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

[Judge Dredd]

Bit of a derail, but I have 4 mostly separate questions. I will break them up to emphasize that separation.

1: A guy I know rage quit Warhammer 40k years ago due to prices and started collecting Bolt Action. I learned that he has homebrew chapters and backstories for his characters. Sounds like perfect fodder for someone I can rope into a RPG. He loves model aircraft, old buses, conspiracy theories, and Predator. He also has a girlfriend who is into nerd stuff (especially old tanks). Any recommendations for what I should look into to try and get him and the gf into RPGs? Preferably physical. I'm considering the Aliens board game or TTRPG, or even buying one of those Descent/Hero Quest clones, but would love suggestions.

...pause... ...new unrelated topic...

2: I'm considering running a post apocalypse one-shot. The adventure was for an old edition of GURPS, and the car combat was supposed to be a tie in to Car Wars (which from the sounds of it was a 1980s Gaslands type game) and uses those rules. Given the recent topics, I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for games with decent vehicle combat. Can be rules lite as is a one shot.

...pause... ...new slightly related topic...

3: Since you guys seem to be saying Shadowrun seems to be a good catch all for modern games. Are it's rules for things like vehicle chases any good?

...pause... ...question slightly related to the first...

4: What are some good, cheap things I should look for for starting a new RPG set up? Looking for advice like this but for the UK. Especially for boards.

Most of that works, but I don't have cheap access to a printer for generic tokens, and the "wrapping paper with one inch squares on it" isn't a thing in the UK. I do have an unopened "mines of phandelver" starter set.

"I want to put together a 90's james bond style game, it'll be using shadowrun for the rules

I have more time now so I can explain in depth.

Rules for James Bond*
I have James Bond style rules. Savage Worlds is good for that. There's Outgunned and Spycraft, none of which I've got to the table but heard nothing but good things. Trying to reverse engineer Shadowrun into a James Bond* game might be a bit of a pointless exercise.

It's like those people that keep piling house rule after house rule onto 5e to make it play a game of Star Wars instead of just running Starfinder, Traveller, or one of the well received Star Wars games.

Maybe Shadowrun is worth the effort (see above) and I can give it a go, but unless it's perfect, it might be better to stick to existing systems.

As for using Shadowrun without magic. I don't know how intergrated magic is to SR as a ruleset. In Savage Worlds it's trivial to remove. Removing magic from 5e introduces a bunch of problems. I never really looked into it because there's so many critically acclaimed options.

*Was going to detail my homebrew setting, but post is too long.


A cyberpunk setting
I don't have immediate plans for a cyberpunk game. Shadowrun is fine as a setting. The problem is magic is not to my taste. I prefer the look, style, and concept of something like Cyberpunk or Ghost in the Shell. Even Robocop or The Matrix is good. But I can't play Robocop, or Cyberpunk, or Judge Dredd, or anything else because people demand Shadowrun.

To put it another way. I love the Judge Dredd 2012 movie. Let's say I tried to run that as a TTRPG. It's wouldn't be the same if Dredd started summoning astral insects to fight people while Anderson ran to the top floor at the speed of sound and punched Mama before she even started her villain speech. It's not even that they have cool cyber legs or high end spider drone tech and this is a cool use of that tech. It's just "my guy read a book and can do this now".

SotDL has poopoopeepee magic, and you can just ignore it.

Just watched a review of SotWW and it listed as a pro "no magic to make people shit themselves to death".

 

[LovisXVI]

3: Since you guys seem to be saying Shadowrun seems to be a good catch all for modern games. Are it's rules for things like vehicle chases any good?

I'd adapt the CoC 7e chase rules, they're really good and I think it would be pretty easy. Otherwise it would just end up being a speed battle, which is a foregone conclusion.

 

[p1138]

Trying to reverse engineer Shadowrun into a James Bond* game might be a bit of a pointless exercise.

That's why I made the suggestion. Just ignoring the fantasy elements of shadowrun isn't reverse engineering anything. You just don't use them. This is like saying that using a light switch to turn off a light requires any thought. Yes, it's that simple. It's just as simple as ignoring the space travel elements of shadowrun, which people do all of the time because a team of shadowrunners is NEVER going to get to the space stations in orbit for the banks. Same as ignoring laser guns, because a shadowrun team with those kinds of resources isn't even a shadowrun team anymore that's high level corporate spec ops team at that point.

