Tabletop Roleplaying Design Help Needed!

[Fenixius]

Hey guys,

I've been sitting here thinking for a while. I'm trying to adapt a certain videogame to tabletop play, but I'm kinda stuck. I don't like the way any systems I know do firefights with guns.

I've been trying to think of a way to implement it which involves simultaneous action input, and then speed-based resolution ala the Pokémon games. It's also intended to involve big cover bonuses, reminiscent of Dawn of War or Company of Heroes. However, I'm getting a bit bogged down; lots of systems use turns with actions in them.

I'm looking to hear of any experience with any roleplaying game, even if it's as ubiquitous as Dungeons and Dragons, which implements ranged combat. It's my intention to use components of other games' designs as a springboard, and take inspiration from all of your experiences. So tell me what games you've played, how they've worked, what they did right and wrong! All experience is helpful.

Of course, if you've never played any tabletop, dice, pen-and-paper roleplaying game, but have a great idea, then sweet, let me know! I'll be actively participating in discussion as best I can around work and sleep to try and explain what I'm going for, what I think of other systems, and talk about what I've played myself.

Thanks for the help, Escapist.

--Fen

 

[Tasachan]

Hmn, I play tabletop/pen & paper games (mainly DnD or Pathfinder) -- but none of the campaigns I've been in had gunfights.
Have you checked out Warhammer? I know this does turn-based as well, but it might have some ideas regarding cover/teams/ranged weapons that could be useful.


... I have no idea if that was even slightly useful. I'll ask around, I'm sure my friends can come up with some better ideas. Good luck! =)

 

[Fenixius]

For example, I have played Dungeons and Dragons: 4th Edition (4E) and Star Wars - Saga Edition (SW). Both of these systems work similarly, with different design goals in mind.

Each system requires the player to roll to hit, then roll for damage. To hit, a player must roll a D20, add their Dexterity modifier score, and add any other bonus (weapon enhancements/enchantments, proficiency modifiers, range modifiers, etc). If the final score including all these elements is greater than the "Armour Class" (4E) or Reflex Save (SW), then the attack lands a hit, and we move to damage. Damage is determined by the weapon; roll the dice associated with the weapon, add or subtract any relevant modifiers (enchantments/enhancements, buffs or debuffs, resistances or weaknesses, etc) and subtract that score from the target's HP.

However, the differences lie in the balancing. 4E is designed to make every fight and opponent seem like a threat, and have the player scrape by each time. There is usually a 50% chance to hit on any given role, if you've built your character effectively, and damage adds up pretty quickly. SW on the other hand seems to have been designed by people who watched the movies and thought "The best way we could do this would be to have plasma bolts flying everywhere, and not many hitting." As such, hitting is much rarer, around 25% chance in my experience, and the damage rolls much higher. Turns go much quicker, because as each player has less options in combat compared to 4E, turns generally become "shoot, pass turn". This repeats very quickly. For reference, a standard bow in 4E does 1d8 damage; a standard blaster pistol in SW does 3d6.

Both of these systems incorporate some (SW) or a lot (4E) of melee combat, so the ranged combat is designed to work around that. But that's not really appropriate for what I'm intending to work with - melee combat should be rare and unusual. In addition, as the system I'm intending to design incorporates a regenerating shield which can take more than one hit before it crumbles from standard weapons, the shoot-miss design of SW is inappropriate. It should be basically known that a player will be able to shoot a target on his or her turn. The amount of hits and damage dealt, however, is to vary depending on weapon type, range and player accuracy.

So I'm wondering if any other games have a more ranged-focussed setup?

 

[Fenixius]

Hmn, I play tabletop/pen & paper games (mainly DnD or Pathfinder) -- but none of the campaigns I've been in had gunfights.
Have you checked out Warhammer? I know this does turn-based as well, but it might have some ideas regarding cover/teams/ranged weapons that could be useful.


