fallout tabletop wiki?

[Speed_demon]

Hatchen I understood that part of your explanation. I've played RPG's for like 20 years, all kinds of games. The issue i have is with the spending points to improve a current skill to a higher rating, or by the same note, how the points are spent to choose a skill ability rating at character creation. There are quite a few different ways I’ve seen to do this...

My favorite is for the D% game I'm working on. There is not an arbitrary initial amount of points for skills and attributes. Attributes are not "rolled" they are calculated in much the same way as the skill ratings, as the level of the attribute (on character creation) increases, it becomes progressively more expensive to increase the rating of the attribute. The skills work the same way, with an exponential increase of building points. There's a bit of math (of course) to figure the exact costs, but it allows for MUCH more plausible player characters. Without this bullshit rolling dice and having the character reliant on a random number of dice. Sometimes the dice seem not so random, making impossibly stacked characters.

I will explain the two extremes. PC#1 has a more "average" spread of attribute (or skill) ratings, and therefore has more points spread over a larger area of skills, but his levels in the skills are low to average in proficiency. He is a jack of all trades, and/or has average attributes, none are low, but none are high either.

The other extreme is what I call the "HI-LO" player character. This is the PC who is really good in one or a few areas, but knows fewer skills or has more attributes at a lower level. A good example is the big dumb jock. Great physical attributes, but his mentaland/or social attributes are lower than average. In terms of skills this person is more of a specialist, possesses a high skill rating, so is very capable with a professional title or recognition. Craftsmen and experts are among some of the names these people possess.

A PC can be in either extreme or average, or can be somewhere in the middle of the two examples, allowing great flexibility in character creation.

There are also skills that directly and/or indirectly effect attributes and normally they increase the rating. These skills cost slightly more to balance the game, and they build character background and add depth.

rolling 2 dice is enough for me, unless I'm playing Yatzee or something

[Hatchen]

I see your point. I should probably be more open minded to games that I have not much experiance with . Well, your system or simplification of SPECIAL does seem reasonable. The system you are talking of, is it of your own making or is it from special or another (you probably already mentioned the system name)? I never really played a d% game expecpt for the original pnp version straight from the fallout computer game. Besides that, I only played the Story teller system (which does have more than two dice at the max of 5-8 or something like that)

Besides than that, I played a d20 version of fallout that my friend uses and some Gamma world game system that my Father had used. Apperently my friend had found a way of to just simply put all the fallout aspects to d20 with no fuss or muss, no generic d20 game, but a more specific one. Basically you put all the fallout skills in place of most of d20 skills and you change all the attributes to 7 attributes and traits could go in and perks switched with feats. All there has to be is some easy number conversions and other mumbo jumbo. I'll have to actually find out what he is doing with it.

[Speed_demon]

The origional system I used is called Milleniums End, which at this point is not in print. It has an interesting way of determining hits as well..., there is a picture of what target u are shooting (or punching, kicking, stabbing whatever) of lets say a guy walking. u then take an overhead (AKA transparentcy) with a target in the middle, this is the intended target, then the transparentcy has points in a random pattern, moving away from the intended "bullseye" and as the difference between the target % and the rolled % gets less accurate, the points get further away.
kind of complicated to explain, so i uploaded some pics

Bodymap (target)


Overlay
couldn't find the exact one, but its basically like a gun sight
[/img]

u basically put the "gun sight" over the "target" and roll em %

[atoga]

i am a fan of the shadowrun skill system, though my absolute favourite in terms of playability is GURPS.

also i don't understand this pip business. do pips 'buy' dice in some fashion, sort of like pools do in shadowrun?


thoughts on skill advancement:
my favourite model for skill advancement is something basically linear like in je sawyer's version of fallout (if the number of points you have put into a skill thusfar is 0-50, it costs 1 point to raise; if it's 51-100, 2 points; 101-150, 3 points; and so on; tag skills are doubled from 0-50%, and otherwise cost 1 point less, so raising a tag from 101-150 costs only 2 points). i think that's a pretty reasonable & simple model, as it allows for specialization that is costly, but not too costly, and it also allows for players to become jacks of all trades pretty easily.

i didn't like shadowrun's way of handling raising skills, mostly because it was too costly and it seemed counterintuitive that it would cost almost as much to raise a skill by one point as it would an attribute. it made it nearly impossible to specialize.

Besides than that, I played a d20 version of fallout that my friend uses and some Gamma world game system that my Father had used. Apperently my friend had found a way of to just simply put all the fallout aspects to d20 with no fuss or muss, no generic d20 game, but a more specific one. Basically you put all the fallout skills in place of most of d20 skills and you change all the attributes to 7 attributes and traits could go in and perks switched with feats. All there has to be is some easy number conversions and other mumbo jumbo. I'll have to actually find out what he is doing with it.

d20 is mostly parallel with fallout, in terms of character advancement anyway. the only thing that i can't stand about d20 is the way combat works, and in fact the emphasis that it places on combat (there are no combat skills, afterall, and almost all the feats in it are combat related).

[PiP]

i don't understand this pip business.

I'm all at sea with it, too.

[Hatchen]

i am a fan of the shadowrun skill system, though my absolute favourite in terms of playability is GURPS.

also i don't understand this pip business. do pips 'buy' dice in some fashion, sort of like pools do in shadowrun?

Firstly, I didn't hear of shadowrun till now. So if you could explain a bit of what it is, I might be able to make a comparison.