It's like those people that keep piling house rule after house rule onto 5e to make it play a game of Star Wars instead of just running Starfinder, Traveller, or one of the well received Star Wars games.

No? "We're not using the fantasy elements" is not the same as having to come up with rules for aircraft, space ships, the force, stats for a lightsaber, etc.

As for using Shadowrun without magic. I don't know how intergrated magic is to SR as a ruleset. In Savage Worlds it's trivial to remove.

It's not. You literally just ignore it unless you're playing in the setting which you said you wouldn't be doing anyway. There's no magic powered machines, no magic guns, magic isn't required to boost fighting abilities as there is tech and even biotech for these things. In fact like I mentioned, you even get to ignore a not uncommon point of conflict at the table of doing missions for karma or money... because the magic users need the karma and no one else does.

A cyberpunk setting
I don't have immediate plans for a cyberpunk game. Shadowrun is fine as a setting. The problem is magic is not to my taste. I prefer the look, style, and concept of something like Cyberpunk or Ghost in the Shell. Even Robocop or The Matrix is good. But I can't play Robocop, or Cyberpunk, or Judge Dredd, or anything else because people demand Shadowrun

So run it without the magic. I don't understand why you're making it sound more difficult than it is. Clearly you wouldn't be running it in setting since dragons taking over governments wouldn't make any sense, and that's fine.

To put it another way. I love the Judge Dredd 2012 movie. Let's say I tried to run that as a TTRPG.

Ok, Still doable in shadowrun.

It's wouldn't be the same if Dredd started summoning astral insects to fight people while Anderson ran to the top floor at the speed of sound and punched Mama before she even started her villain speech

So don't use the magic?

It's not even that they have cool cyber legs or high end spider drone tech and this is a cool use of that tech. It's just "my guy read a book and can do this now".

Where are you getting this from? Sure, if someone had a skill wire system implanted they could just get the app, but that's not going to give them super speed to run up stairs, it'll give them a moderate ability to be able to drive a speedboat or something.

because people demand Shadowrun.

People can demand all they want, if no one is willing to DM a game, then they get no game. If you're going to DM/GM/whatever a game then you propose your idea, and if you get enough players onboard you can run the game. If not, maybe find out why people are saying no and see if that's a compromise you're willing to make.

3: Since you guys seem to be saying Shadowrun seems to be a good catch all for modern games. Are it's rules for things like vehicle chases any good?

...pause... ...question slightly related to the first...

If you apply the game to a setting people know, like your local metropolitan area and its suburbs, yes. You already know what the speed limits are, traffic patterns, freeways, how narrow some alleyways can be, that this particular building is a normal 20 minute drive away from the airport but if you speed the whole way with no traffic can do it in 15, etc. That's where driving stunts come in.

4: What are some good, cheap things I should look for for starting a new RPG set up? Looking for advice like this but for the UK. Especially for boards.

Because you're talking about doing things in a generally realistic setting? Google maps, and get yourself some generic blueprints of office buildings and the like. Shadowrun games "normally" revolve around the Seattle, Washington area, which if you aren't from the area means you don't know wtf anything is in relation to anything else. If you're from... I don't know Manchester, you've got urban areas, suburban areas, rural areas outside of that, airports, rivers, I assume some lower economic class areas and some betters ones, Liverpool nearby as another transit hub including ports, and so on. It's the same thing you'd do in a V:tM game because everyone already knows the area so you as the DM don't need to spend anywhere near as much time trying to come up with maps for a city park, or answer basic questions to describe things like where the nearest hospital is or how many miles away it is to an industrial area, etc. And if the game universe you're playing in has everything being a shit show in your vicinity, you just transpose that shit show with the main area it takes place, like swapping the meta plot of Chicago with Seattle

 

[robobobo]

Interesting on the first two points; never played any Shadowrun other than 5e, so maybe I'll feel the difference in play (if my group ever does Shadowrun again).
On the magic thing, I thought the primary issue with being an adept-wizard was that you couldn't install cyberware, at least not without damaging your magic capabilities. Am I misremembering that or is being an adept just so good there's no need for cyberware?