... I have no idea if that was even slightly useful. I'll ask around, I'm sure my friends can come up with some better ideas. Good luck! =)

Thanks, Tasa. I've been looking a little into Dark Heresy, but it seems to be focussed around the same sort of ranged combat a 4E, with some different values and dice to roll. That said, I've not actually played it, so I might be wrong. I'm actually looking a little more at Warhammer 40,000 right now, with its Ballistic Skill and Str/AP setup. That seems to be more the right sort of direction. But it's on too huge a scale - I'm thinking of 10-man firefights, not 40-200 mini battles.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Hey guys,

I've been sitting here thinking for a while. I'm trying to adapt a certain videogame to tabletop play, but I'm kinda stuck. I don't like the way any systems I know do firefights with guns.

I've been trying to think of a way to implement it which involves simultaneous action input, and then speed-based resolution ala the Pokémon games. It's also intended to involve big cover bonuses, reminiscent of Dawn of War or Company of Heroes. However, I'm getting a bit bogged down; lots of systems use turns with actions in them.

I'm looking to hear of any experience with any roleplaying game, even if it's as ubiquitous as Dungeons and Dragons, which implements ranged combat. It's my intention to use components of other games' designs as a springboard, and take inspiration from all of your experiences. So tell me what games you've played, how they've worked, what they did right and wrong! All experience is helpful.

Of course, if you've never played any tabletop, dice, pen-and-paper roleplaying game, but have a great idea, then sweet, let me know! I'll be actively participating in discussion as best I can around work and sleep to try and explain what I'm going for, what I think of other systems, and talk about what I've played myself.

Thanks for the help, Escapist.

--Fen

Use Serenity RPG that's very good and open to changes as you need to.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

It would really help if I knew what you wanted to achieve with your firefights. Are you looking for a 'realistic' system with a lot of depth or a system that is really easy to learn and which makes each round go by quickly to keep up the pace?
I have almost ten years worth of experience with pen and paper rpgs at this point, so I might be able to help you.

 

[Fenixius]

Use Serenity RPG that's very good and open to changes as you need to.

I've heard that there was a Serenity RPG, but I've never played it. Do you have a link, or could you explain what it's like? Thanks!

It would really help if I knew what you wanted to achieve with your firefights. Are you looking for a 'realistic' system with a lot of depth or a system that is really easy to learn and which makes each round go by quickly to keep up the pace?
I have almost ten years worth of experience with pen and paper rpgs at this point, so I might be able to help you.

Okay, I'll explain in some more detail. I was being quite vague because what I'm intending to do is actually an infringement of copyright, but as I see it for personal use or maybe adaptation into something more original, I didn't see an issue.

So. The idea is that firefights would be based around the idea, as I said before, that hitting people is a known. It's virtually guaranteed. I mean, what trained soldier would miss 50% of the time? Especially when you're dealing with a science-fiction setting, which I realise I forgot to mention.

As such, I'm trying to come up with a system that allows for short- and mid-ranged combat more than anything. SWD20 has something absurd like 500 square range at maximum; that's never going to happen realistically. It's more the math that I'm looking for inspiration with: I can't think of a good way to reward closer range with more hits, without completely breaking it. Guns should be effective from one end of the hallway to the other, but much stronger when you've got them right up against the back of the enemy's head, right?

Ideally, I'd prefer a quick and easy system rather than an insanely complicated one. I appreciate the depth you can pull out of something like 3.5 or Pathfinder, but I think the depth should be in the roleplaying and player-character interactions, rather than in the combat arithmetic.

Hopefully, that's a little more clear.

 

[ottenni]

For the whole cover and firefights thing Warhammer 40k sorts things out rather well. AS it seems you have looked there already i guess thats a good place to start.

 

[GyroCaptain]

Shadowrun 4th uses initiative order (aka a turn sequence) but does allow for simultaneous actions for people with the same initiative. It's also relatively deep in terms of implementing weapon range penalties, wound penalties, movement and recoil effects, and other things without going to the point of having location tables. In the Against column would go the fact that it's not resoundingly easy to learn.