Now, lets see if I can sort out this pip system. Lets use something else to help explain it. How bout measurements? I am sure you know what a centimeter is and what a Meter is. It takes 100 centimeters to create one meter. So, a pip and a dice is just like measurments. A pip is like a centimeter, it takes three pips tp create a Dice, the meter. Pips don't buy a thing, they are a measurment. Character points buy pips.

Does this make more sense or did I misunderstand the question?

[Speed_demon]

ATOGA: Milleniums End (M.E.) uses a sliding cost scale, but the increments are more frequent. 1-25% costs 1 point each, 26-40 costs 2 points, 41-55 costs 3 points, 56-70 costs 4 points each, 71 and up costs 5 points each. Therefore it costs 45 points for 35%, 85 points for 50%, 235 points for 85% and 310 points for 100%. A starting character is limited to 55% in a parent skill, and (half parent, rounded down) 27% in the child skill, for a total of 82% maximum.

had the correct overlays sent to me.

[atoga]

shadowrun skills work as follows:
-first roll a number of dice equal to your skill (skills are usually no higher than a player's attributes, which range from 1 to 6, 3 being average).
-compare the die results with a target number (for an 'average' task, target number is 4). each die which exceeds the target number counts as a 'success'. dice which reach 6 can be rolled again and 'added' to the previous result to reach target numbers above 6.
-if you don't have the skill, then you can default to an attribute, although the target number will usually go up a lot.
-the more successes you get on a check, the better the result is. ie. you do more damage in combat, or you get more info when muckracking, etc.
-characters also have 'pools' of a certain size (most notably a combat pool, which usually has ~6 dice) which they can spend on die rolls as they wish, ie. for making attack rolls, resisting damage, dodging stuff, etc. pools usually refresh each combat round.

it's a pretty intuitive system, i like it, especially the dice pools because they ask for a lot of strategizing on the player's part and it adds sort of a superhero feel to the game.

the overlay system looks pretty dope, though i was hoping for a simplified combat system (combat in fallout pnp takes long enough as it is), not an elaborated one.

[Speed_demon]

personally, i think simplified combat is over-rated. accurate, fast combat is the way to go, keeps u on ur toes.

I agree shadowrun has a great system, allows for big fun with how it runs. on e problem with my player boys is we know the systems so well, we get like 10 dice in our combat pools, 9-10 in body, 8-9 in strength and so on. cyberware and bioware being the main contributers. the magic in shadowrun SUCKS, at a higher level, its ridiculous and abusive. eventually its fuckin invincible, making the game a shitfest. not like theres any magic in fallout, but it needed to be said

[Hatchen]

Actually, it does seem interesting. Is there any way I can get some sort of core rules or at least some detailed information about it. I would like to look more into this Shadowrun rules system. As the saying goes "don't make an opinion about something until you know more about it". So, as I said, as of this far, it seems like it could be good.

[Speed_demon]

check torrent sites, i found one that had ALL the books. its up to 4th edition now

[Hatchen]

So, basically look for: Shadowrun system, or Corerules?

has anyone played with the Story teller system that whitewolf used?

[Speed_demon]

yeah, i wasnt big on the combat system in Whitewolf stuff

[Hatchen]

I thought it was okay, but, I dunno. It did not seem to spark my interest too much. Ohh ya, I found a 4th edition main book for shadowrun, is this what I am looking for?

[Speed_demon]

i havent been able to take a close look at the 4th ed books yet. I played 2nd and 3rd ed, and was lucky to have an amazing Storyteller for the game, but unfortunetly he moved out of my area. if u find any Milleniums End books, they might be more in your favor. Some of the rules in the book have been re-written by fans and most i've seen are good. ur best bet is to get to find a RPG store and scan the used books, as they can be read easily.

[atoga]

IIRC they totally changed the system in shadowrun 4th ed, though i never got around to playing it so i don't know how different it is.

what's a good torrent site for rpg books?

[Hatchen]

I have them already downloaded. Why don't I just email them to you all nicely zipped up? THere are three "books" (Adobe PDF's) that come with it. 1 rule book and 2 source or campaign books. Just pm me if you are interested. If not, then look in The Pirates Bay. I tend to look into torrentspy.com first, but usually they have squat. Most of the rpg books I found where in The pirates bay. I found Aberrant there, it was very hard to find anywhere else.

I skimmed a bit through the thing, character creation from your short discribtion sounds pretty close to the same. Is it quick to make those skills higher dice? As far as it seems, it does not appear to be so, unless like you stated, you know the system well and get parts implanted. Heh, the races are kinda like fallout in a very loose sense. They were all human and their stats and death expectancy changes. But one big difference between the two, in Fallout, humans are the only unsteril ones.

I might look more into this, I might even buy a book and maybe attempt to play it , if not , just to read over. For now, I think this file should be good enough for me.

[Speed_demon]

[quote="Hatchen"] But one big difference between the two, in Fallout, humans are the only steril ones.[quote]

uh what? super mutants are the only sterlie ones IIRC, and even some of them werent (or was that a screw up?)

EDIT BTW i searched mininova for the Shadowrun books

[Redeye]

Atoga's avatar makes me feel like I'm having a conversation at the dinner table.

"slurp" talk "slurp" talk

gesticulating with the fork

and so on


It's neat.

This discussion has me thinking I should dig out my Aftermath box and look it over again.

But its just so hard to read.

Design.

[Hatchen]

Hmm, sorry about that. I accidently did not stick in the "un" part of "steril". Please excuse this stupid mistake. I edited it to make sure it makes sense now.