their fillables are fanmade.

 

[ZMOT]

Wait the Devs for FATAL were honest to god statisticians? That makes some amount of sense.

he is: https://boardgamegeek.com/rpgdesigner/18954/byron-hall
the credits in the book have an extra line about him being a statistician that's missing in the link

Byron Hall, the founder of Fatal Games and author of F.A.T.A.L., adores gaming and writing. He has been a role-playing gamer since 1980. Byron is a statistician in Chicago. He has taught at Northern Illinois University, where he earned his M.A. in Quantitative Reserach Methods and did pre-doctoral work with Structural Equation Modeling. Otherwise, he enjoys dissonant shred guitar, ancient and medieval literature and history, neuroscience, philosophy, and research.
Byron thanks family, friends, staff, artists, contributors, supporters, and fans. To everyone: happy dicing and slicing.

to be fair that info is at the back of the book, most people probably never made it that far. but with that knowledge some of it made sense, even the questionable stuff. I said it before it comes across less about fetish-fuel and more about some nerd seriously pondering way past the point of no return into edgy territory "well what is the math if you get raped by a dragon?" or "how would you stat hymen resistance" (granted I haven't checked the first version which was apparently worse), and other stuff is actually sourced in the footnotes.

looking it up here's another banger:

Menstruation
Menstruation is periodic vaginal discharge and occurs in all races available to players, as well as most mammals. Menstruation accompanies a woman’s childbearing years, usually beginning in puberty and most often ceasing during middle age. A common belief regarding menstruation is that it is punishment from the gods for being female. If pregnancy does not occur, smelly blood may flow from the lining of the uterus, seeping out of the vagina. The (1d6 + 2) days that menstruation lasts is called the menstrual period, though colloquially it is known as the rag, since women secure rags on their crotch to catch the blood and prevent it from running down their legs.
In most women, the menstrual cycle is about 28 days, but it can vary considerably, even from 1 month to another. A missed period is often the first indicaton of pregnancy.
Many (50%) women experience premenstrual discomfort, namely tender breasts and a tendency to retain fluid known as bloating (1d8 - 1) days prior to menstruation.
Some (40%) women experience 1d6 of the following symptoms: 1) headaches, 2) irritability, 3) nervousness, 4) fatigue, 5) crying spells, and 6) depression with no apparent cause. A few women (10%) also experience menstrual cramps during the first day or 2 of the period.
If they experience irritability, then the choleric part of their temperament may increase by 1d100 during menstruation. If they experience depression, then the melancholic part of their temperament may increase by 1d100 during menstruation.

if you ever need rules for PMS, you know where to look. ngl kinda based in a hilarious way

Technically it's not that bad to make a character in FATAL; the problem is that it's a pain in the ass to then apply the shifts in stats each result you get does, since each result does modify shit you have to track. I gave it a shot a while back, and it just was way too longwinded of a system to ever use, and that's before realizing you have to use higher level algebra to use magic at all.

Especially if you try to do it digitally, since haha good luck trying to find a fillable sheet that isn't shit. Similar issue with RIFTS tbh, since their fillables are fanmade.

that was another point, I was wondering how usable it would be in a digital version. I also had the silly thought if it's not completely trash create a little game around it without telling anyone where the math comes from till someone figures it out.
lockdown was a crazy thing.