I'm not sure what's meant by speed-based resolution, but dice pool effects like in Shadowrun or WoD probably wouldn't hurt. I mean, I like d20 systems, but dice pools might work better for what you're doing.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Use Serenity RPG that's very good and open to changes as you need to.

I've heard that there was a Serenity RPG, but I've never played it. Do you have a link, or could you explain what it's like? Thanks!

It would really help if I knew what you wanted to achieve with your firefights. Are you looking for a 'realistic' system with a lot of depth or a system that is really easy to learn and which makes each round go by quickly to keep up the pace?
I have almost ten years worth of experience with pen and paper rpgs at this point, so I might be able to help you.

Okay, I'll explain in some more detail. I was being quite vague because what I'm intending to do is actually an infringement of copyright, but as I see it for personal use or maybe adaptation into something more original, I didn't see an issue.

So. The idea is that firefights would be based around the idea, as I said before, that hitting people is a known. It's virtually guaranteed. I mean, what trained soldier would miss 50% of the time? Especially when you're dealing with a science-fiction setting, which I realise I forgot to mention.

As such, I'm trying to come up with a system that allows for short- and mid-ranged combat more than anything. SWD20 has something absurd like 500 square range at maximum; that's never going to happen realistically. It's more the math that I'm looking for inspiration with: I can't think of a good way to reward closer range with more hits, without completely breaking it. Guns should be effective from one end of the hallway to the other, but much stronger when you've got them right up against the back of the enemy's head, right?

Ideally, I'd prefer a quick and easy system rather than an insanely complicated one. I appreciate the depth you can pull out of something like 3.5 or Pathfinder, but I think the depth should be in the roleplaying and player-character interactions, rather than in the combat arithmetic.

Hopefully, that's a little more clear.

Here's the link: http://www.margaretweis.com/wp/game-products/serenity/

It's very open ended and very story driven. You wouldn't even have to put it in the Serenity Universe, you could apply the rules to pretty much anything. Its also based a lot around distribution of information of you players. So they can choose whether or not to share information they may have seen from a perception check, there's also the option of betreyal, its definately worth checking out.

 

[Fenixius]

For the whole cover and firefights thing Warhammer 40k sorts things out rather well. AS it seems you have looked there already I guess that's a good place to start.

40k is too simple for my liking. It caters excellently to large skirmishes, and is even expandable to some truly large-scale battles, though it slows down a lot. Like I said, I was trying to think something a bit more complex than 40k. Also, I don't really like how their armour-saves work. Especially if you assume that every model has, say, 4 wounds? That'd be nuts.

Shadowrun 4th uses initiative order (aka a turn sequence) but does allow for simultaneous actions for people with the same initiative. It's also relatively deep in terms of implementing weapon range penalties, wound penalties, movement and recoil effects, and other things without going to the point of having location tables. In the Against column would go the fact that it's not resoundingly easy to learn.

Ooh, okay. Shadowrun 4th, eh...? I have some friends who are familiar with that, so I can ask them and do some reading.

I'm not sure what's meant by speed-based resolution, but dice pool effects like in Shadowrun or WoD probably wouldn't hurt. I mean, I like d20 systems, but dice pools might work better for what you're doing.

Speed-based was just how Pokemon did it; we both enter our commands at once, and then the faster character went first. And what exactly do you mean by "dice pools"?

 

[Wildrow12]

snipped because I've been there and I know the feeling, bro.

Have you considered (or heard of) the O.R.E system (used mostly in games like "Godlike" and "Wild Talents")?

It's pretty interesting insofar as determining how fast a character did something (like draw and fire a gun), how well they did something (did they hit the target?) and is useful for helping determine in combat, where a target has been hit.

Personally, I think D20 Modern might solve the problem more readily, but you may want to check out the O.R.E system anyway just to see if it will add some spice to your game.

The following link is for a review of "Godlike" and the O.R.E system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD_NtrxCrZE

 

[GyroCaptain]

I'm not sure what's meant by speed-based resolution, but dice pool effects like in Shadowrun or WoD probably wouldn't hurt. I mean, I like d20 systems, but dice pools might work better for what you're doing.

