Ocelot

Karsten,

It's all a matter of looking at the core mechanic and divorcing it of the class-based mechanics.  Believe me, I've considered cutting classes from D&D entirely, but the new mechanics (3rd Edition) make this problematic in a lot of ways.  To be honest, I feel more constrained by the aspects of the system that are level-based, more than those that govern character classes.

The d20 edition of "Call of Cthulhu" does a fairly good job of promoting a classless system, given the mechanics.  PCs all use the same hit dice, can choose between two attack/save templates (either they get good saves and a crappy to-hit bonus, or they get bad saves and a good to-hit bonus), and they can choose a core of skills as their class skills.  Still, it's more or less class-based, but it is more flexible than typical D&D.

To answer your question, though, I am using standard D&D 3E rules in my current (and soon to be finished) campaign.  It's not that I'm particularly fond of the system, but I've been writing some 3E material and I'd like to stick as close to the official rules as possible in order to gain more familiarity with them.

Gary

Going through my books, there are a couple of small-press items which are worth mentioning.  "Rapture: The Second Coming" (published by Quintessential Mercy Studios) and "The End" (published by Scapegoat Games) are both based on the idea that the Biblical apocalypse comes to pass.  The characters played by the PCs are the ones who, for whatever reason, have been deemed unworthy by almighty God.

It just goes to show that there are plenty of ideas out there for unconventional apocalypse scenarios.  I'm not saying I'd run either of these games, but they do have some interesting tidbits.

As for "Twilight: 2000," it's got a somewhat special place in my heart.  I really enjoyed the first edition, and it was one of the first games I'd ever purchased.  It was quirky in some spots, had a lot of really solid mechanics, but was a little heavier on the rules than I would've liked.  The adventures and supplements were really top-notch.  The second edition used a different system (the GDW house system, to be precise, which you might've seen in "Dark Conspiracy"), and was pretty good in its own right.

I'm not sure if it counts as post-apocalypse, but has anyone here ever seen "Living Steel"?  The system was nearly incomprehensible and heavily chart-driven (it was based on the "Phoenix Command" rules), but the setting was very well-done and quite interesting.

Gary

Being from (and living in) California, I can't say this is anything I've ever heard about, or even considered.  Interesting.

As for "Frontier Justice" being on the light side, I have to agree.  Some of the other books ("Fluid Mechanics" for example) have been pretty cool to have, though.

Gary

I've tried my hand at Gamma World, which is on the "fantastic" end of the post-apocalypse spectrum, but which is still a good deal of fun.

Much of my experience stems from "The Morrow Project," which was originally written by Kevin Dockery (who wrote "The Edge of the Sword, Volume 1: Compendium of Modern Firearms" for RTG).  In that setting, a group of industrialists are forewarned of the coming apocalypse, and secretly prepare caches of supplies and cryogenically frozen personnel all across the country.  They are supposed to wake up only a few years after the bomb, but something goes terribly wrong, and they wake up much, much later.  Excellent game for its time, with a very brutal and deadly combat system.

Though I haven't played it, I've got a copy of "Blood Dawn," which is almost a companion game to "Battlelords of the 25th Century."  The mechanics are a bit blah, but the flavor of the setting and some of the ideas therein are pretty cool when applied to other post-apocalypse games.

I suppose "Twilight: 2000" counts, too.

I did run a "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" game that was set after the Apocalypse occured.  Lots of fun, that one.

Gary

The second edition of Blue Planet allows for some munckinization, but it's controllable IMO.  It's got a very good Cyberpunk feel to it, mixed with an "old west" flavor (no doubt brought on by Poseidon being a new frontier).  I'm hungry to run a game of it, but it's all a matter of being familiar enough with the incredible amount of source material that is available.  What complaints did the munckin-types have?

Interesting that you should mention Alternity, TekXombie.  It's one of my favorite systems, with some very good settings ("Star*Drive" was incredible in a lot of ways).  It's too bad it didn't sell well (I gather that I was the only person buying it with any regularity in Southern California) because it was very well done.