The specific issue with 5e mystic adepts is that in previous editions if you wanted to be a magic kung fu guy you had to spend your magic attribute to buy the kung fu part, leaving you considerably less powerful at casting spells. 5e for some inexplicable reason drops that, so a mystic adept gets to punch peoples' faces off and have full power spells alongside it. So yes, cyberware does still hamper a mystic adept in 5, but aside from that they're basically flatly superior to a normal mage or adept, who were already on par with your average not-magic person.

 

[LovisXVI]

The specific issue with 5e mystic adepts is that in previous editions if you wanted to be a magic kung fu guy you had to spend your magic attribute to buy the kung fu part, leaving you considerably less powerful at casting spells. 5e for some inexplicable reason drops that, so a mystic adept gets to punch peoples' faces off and have full power spells alongside it.

Mystic adepts have no reason to be in the game tbh. They have their cake and eat it too or are underpowered and not actually as flexible as necessary no matter how it is done. Reason I just banned them from my games. You can accomplish the magic kung-fu guy with spells with a pure mage anyway, makes it all the more baffling.

 

[Uzumaki]

Any recommendations for what I should look into to try and get him and the gf into RPGs? Preferably physical. I'm considering the Aliens board game or TTRPG, or even buying one of those Descent/Hero Quest clones, but would love suggestions.

Check out Cepheus, the osr clone of Traveller. Especially the HOSTILE setting, which is Aliens meets Space 1999.

Cepheus appeals mostly to the same genre of nerd as the people you describe.

 

[LovisXVI]

Check out Cepheus, the osr clone of Traveller. Especially the HOSTILE setting, which is Aliens meets Space 1999.

Cepheus appeals mostly to the same genre of nerd as the people you describe.

2d6 is also piss easy to learn and has one of the neatest skill mechanics, where you choose the attribute most appropriate for the circumstances of the check.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Where are you getting this from? Sure, if someone had a skill wire system implanted they could just get the app, but that's not going to give them super speed to run up stairs, it'll give them a moderate ability to be able to drive a speedboat or something.

People can demand all they want, if no one is willing to DM a game, then they get no game. If you're going to DM/GM/whatever a game then you propose your idea, and if you get enough players onboard you can run the game. If not, maybe find out why people are saying no and see if that's a compromise you're willing to make.

You're getting bogged down in nitty gritty details of the example instead of the broad point.

What I want. Dark sci-fi with cyborgs, blade arms, and firefights.

What everyone else wants. Elves and trolls sling spells and summoning pets.

In DnD terms. Imagine if everyone wanted to play Eberron and only Eberron.
Dark sun?
"Nope."
Planescape?
"Nah."
Ravenloft?
"Sure." *hands me a character sheet of a dragon marked warforged.

That's where driving stunts come in.

This is what I want to know about and sounds perfect. Can you give some details?

Where are you getting this from?

Posts like-

The specific issue with 5e mystic adepts is that in previous editions if you wanted to be a magic kung fu guy you had to spend your magic attribute to buy the kung fu part, leaving you considerably less powerful at casting spells. 5e for some inexplicable reason drops that, so a mystic adept gets to punch peoples' faces off and have full power spells alongside it.

From what I've read everywhere else, and I could be completely wrong here. Physical Adepts are magic kung fu experts (like DnD monks) that have the physical abilities of a fully cybered guy, with none of the costs and downsides associated with getting that cybered. It's considered OP and seems to be a popular choice.

Same goes for the stay at home/in the van rigger. And for what it's worth, wireless interference, limited range, limited battery, or simply shooting down the drone get a "nuh uh" response, so assume the build counters those.

Again, to be clear, this could be all bullshit. This is the same internet that complains that in DnD 5e Dragonborn is unplayable, monks are under powered, and druids can break the game in half by turning into a t-rex. Strongly disagree on all counts.

 

[p1138]

From what I've read everywhere else, and I could be completely wrong here. Physical Adepts are magic kung fu experts (like DnD monks) that have the physical abilities of a fully cybered guy, with none of the costs and downsides associated with getting that cybered. It's considered OP and seems to be a popular choice.