Speed-based was just how Pokemon did it; we both enter our commands at once, and then the faster character went first. And what exactly do you mean by "dice pools"?

Dice pools, simply put, are when you take your skill at something+ your stat at something+whatever modifiers are in place and = a given number of dice to roll. Then you have 'successes', which are 5/6 on d6 in Shadowrun, 8/9/10 on d10 in Vampire, Mage, etc., and 7/8/9/10 on d10s in Exalted.

More on Shadowrun: you can add extra dice by expending a renewable "luck" resource called "edge", or reroll/add dice after the fact with it. Characters go in a set order based on an initiative dice pool's result, which is added to the number of dice in the pool; in that sense it's like D&D with higher initiative stat mattering a bit more. If the result's the same, both characters go at once unless something would have an effect of some type (a grapple, for example), in which case I believe it's highest initiative first. Also, the system uses 'passes' which are a 'do extra things this round' stat allowing extra turns in a round for some, and movement is separate from combat actions (1 movement per round, either before or after combat actions).
EDIT: also, most actions interact with one another or have a counterpart: a dodge roll against attacks, an unarmed combat roll against being grappled, etc. That always happens at the same time.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I'm not sure what's meant by speed-based resolution, but dice pool effects like in Shadowrun or WoD probably wouldn't hurt. I mean, I like d20 systems, but dice pools might work better for what you're doing.

Speed-based was just how Pokemon did it; we both enter our commands at once, and then the faster character went first. And what exactly do you mean by "dice pools"?

Dice pools, simply put, are when you take your skill at something+ your stat at something+whatever modifiers are in place and = a given number of dice to roll. Then you have 'successes', which are 5/6 on d6 in Shadowrun, 8/9/10 on d10 in Vampire, Mage, etc., and 7/8/9/10 on d10s in Exalted.

More on Shadowrun: you can add extra dice by expending a renewable "luck" resource called "edge", or reroll/add dice after the fact with it. Characters go in a set order based on an initiative dice pool's result, which is added to the number of dice in the pool; in that sense it's like D&D with higher initiative stat mattering a bit more. If the result's the same, both characters go at once unless something would have an effect of some type (a grapple, for example), in which case I believe it's highest initiative first. Also, the system uses 'passes' which are a 'do extra things this round' stat allowing extra turns in a round for some, and movement is separate from combat actions (1 movement per round, either before or after combat actions).
EDIT: also, most actions interact with one another or have a counterpart: a dodge roll against attacks, an unarmed combat roll against being grappled, etc. That always happens at the same time.

That's kinda similar to Serenity RPG, only the Edge thing is called plot points which you get for good roleplaying and such and not only can be used for dice rolls, but also to influence the story with the DM's permission.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

You could use a system with two different scales, one for close range and one for long. I'll let you decide the limit, and it could even be different for different weapons, but Close range would have a fairly constant accuracy, while at long range, it would start dropping off, maybe something like 5% for every... however far away. Moddified by stats, etc., of course.

Also, with the knowledge of it being based on Guns, in a Sci-fi setting, and copyright violation... Did you get the idea from Fallout's V.A.T.S. by any chance?

 

[TheBritish]

EDIT: There were a lot of updates whilst I was typing this. So... ignore this whole post

I've already gone through this process with a tabletop game I designed last year, so there's a couple of things to think about.

I'm going to "try" to do spoiler tags, but I've never done them before, so many sorries.

Spoiler

Firstly is the hits. You're obviously planning on using a Halo-esque shield (is it Halo you're converting?) so that deals with most of the problems, but you do have to consider why these types of shields don't work too well in RPGs like D&D. The key reason that comes to my mind is that if everyone is relying on a shield, there's no reason why a quick and lithe elf rogue can't still be a tank. Traditional armour tends to replace this with weight, but seeing your character carrying around a huge shield generator might be a bit disturbing. The alternative is that there is still armour underneath the shield which is your main defense, though this makes the shield a little more redundant. You obviously have to consider the various damage types and how they affect it. The advantage of tabletops, as I'm sure you know, is that players can and will try crazy things. How will the shield be prepared to deal with a punch? A rock falling from the ceiling? Cold weather? How about electrical or plasma damage?

