The Gaming Den

My girlfriend and I want to do a Full Metal Alchemist game, and have been thinking of various ways to do so, she wanted to run d20, but I realized that, near as I can tell, White Wolf works perfectly...

Alchemists can just use the mage system with maybe some minor tweaks, homunculi, chimera and "stuck in armour" characters pretty much use the possessed rules...


are there any pitfalls I'm missing here? (aside from possible perceived suckitude in the core system... we don't need an entirely new system, we're perfectly fine with having to make do...)

Pssst: SAME system

http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... 8[br][br]I just had a session using it and it's very stable.

that's great, but we're fine with using storyteller. We're not looking for another system...

Where you asking a fluff related question?

what type of adventure are you running?

I don't know what she's thinking about running, I'm just the person with more experience in the rules and the one that got up at 10:30 this morning with nothing to do, so I worked out a lot of stuff. I was just asking if there's any problem inherrent in the rules we're thinking about using as far as adapting them to the setting...

Prak_Anima at [unixtime wrote:1189808252[/unixtime]]My girlfriend and I want to do a Full Metal Alchemist game, and have been thinking of various ways to do so, she wanted to run d20, but I realized that, near as I can tell, White Wolf works perfectly...

Between FMA and 'WW works perfectly', I am sorely tempted to add this to the 'threads that make us laugh/cry'.

But once upon a time (or, actually, two or three times upon a time, between various editions) WW published a Mage(?) sourcebook on Hedge Magic. Lots of Alchemy and various magic styles that weren't quite on the Mage level of turning vampires into lawnchairs, or spontanteously creating a miniature sun. It could be workable. It was WoD: Sorcerer or Hedge Magic or something.

The only thing I like about FMA is when that buttwipe mage villain snaps his fingers and shit explodes. That's about it.

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189828377[/unixtime]]The only thing I like about FMA is when that buttwipe mage villain snaps his fingers and shit explodes. That's about it.

wha? If you mean Roy... he's not a villian... he's an ass, I'll give ya that, but that's the guy whose shtick it is to snap his fingers and make explosions....

Voss wrote:Between FMA and 'WW works perfectly', I am sorely tempted to add this to the 'threads that make us laugh/cry'.

first, we like FMA, second, we like WW, third, the system works perfectly fine for our purposes, which strangely, don't include raping the system in inane ways just because we can... despite the fact that I keep trying to justify human alchemy...

But once upon a time (or, actually, two or three times upon a time, between various editions) WW published a Mage(?) sourcebook on Hedge Magic. Lots of Alchemy and various magic styles that weren't quite on the Mage level of turning vampires into lawnchairs, or spontanteously creating a miniature sun. It could be workable. It was WoD: Sorcerer or Hedge Magic or something.

I'll look around, but the normal magic system seems like it will work fine, and that's what we've got... the laws of alchemy should be more than enough to keep people from abusing things too much...

Well I've only seen about 3 episodes, so can't really pass judgement on that show, but wish I could help you.
I just can't stand the dialogue.

The magic system ain't bad tho... something about equal exchange of energy and matter?
Sure does put limits on the amount of 'reality sculpting' a caster can do, which is a good thing in some cases..

I think they released a "low magic"* supplement book for things like psychic powers, alchemy, and crap. Second Sight maybe. I'm not sure how you'd enforce the laws of alchemy with the Mage: The Awakening system. Another concern, at low Arcana dots mages are weaker than even amateur alchemists, and at 5 dots, or even 4 in some cases, mages are ridiculously powerful compared to even state alchemists; hell even incomplete philosopher's stone wielding state alchemists. At Spirit 5 mages can create lesser gods for goodness sake!

*low magic as opposed to awakened magic

Just how are Mages so powerful, anyway? I'm asking a serious question, not a sarcastic one-I seriously could not bear to read through all of the bullshit fluff in that book. Mostly because I read for hours and never got to the crunch.

The reasoning behind Mages being so powerful is that they apparently see/understand that reality (and its rules) only really exists because you (as in, any and all sentience) believe that it should. Because so many people more or less agree on how reality works (up is up, water is wet, etc), their collective 'will' overrides the few deviants that believe otherwise; almost like the laws of physics are enforced by mob rule.

Mages, because they're awesome, not only understand the ephemeral nature of everything, but get to use their willpower to make reality work how they want it to.

That was how Ascension worked. It's changed since the nWoD was released, and now Mages get their power by dialing up other dimensions and getting their spells delivered via UPS; making their awesome power pretty arbitrary.

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189840830[/unixtime]]Well I've only seen about 3 episodes, so can't really pass judgement on that show, but wish I could help you.
I just can't stand the dialogue.

I can understand, it's a matter of personal taste. This is another time when I am practically floored when I compare this to the response I'd have gotten on the wizards boards...