So once again.. if you don't want the magic stuff in the game... just ignore it. I don't understand why this is so hard. Yeah, physical adepts in 5e were bullshit, but I recommended 4e and no magic. So why is something magic an issue when it's been stated to just not use magic?

Same goes for the stay at home/in the van rigger. And for what it's worth, wireless interference, limited range, limited battery, or simply shooting down the drone get a "nuh uh" response, so assume the build counters those.

What, being in a van? That doesn't counter any of that unless you park the van next door to the building, which further opens the risk of being caught(or identified and then tracked down later, so more gameplay later) due to proximity. Being in a van at a distance doesn't counter any of that, and being in the van nearby has its own problems. We've even seen this being an issue with the conflict in ukraine and having to switch to drones being controlled via spools of fiberoptic line.

What everyone else wants. Elves and trolls sling spells and summoning pets.

Then it sounds like no one wants to play your game if all of the players at your table keep countering everything you've suggested with some fantasy shit because they want some fantasy shit in the game. This is of course also assuming it's not simply due to wanting to avoid learning an entirely new system which can be a valid concern as well, so if they already know shadowrun then they don't need to learn anything other than "no magic".

This is the same internet that complains that in DnD 5e Dragonborn is unplayable,

Never heard that one

monks are under powered,

Boring sure, but underpowered?

and druids can break the game in half by turning into a t-rex.

Yeah, if the DM can't figure out how to counter that, which isn't difficult because they're the DM. Can't become a t-rex(and get much done) when you won't fit somewhere as a t-rex, or the enemy has their own shape changers or other equivalent, or just a wizard that can put the t-rex on timeout with many spells in the game. At the very least if the druid in the party keeps shape changing into big monsters... throw big monsters in so the druid can have their kaiju battle while the rest of the party is dealing with the other threats.

 

[robobobo]

From what I've read everywhere else, and I could be completely wrong here. Physical Adepts are magic kung fu experts (like DnD monks) that have the physical abilities of a fully cybered guy, with none of the costs and downsides associated with getting that cybered. It's considered OP and seems to be a popular choice.

Physical adepts basically start off stronger than a street samurai, since they can have a full package of buffs in character creation that are far too expensive for someone to achieve with cyberware. But with steady income to upgrade their cyber a street sam can catch up and surpass them, as an adept gaining more power requires initiating and raising their magic attribute, at breathtaking karma expense. Mystic adepts on the other hand can split their magic stat between physical powers and spellcasting, which in 4e usually resulted in a kinda gimped jack of all trades who wasn't great at anything, but 5e removed the whole splitting their magic bit and gave them full spellcasting power without any real downside. They can't astrally project, that's the one difference, and many mage characters never did that to begin with. That's the part that I was saying was bullshit for 5e.

Same goes for the stay at home/in the van rigger. And for what it's worth, wireless interference, limited range, limited battery, or simply shooting down the drone get a "nuh uh" response, so assume the build counters those.

4e attempted to curtail the van rigger issue with that whole limited range and jamming thing, like you mention, to the point that several higher security buildings have anti-EM layers in their walls to impede signals entering from outside. You could just tell the drones something like, "Follow the team and shoot anyone who acts hostile to them" and send them off to do their own thing while you chilled in the van, but drones on their own aren't super bright so it was usually wiser for the rigger to tag along to be able to issue orders in real time as needed.

 

[Adamska]

Then it sounds like no one wants to play your game if all of the players at your table keep countering everything you've suggested with some fantasy shit because they want some fantasy shit in the game. This is of course also assuming it's not simply due to wanting to avoid learning an entirely new system which can be a valid concern as well, so if they already know shadowrun then they don't need to learn anything other than "no magic".

It's also silly, given that even with the fantastical race element, you can still do runs that are strongly tech based. In a short round robin campaign I did in this, my turn as the Fixer contact emphasized the tech aspects completely, with the only magics being via technomancy. I used the AR systems, went hard in how that can affect things (the bar they went to for example had an AR drink called a Logic Bomb, it works by linking in via sim and giving the effects of booze via timed influence of neurochemicals), and how if you're wreckless as a hacker you can be tracked and booted by SysAd at times.

Even though the party were mostly keebs, it was played pretty strongly on the tech basis. With a bit of Physad gun-fu. It slapped hard.