Then you have to deal with the damage. The trouble with guns over bows and arrows is the preconceptions people have about them (Star Wars blasters notwithstanding) that they're already fairly accurate. Making the players believe that they're "missing" all the time at close range is a little bit of a stretch. This is where you can use the shield to "glance blows off" or similar, but still doesn't help when the shield is gone and you're down to taking off health. Maybe the guns thar people use are designed to reduce shields and they need to switch weapons to damage health? Maybe there's traditional armour under there? This also comes into the damage in that getting shot with a gun, really, really hurts. One bullet would be likely to incapacitate even a warriror, so when down to a shield, you need to be able to overcome this.

The enemies. The good thing about melee being your focus is that a lot of your enemies can be monsters or animals. Why is this a good thing? Well, other than variety, the truth is that people don't like killing humans unless they're given a good reason. It's not a huge issue, but there's something to consider about having your players sniping a person from 1000 yards away without them having a chance to defend themselves, or surrender. (Speaking of sniping, you'd have to consider these things. Videogames traditionally give players the chance to sniper someone for one-hit kills. Sniping someone in a tabletop would most likely have the effect of a coup-de-grace from 4e. If players approach every problem with this solution, you might have serious problems.)

The weapons are an issue, as expected. You need to give everyone a reason for not just having an assault rifle as the most versatile weapon. Chances are that most battles aren't going to be occuring over ranges above an assault rifle and up close it's still a versatile weapon. This will probably define your classes, even if you wanted a classless system.

As for cover some questions need to be answered here. How efficient is cover? Does it have a 25% reduction to-hit? Or a 50% reduction to-damage? Do players have the ability to duck behind cover as a free action? Are they always assumed to be ducking? Is there 100% reduction cover? The balance of damage reduction to weapon damage to shield power is almost impossible to match easily. Can you shoot around corners? It's easy to shoot around a corner if you're standing at the corner, but shooting back is difficult if you're not. Is there an effective range of cover? If you're ducking behind a waist-high wall and I'm on the other side of it, is the cover really effective? Does the cover offer concealment? Does it give bonuses to sneaking? Can it be damaged or destroyed? The DM might not enjoy having more health to manage, but perhaps heavy weapons can halve the %reduction of the cover. Can cover be detrimental? Does it reduce your abilities at all? Are there mounted weapons?

Now the effet of hit die. Having a shield might imply you get hit a lot (even if it doesn't, it's more likely to make players less cautious.) As I've said above, something to consider might be that there are weapons designed to reduce shields. That would explain them being less damaging or less accurate in a world where we already have accurate and damaging weapons.

Accuracy is probably going to be a key factor to your new weapons.Most of that is obvious but something that might be worth considering is if I can hold a pistol in either hand for more hits per round at reduced accuracy, or even two assault rifles for the extra damage per round, but at a huge accuracy reduction. Can I target two enemies at once?

Feats and skills would laregly need to be redesigned to handle this. People will probably expect multiple targets and increased accuracy. Increased damage and reduced movement through crippling and hindering shots. Different stances, weapon proficiencies, improved cover usage, blindfiring, blah, blah, blah.

How about ammunition? Making the players keep a count of bullets wouldn't be too cheerful if they're firing 312 per round. Would it really be fun if they couldn't carry more than 100 rounds of ammunition into a battle because of encumberence? If they had to be careful with every shot? Would it be "more" fun? Are there different kinds of ammunition? If you do away with ammo completely, ask yourself how long my turn would be if I was using a mounted machine gun and said "I start firing and don't stop". Certainly, Metro-2033's system is an interesting idea if nothing else of making every bullet valuable.


If you're "really" interested in how I handled some of these things, I can tell you, but you'd probably be bored and it wouldn't be all that useful seeing as mine wasn't a shield system.

... This was probably overkill for what you were planning to do, but I did something similar recently (albeit without shields) and just wanted to let you know some things that I had to consider.