The magic system ain't bad tho... something about equal exchange of energy and matter?
Sure does put limits on the amount of 'reality sculpting' a caster can do, which is a good thing in some cases..

yeah, in order to transmute, you must start with equal amounts of matter/energy, and the beginning materials and end result must be similar, the incomplete philosopher's stone delays your payment and takes it out of your hide, while the real philosopher's stone allows you to, ostensibly, bend or break the laws of alchemy. I figure the laws translate pretty easily, especially since in that setting, alchemy is actually coincidental magic and human alchemy is vulger magic. So if someone sees you turn lead into gold, they say "oh, he's an alchemist." If you try to bring the dead back to life, the paradox spirits piss in your cheerios.

So alchemist = Transmuter, which fits well with Frank's inter-class balance theory (that all classes should compare to a full class Transm. in scope of capability) but the spells themselves seem to differ.
I mean that Transmutation is awesome and all but the shit I seen go down on FMA is really interesting...

You'd have to redesign the spells themselves to get, say, chain reaction effects like that episode where the whole forest sponges up some rampant red energy and crystalized.
Stuff could get out of hand fast.

You'd also have to develop a balancing system that determines when and how an alchemist will 'pay the price' for going over their limit.

virgileso at [unixtime wrote:1189846310[/unixtime]]The reasoning behind Mages being so powerful is that they apparently see/understand that reality (and its rules) only really exists because you (as in, any and all sentience) believe that it should. Because so many people more or less agree on how reality works (up is up, water is wet, etc), their collective 'will' overrides the few deviants that believe otherwise; almost like the laws of physics are enforced by mob rule.

Mages, because they're awesome, not only understand the ephemeral nature of everything, but get to use their willpower to make reality work how they want it to.

That was how Ascension worked. It's changed since the nWoD was released, and now Mages get their power by dialing up other dimensions and getting their spells delivered via UPS; making their awesome power pretty arbitrary.

No, I mean mechanically.

Oh, well then, that's a different story. The main reason they could do whatever they wanted was because the rules for what you could and could not do were vague at the best of times.

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189847098[/unixtime]]So alchemist = Transmuter, which fits well with Frank's inter-class balance theory (that all classes should compare to a full class Transm. in scope of capability) but the spells themselves seem to differ.
I mean that Transmutation is awesome and all but the shit I seen go down on FMA is really interesting...

You'd have to redesign the spells themselves to get, say, chain reaction effects like that episode where the whole forest sponges up some rampant red energy and crystalized.
Stuff could get out of hand fast.

You'd also have to develop a balancing system that determines when and how an alchemist will 'pay the price' for going over their limit.

usually they pay the price right then and there... hence the major bodily damage of Ed and Al... the fake stone is pretty much just a plot device and as players we know that messing around with the laws too much is just going to kill us...so... pretty much only npcs will be doing that... though if I play a homunculus then I heal with fake stones, and so I'll actually need some bitch to follow me around making fake stones for me to heal with...

Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1189847126[/unixtime]]
No, I mean mechanically.

Badly for the most part. Old edition: it was a straight roll of Arete. (Which corresponded to Random Magical Stat in all the other WW games. Gnosis, or whatever). Which sucked, really, since by the character creation rules, you weren't suppose to start with more than 2 or 3 dots in it. Which meant you sucked, with the way their system worked.

After that, it was divided up into spheres which limited what you could and couldn't do... up to 5 dots each. 1 dot was purely sensory, and 5 dots meant you could do anything appropriate to the sphere. And I mean anything. 5 dots in Matter meant you could turn Elder Vampires into lawn chairs.

The new system... not sure. I haven't had enough interest in the new crap to bother deciphering it. I think its stat+(sphere? or whatever its called now) + overall magic stat. or something. So the die pool is a lot bigger.

Old edition had stuff like rituals to allow you to boost your effective dice pool by an arbitrarily large amount, on top of the fact that the rules were seriously abstract enough that I've seen a few DMs allow you do the lawnchair trick with Matter 3 if you got even more successes.

Back in the day, when I played Mage, I had an argument with a friend over which side was generally superior; vampires or mages (he said vampires were largely the superior). I was foolish in actually pursuing the argument, and we eventually came to the bet of making vampires and mages to duel each other. I made three types of mages...one designed for anti-vampire, one designed to be hard to beat in general (not really much in the way of 'cheesy' tactics), and one designed for raw power against ALL forces.

I won.

Prak_Anima at [unixtime wrote:1189840636[/unixtime]]
first, we like FMA, second, we like WW, third, the system works perfectly fine for our purposes, which strangely, don't include raping the system in inane ways just because we can... despite the fact that I keep trying to justify human alchemy...

The (both) WW systems are complete crap, and you don't have to try to break them to make them so.

There are significant issues when being extremely good at something makes you more likely to have a catastrophic failure, which was a problem in the first system.