 

[anti SJW]

2: I'm considering running a post apocalypse one-shot. The adventure was for an old edition of GURPS, and the car combat was supposed to be a tie in to Car Wars (which from the sounds of it was a 1980s Gaslands type game) and uses those rules. Given the recent topics, I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for games with decent vehicle combat. Can be rules lite as is a one shot.

Not a TTRPG, but I feel Thunder Road: Vendetta is a pretty rules light board game you may be able to pull from.

 

[The Ugly One]

Shadowrun should have just leaned into its anachro-futuristic setting. It's a different for universe, so the explanation for why they don't have this or that technology we have is just, "they didn't invent it." If 40k can casually dismiss the lack of smartphones, so can Shadowrun. Given how many people still like old editions, it would have been fine.

 

[LovisXVI]

Shadowrun should have just leaned into its anachro-futuristic setting. It's a different for universe, so the explanation for why they don't have this or that technology we have is just, "they didn't invent it." If 40k can casually dismiss the lack of smartphones, so can Shadowrun. Given how many people still like old editions, it would have been fine.

"What's a MegaPulpse?" "One million Pulses." So big they can't be transmitted across the air, so you've got to use fiber-optic cables.

 

[p1138]

"What's a MegaPulpse?" "One million Pulses." So big they can't be transmitted across the air, so you've got to use fiber-optic cables.

Realistically, you wouldn't even need to go that far. There's only so much spectrum available for RF and in a society where shit has gotten so extreme with IoT garbage it's possible that businesses/organizations/etc with critical infrastructure(the stuff worth shadowrunning in the first place) keep all of their shit air-gapped, on physical cable, etc. It's already things people do in the real world with critical shit if encryption doesn't cut it, or direct LoS links aren't possible. Hell, you've got people that have generated algorithms that if provided enough data can interpret noise of keystrokes from keyboards, IR laser microphones that work through windows, RF sensors that can track motion on the other side of a wall using backscatter, and it just keeps on going so why wouldn't a megacorporation have some isolation against these things? Leased private fiberoptic links across states are already a thing(and very expensive) as well.

Instead of saying things weren't invented, shit has become so ubiquitous that more reliable and secure(and costly) means get used when necessary.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

I haven't seen a trigger warning on the site, but it does have virtue signaling.

"We're cool with murder, death, rape, and murderdeathrape, but calling someone mean words are a no-no!" Apologies for bringing in politics but if you ever wanted the mindset of the average far-leftist, here it is.

Yes, they heavily rely on their third party license https://morkborg.com/license/ You'll note that if you scroll through the content on their website, it all has that morkborg approved content logo from their cult section in the screen grab above. That cult section is basically the header for the content they promote below it.

Devs promoting third party stuff is great, but I have a feeling that they use it as a crutch more often than not, like Bethesda.

 

[The Ugly One]

"What's a MegaPulpse?" "One million Pulses." So big they can't be transmitted across the air, so you've got to use fiber-optic cables.

Or their computers are just slow by our standards because they never unlocked the secret of nanoscale transistors. They invented other cool tech, but not penny-sized chips with 10 GFlops. Their entire world is running on 486s at best.

 

[Halbschwanz]

What are some good, cheap things I should look for for starting a new RPG set up?

For the purposes of this question, I'll count "sturdy and lasts a long time" as cheap as well. A Chessex wet erase battlemat and wet erase markers. It seems pricey at first but my 4'x 4' map has lasted me more than a decade with a minimum of staining so long as you occasionally rub it down with isopropyl alcohol. Means you don't have to buy battlefield or dungeon tiles if you've got a bit of imagination and don't mind writing some height measurements. Poker chips and playing cards can make good standins for pieces and can also be used as alternate RNG methods, especially if you mark the poker chips on one or both sides. Glass beads of uniform color can be excellent stand-ins for similarly statted units and mooks. 1 cm d6s are multipurpose if you can find the 36 packs. A dry (or wet) erase GM screen can do a lot of heavy lifting. If you're using physical character sheets, sheet protectors mean you can write temporary bonuses/wounds on top with wet or dry erase markers and make them last longer without wearing down your sheets and needing reprints. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head; t. guy who has never paid for a proper minifig or table prop.