 

[Oneirius]

I really like the way NWOD treats gunfights. It's very elegant. Simple, yet deadly and with a lot of space for improvement. You might want to check it out some day.

 

[Fenixius]

Have you considered (or heard of) the O.R.E system (used mostly in games like "Godlike" and "Wild Talents")?

It's pretty interesting insofar as determining how fast a character did something (like draw and fire a gun), how well they did something (did they hit the target?) and is useful for helping determine in combat, where a target has been hit.

Personally, I think D20 Modern might solve the problem more readily, but you may want to check out the O.R.E system anyway just to see if it will add some spice to your game.

The following link is for a review of "Godlike" and the O.R.E system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD_NtrxCrZE

Whoa, thanks for that link, man. I've just watched Godlink and Serenity, and I'll flick through and check some more out on the other side of work. I've not heard of that O.R.E system, but it seems deceptively named from what the guy said! I'll do some reading tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the help!

Here's the link: http://www.margaretweis.com/wp/game-products/serenity/

It's very open ended and very story driven. You wouldn't even have to put it in the Serenity Universe, you could apply the rules to pretty much anything. Its also based a lot around distribution of information of you players. So they can choose whether or not to share information they may have seen from a perception check, there's also the option of betrayal, its definitely worth checking out.

Ooh, thanks for that, too. I'll be checking it out in more detail when I have time.

 

[Zomni42]

One of my friends, a popular and very good DM once told us he was experimenting with a new RP system. Modern Setting, players can't look at the rule book. The players declared actions and rolled the dice the DM told us to. He'd then role behind a screen. He'd then tell us how successful the action was. We all had a good time. At the end he told us there were no rules and just made a snap judgement by looking at the rolls and deciding whatever was coolest happened.

The DM rules the game, his word is law, if you have a good enough DM you don't need rules. Also the way serenity works is much different than D20 systems. The probabilites increase at a different rate. I play RPGs and Warhammer 40k fairly regularly and am a bit of a "mathhammer" kind of guy. The Serenty rules also leave alot of power in the DM's hands as he decides how difficult an action is and decides on how high the player must roll. The play then picks up a number of differnt types of dice dependent on his characters skills. So, if YOU think its not difficult for a trained soldier to hit people more than 50% of the time.. than its not.
Both D20 and d100 systems use a uniform probability distribution. From the sounds of it you'd want to look into something Normaly distributed. Pairs of d6's rolled and summed results would be interesting. If your characters base to hit was a result of 7 or less they'd hit more often then miss and only improve from there. At 8 or less they'd hit lik 70 percent of the time. 9 or less is rarely missing. After that point...
Other systems of coarse have simpler math, D100 is easy enough to figure out but that is just one roll Uniformly distributed. D20s are even worse because of using just one die that as likely as not is rock polished and not actually uniformly distributed.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Have you considered (or heard of) the O.R.E system (used mostly in games like "Godlike" and "Wild Talents")?

It's pretty interesting insofar as determining how fast a character did something (like draw and fire a gun), how well they did something (did they hit the target?) and is useful for helping determine in combat, where a target has been hit.

Personally, I think D20 Modern might solve the problem more readily, but you may want to check out the O.R.E system anyway just to see if it will add some spice to your game.

The following link is for a review of "Godlike" and the O.R.E system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD_NtrxCrZE

Whoa, thanks for that link, man. I've just watched Godlink and Serenity, and I'll flick through and check some more out on the other side of work. I've not heard of that O.R.E system, but it seems deceptively named from what the guy said! I'll do some reading tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the help!

Here's the link: http://www.margaretweis.com/wp/game-products/serenity/

It's very open ended and very story driven. You wouldn't even have to put it in the Serenity Universe, you could apply the rules to pretty much anything. Its also based a lot around distribution of information of you players. So they can choose whether or not to share information they may have seen from a perception check, there's also the option of betrayal, its definitely worth checking out.

Ooh, thanks for that, too. I'll be checking it out in more detail when I have time.

No problem man.