As far as settings, "Star*Drive" and "Blue Planet" have several parallels, though the scope of the first is much broader than that of the second.

Gary

I haven't run a game of Cyberpunk for a long while (it's been at least a year, and the game I ran petered out after a single session for reasons I don't quite recall), but I still prefer to use the old Interlock mechanics.  I've got the system where I like it, it's comfortable, and some of the changes that Fuzion introduces are alien to me.

The way I see it, v3 will be backwards compatible with Interlock.  I don't really want to switch, so I probably won't (at least insofar as unofficial games are concerned).  Whether it will be released remains to be seen.  I'm going to wait and see.

Concerning Cyberpunk 203x's setting (or what little we do know about it), are you guys more likely to stick with the canon timeline as laid out, or will you be more likely to stick with your own personal campaign world, incorporating elements from v3 that you like while rejecting those that you don't?  How many of you feel that canon characters and predefined history (or future fates) should play a pivotal role in your games?

I've never liked adding pre-existing/canon characters to my games.  I would never in my wildest dreams incorporate Morgan Blackhand, Rache Bartmoss, or Johnny Silverhand into one of my CP games.  The same thing applies when I run Star Wars; I would feel cheesy if I engineered it so that the players ran into Han Solo or Luke Skywalker during play.  The PCs, after all, are the heroes of my game.  The last thing I would want as a player is to be overshadowed by an epic-level (and ultimately script immune) character.

Gary

Concerning realistic actions and their consequences (and this is aimed towards other GMs, but I wouldn't mind hearing player opinions, too), how do you respond to players who come up with hare-brained schemes and attempt to carry them to fruition?

On the player front (if you don't GM), have you ever come up with a plan of action or attempted to perform some task in a game that was rejected out of hand by the GM?  Reflecting on the incident, was the GM being fair to you?

I guess this question stems from my own experiences with my group.  I always feel somewhat guilty when I have to remind a player (sometimes more than once) that a particular plan of action isn't likely to succeed.  What other choice do I have, aside from letting the players carry their plan of action out, only to find that it's doomed to failure?

I'm more than happy to while away an hour or so while the players discuss plans (after all, if I can turn four hours of game notes into six hours of play because the players want to formulate a plan or two, so be it), but when it's obvious that they're going in the wrong direction, I've occasionally had to step in and remind them that it's not always possible to hack into the security system of City Hall through a card catalog terminal in the public library.

Most of the time, they're pretty good-natured about it.  Occasionally, they'll want to debate the issue.  If they can give me a good enough reason that something might work, I'll go for it (with consequences, if applicable).  If not, I'll let them try anyway if they're particularly insistent.  This type of thing happens more to me when I'm running high-tech games (especially Star Wars), mostly due to the multitude of options the players have.

One Cyberpunk-based example involved a player who was hiding out in his apartment when it was raided by a group of corp cops.  His instant reply was to say, "I escape through the trap door."

"Trap door?" I asked.  "What trap door?"

"The one I would've installed in my closet," he answered.

This caught me off-guard.  I'd never had a player pull this sort of thing on me before.  If he'd cornered me prior to the game's initial session in order to detail the specific post-construction security features he'd added to his apartment, I might have been more accepting of such a thing.  I wouldn't go for it, and I think he ended up escaping by more conventional means (through a window).

Thoughts?

Gary

Being as I collect role-playing games the same way other people collect National Geographic magazines, I was sort of curious if anyone else here threw down money for Blue Planet, if they've played it, and what their opinions are about the game.

I've got both editions, and the 2nd is a lot more streamlined and (in most cases) more playable than the 1st.  I've done a good deal of reading into the setting, background, and system, and I even went so far as to have my group create characters for a scenario that never happened.  I may yet pick that ball up again.

Gary

How many of you guys are still using the old Interlock rules when playing Cyberpunk, as opposed to Fuzion?  How many of you have switched your games over to Fuzion, and what do you think of it?

Gary

Okay, I admit that I'm mostly a lurker.  I go through phases where I read a lot here, but don't post too much.  I happen to be in one of my "manic" phases right now, so I've been posting.