There are significant problems when, in combat, being 4 times better is the equivalent to having your clone next to you, which is a problem with the new system.

virgileso at [unixtime wrote:1189900612[/unixtime]]Old edition had stuff like rituals to allow you to boost your effective dice pool by an arbitrarily large amount, on top of the fact that the rules were seriously abstract enough that I've seen a few DMs allow you do the lawnchair trick with Matter 3 if you got even more successes.

Matter 3 probably is enough in all honestly. All you have to do is turn one type of matter (the corpse, the fact that its walking around and talking is relevant) to another (the lawn chair).

Of course, with Forces or Correspondence you could shove actual sunlight in a vamps face at will, so it wasn't really an issue.

Steve Jackson released a GURPS version of Mage: and WW cancelled the license because they gave to much away by codifying the effects.

-Crissa

Oh, and if you really want a mindfvck, take a look at Monte Cook's d20 World of Darkness. Yeah. Thats right, d20 World of Darkness. So what does he do? He rewrites the fvcking setting again. Basically, alien intelligences (called Inconnu, in what seems to be an attempt to make die-hard vampire fans explode with rage) created vampires, werewolves, demons 6 months ago after a failed 'incursion'. And mages got empowered as a side effect. Also some people became skill monkeys (and yeah. thats it).

The pseudo clans, tribes etc from new world of darkness of are sort of there, but not really relevant since there isn't a society as such. Vampires are essentially the spirits murders called back into someone else's body, werewolves are weird animal killers from another dimension, Demons are just demons. Its funky. And stupid. And I'd have to really look into it, but between the insane healing rates things have, and their pathetic damage potential, I'm not sure that they can actually kill each other unless someone makes a stupid-good offensive build and the other makes a stupid-bad defensive build.

And level 1 = level 4 for no apparent reason (so 4x HP, skills, a bonus feat and a stat increase), except possibly to deal with guns. Its really rather sad, all around.

And for the record, I'm currently watching the end of the Stupidest Highlander Movie Yet, which is something I didn't believe possible. But, hey, its all about an astronomical conjunction, which is obvious when you think about it. And bad theme music.

Neeek at [unixtime wrote:1189914141[/unixtime]]

Prak_Anima at [unixtime wrote:1189840636[/unixtime]]
first, we like FMA, second, we like WW, third, the system works perfectly fine for our purposes, which strangely, don't include raping the system in inane ways just because we can... despite the fact that I keep trying to justify human alchemy...

The (both) WW systems are complete crap, and you don't have to try to break them to make them so.

There are significant issues when being extremely good at something makes you more likely to have a catastrophic failure, which was a problem in the first system.

There are significant problems when, in combat, being 4 times better is the equivalent to having your clone next to you, which is a problem with the new system.

let me put it this way... I know the problems with the system. I know that with enough dots you can turn a vamp's lair into the sun to really screw with him. I know that a lot of people here think that ST sucks, and, in fact, D20 too... along with pretty much every system out there that wasn't made here by frank. I got it, a lot of you worship frank with the fervor of fundamentalist christians. I don't want to hear stuff I already know about a system I rather like for silly little reasons like fond memories of weekly games that, while often frustrating, provided a lot of fun. I want to know if there are any things in the mage system(or by extent, the possessed system, though I've a good handle on that) that will make it so that it doesn't replicate FMA. ok? that's all.

voss wrote:Oh, and if you really want a mindfvck, take a look at Monte Cook's d20 World of Darkness. Yeah. Thats right, d20 World of Darkness. So what does he do? He rewrites the fvcking setting again. Basically, alien intelligences (called Inconnu, in what seems to be an attempt to make die-hard vampire fans explode with rage) created vampires, werewolves, demons 6 months ago after a failed 'incursion'. And mages got empowered as a side effect. Also some people became skill monkeys (and yeah. thats it).

The pseudo clans, tribes etc from new world of darkness of are sort of there, but not really relevant since there isn't a society as such. Vampires are essentially the spirits murders called back into someone else's body, werewolves are weird animal killers from another dimension, Demons are just demons. Its funky. And stupid. And I'd have to really look into it, but between the insane healing rates things have, and their pathetic damage potential, I'm not sure that they can actually kill each other unless someone makes a stupid-good offensive build and the other makes a stupid-bad defensive build.

And level 1 = level 4 for no apparent reason (so 4x HP, skills, a bonus feat and a stat increase), except possibly to deal with guns. Its really rather sad, all around.

meh, is it really any worse than D&D? I was looking at it last night, and thought it might be fun to take the system and shove it into a home brew setting. But then again, I liked Rifts, actually partially because of MDC...

And for the record, I'm currently watching the end of the Stupidest Highlander Movie Yet, which is something I didn't believe possible. But, hey, its all about an astronomical conjunction, which is obvious when you think about it. And bad theme music.

the sci fi original one? how is it bad, specifically? are they aliens again?