 

[Ghostse]

Or their computers are just slow by our standards because they never unlocked the secret of nanoscale transistors. They invented other cool tech, but not penny-sized chips with 10 GFlops. Their entire world is running on 486s at best.

Or they can't.

In a post-apocalyptic setting I came up with, 99% of the world has been plunged back into medieval type living because insane environmentalists developed "the computer virus" - a silcon-disgesting organism to try to process the growing mounds of ewaste. It worked but the silicon-based lichen would start to digest any modern electronics, and once it got started it would grow over the surface of a chip until it rendered it in-op. (and a similar issue with plastic items)

(This leads to small clusters of people living in 21st century lives in what are essentially deep buried clean rooms still making modern equipment, surrounded by populations of people at pre-digital levels of existence, and the bulk of the population living quasi-medieval existences.
Basically the President of the United States & congress still exist in rocky mountain bunkers, surrounded by a few 1900s cities, but the bulk of the US is some level of medieval and the US government trying to keep the union intact - because there was nuclear war, then conventional war, and then civil war, and now just banditry.

But you might have the medieval castle of the Baron of Seattle, who has decided to ignore the Presidential edicts and is waging war on Redmond, getting rocked by SpecOps with assault rifles fast roping from a Blackhawk. Just such and operation would be prohibitively expensive since the helicopter and team would have be completely scrubbed down. And more likely the electronics of the blackhawk completely stripped and replaced.


So you could have a less extreme version. Magic waves act like cosmic radiation causing anything produced in a foundry process smaller than 1 micrometer to not work outside of specially shielded rooms. And in fact you could make that a plot point for you campaign, some entity has discovered the Fuck-Magic teflon that would allow 100nm chips to operate in the clear - this would be like going from Commodore 64s to Pentium 4s.
Some parties would want to encourage this, some stop it, but nearly everyone would want to profit.

 

[Adamska]

Devs promoting third party stuff is great, but I have a feeling that they use it as a crutch more often than not, like Bethesda.

Oh no, it's grosser than that; the extremely open license is often done as an attempt to get their crap adopted en masse so they can snag kickbacks from the grifting circle that forms from it.

Basically, if a product does decently well in a kickstarter, the people who made the system of choice will often try to make it really open, so that they can get other people to dump their homebrew as a third party splat to jump in, and then cross breed and shill each other in the process. This also bumps up the algorithm and chatter in TTRPG spaces and it's designed to get people talking, which gets some buying. The entire mechanism of an open license isn't really out of the goodness of their hearts; it's an attempt to sponge off of others talking about WONDROUS NEW PRODUCT.

This is also a factor in why they did the cyber setting, to further cast out the net.

I should note that this is also why a lot of OSR shit like OSRic and OSE has so many splats; it's cynical efforts to spread that moolah around, and it's also why they suck out so much oxygen from fans.

Or their computers are just slow by our standards

Honestly I kind of really prefer how 4e actually looked at how tech really was evolving and didn't try to cram that shit back into the 1980s. I like retrotech, but by trying to cut it out you lose interesting stories, attack angles, defenses, and a bunch of other stuff that seriously enriches the world if done right. I also suspect that given they made fully functional AI just fine they probably move fast enough to wirelessly transmit stuff, given that wireless transmission is older than magic.

As for how I stat out decks, my logic for them is that any shitty hacker can just enter and fuck with basic PAN with a commlink, which has basic computational ability, but you need a Deck for real work. That's because they are essentially miniaturized and customized micro-supercomputers that have the processing bulk, tool suites, proxy and ghost signaling, and speed to actually be good enough to deal with any IC or protocols in a fast enough way to matter and not get tracked for anything that isn't ghetto horseshit or Baby Rigger's first ride.

And some shit has internal networks not linked to wi-fi networks, or very good router protective measures, or parts of the city just have so much fucking noise that it makes basic wi-fi and even some alpha modules not work out; sure the corpo guy may be an idiot, but the Spider they hired isn't, and given how tense and bloody corporate espionage can get, you just need to jack in directly at times.

Wire always remains a hell of a lot faster; and it's much more stable. Wi-fi is like remote viewing; not an exact science and easier to bungle.