That said, I've noticed that several members of these forums have very specific ideas of what is and isn't realistic in their games.  This is, as with most things, a matter of taste.  I've thought about it, and I'm curious as to how realistic other people's games are (in their opinions, of course), and how realism (or lack of realism) affects their enjoyment of the game(s) they play.

For myself, I started out as a youngster playing paramilitary-themed RPGs.  Most of my ideas about realism were based on a combination of books (from historical texts to Don Pendleton's "Mack Bolan" series of novels) and 80's action movies (which, I must say, are a pretty poor gauge for realistic action, especially for a young teenager).

As I grew older and my gaming tastes became more refined, I started to search for a little more realism in my games.  This search for realism was aimed more at mechanics that related to character and story, though I did scrutinize some details of combat and technology, modifying them to fit my paradigm.  It got to a point where I couldn't watch certain action movies without flinching, because they were either too fantastic or just unbelievable.

These days, I think I've mellowed.  I enjoy gritty combat systems, but I'm more willing to allow my players the occasional cinematic license.  I freely accept that what I like in the games I play might not be what other people like, be that based on style, realism, or whatever.  There are a million gamers with a million different tastes and styles, and in my opinion, there isn't a single one that is more true or correct than any of the others.  In the end, it's about what you think is fun.

So how do you rate your games?  Are they ultra-realistic simulations of carnage, or are they fast and loose slugfests filled with random explosions and hundreds of enemy mooks who were born to die?

Gary

I wasn't asking for advice.  I was trying to spark a discussion.

I noticed that some people poo-pooed the concept of HEP ammunition (in small arms) because they consider it to be unrealistic.  I'm wondering if these opinions are based on modern concepts of realism, and if so, might it be hypothetically possible for such ammunition to be feasible given 20-40 years of technological advancement in explosives and metals technology?  You seem like well-informed folks, so I'm wondering what your qualified opinions are.

As for the games I've played and run, I've had no trouble with any sorts of ammunition "cold wars" with my players.  I tend to let anything go, but it's not as if they can always afford novelties such as HEP bullets, even if they could find someone willing to sell them to them.  Instead of saying these things don't exist, I prefer to limit their availability.

Gary

For the sake of discussion, is it possible that the (high-tech) explosive yields and metallurgy in 2020 are such that these bullets might be viable for small arms?  After all, this is a science fiction setting, and obviously not a "hard" one.

Gary

I stopped using roles in my games a while back.  I never really liked the class-based aspect of the Cyberpunk system, and the special abilities always seemed unnecessary to me.  Instead, I wrote up an alternate system of character generation that has seen a lot of tweaking over the years.  The most current form is posted here.

Not everyone likes the system, and I understand why.  The inherent "GURPSiness" of advantages and disadvantages turns some people off.

Gary

The best thing to do in this case, IMO, is to be arbitrary about it.  To my mind, personal-scale HEP loads (for pistols, SMGs, rifles, and any weapon that does damage in D6's) shouldn't have much effect on vehicle-scale armor.

A guy who is unarmored is probably going to take the full brunt of the explosive force of the bullet.  I'd say apply all the damage as wounds to unarmored targets, instead of applying half of it as stun.

I see where you're coming from.  My players have never used HEP rounds, as far as I know, though I've used them (as a player) in other games to good effect against otherwise-impervious foes.  Your best bet is to modify the current rule to something you find reasonable and use that instead.

Gary

Oh, gods.  I don't know.  We put up Mockery's in '95 or '96.  It jumped around from one free ISP to another, then it went down until we got our own domain name.  Amy (Mockery) insisted on a site redesign before it went back up, and I'm afraid that the game we were planning to play at this time last year fell through in a big way.  Hence, no updates.  It's tough (though not impossible) for me to work on a game system if I'm not actually playing it.  Lately, it's been all Star Wars and D&D.

Gary

On my father's side, we're looking at Irish and French.  On my mother's, I'm pretty sure I've got a good deal of English and Native American (Cheyenne, I think).  Not that you can tell, I'm pretty much a middle-class white boy.

Gary

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Operation: Mindcrime has always been one of my favorite inspirations, too, Ocelot... The Trinity concept is cool, btw...

Thanks, Suriel!  Give me the warm fuzzies, why don'tcha.

When I started playing and running Cyberpunk, I was a big fan of Queensryche.  CDs like "The Warning," "Operation: Mindcrime," and "Rage for Order" really bring back those early gaming memories.

Gary

Not to toot my own horn (okay, maybe a little bit), but you might be interested in Trinity.

Yep, this happened to my last mobo (which was an ABIT, I think -- can't check now, it's rotting in a landfill somewhere).  Not only did the motherboard fry, but so did my video card.

Gary

I've had greys in my game, though indirectly.  The players were cops in a small agricorp town just outside of a military test facility that had a captured grey alien.  Of course, the thing escaped, and the military descended on the little town like locusts.

I also wrote up some rulesmods for Aliens and Predators, a long time back.  They used to be posted on Mockery's site, but I don't think we've put them back up yet.  Anyone interested in taking a look at them, please drop me a line and I'll shoot them your way.

I've considered introducing a more conspiracy-based plot into the next CP game I run, including aliens.  "Dark*Matter" (the Alternity line) had some interesting ideas that are easily ported over into Interlock.

As a thought, you could always go along with the premise that Militech (or Arasaka or Biotechnicia or any one of a number of corporations) has managed to acquire some alien technology, whether it's wierd bioware or a spacecraft or weaponry, or a combination of the three.  Introduce the tech slowly into the game world, give you players one or two mods, and then hit them with some strange side effects.  Maybe the aliens invade, and these bits and pieces make the players easier to control.  ::shrug::

Gary

In the beginning, I refused to play d20 Star Wars.  This led me to do a bunch of conversions of the d20 stuff to D6, and it seemed to work out pretty good.

But then, I'm sitting around surrounded by all these d20 Star Wars books.  I figured, WTF?  Why not try running a game to see if it was really as bad as I thought?

Aside from the obvious feat-, class-, and level-based BS, and the fact that they released a new edition of the core rules about a year after the original saw print (which was $40 worth of annoying), the system isn't all that bad.  Overall, I still like D6.  d20 does a few things differently, though, I and appreciate it for that.

For one, d20 handles droid PCs a hell of a lot better than D6 ever did.  I also like the way that the Force works in d20, and blasters set to stun in d20 aren't quite the rules break that they were in D6.

My major gripe with d20 is the complexity of the combat system (as compared to other systems that are just as functional, but much more elegant -- Interlock, Storyteller, and D6 all have better, less-clunky combat systems).  This gripe extends into the rules for vehicular combat, as well, including space combat.  The rules practically require you to use some form of miniature in order to get the most from them.

As for d20 versions of Cyberpunk, I don't think I'd be up for such a thing.  I looked at Digital Burn when it came out, but wasn't impressed with it.

I've got enough CP2020 material on my shelf that I could run the game until the cows come home and not get bored with it.  I don't feel the need for new products, though I will admit that it would be nice to see the line supported again.

Gary

Can't say as I know you real well, but have a good birthday if you can.  I sure as hell know I'm not looking forward to my next one.

Gary

I'm not entirely sure.  A few years ago, I used to listen to Randall Terry's show on a local Christian AM radio station.  Talk about a complete and utter nut.  I'm not sure why I listened to this show.  Maybe to remind myself just how messed up some people are.

But I digress.  We were talking about colonic cleansing.

I actually don't know what these things do or how they work, if they're enemas or not.  One of Randall Terry's sponsors was this guy, Joe Colombo (I think), and he was hawking vitamins and supplements.  After a little digging, I find that these people are still in business.  To learn more about these wonderful products that humanity has been doing just fine without since the birth of man, feel free to go here.

It's a wacky world out there, but you gotta earn money somehow.  Might as well prey on the gullible people.

I don't think it really matters if the guy actually believes what he wrote, so long as other people believe it.  A lot of these people say this crap just to sell their books and colonic cleansing kits.

Gary