The Gaming Den

What seperates say, D&D, from shadowrun; and can you play a Shadowrun Game in D&D land?

I was thinking about this in an other thread when talking about magical items, and flavour.

You could seriously make Shadowrun D&D, and pull it off by making most magic items into Technology or Cybernetics.

So, you can have a +10 Spot Cyber-Eyes; or +2 Spot Cyber-Goggles; or maybe you have a gun with, or without, a scope.

If you can steal the Matahicha DBLTS (Direct Brain-Link Targeting system) or "d-bolt" rig, you can make Spot checks every time you are moving with the eye-rig active.

This fucks with your brain, since you're getting Data input from everywhere, and you seriously see the world as if you are playing a Bird's Eye View video game, with yourself as the character; since you can seriously see in front of you, and behind you; and it's a matter of 'thought', more than it is of physical motion.

Judging__Eagle wrote:What seperates say, D&D, from shadowrun; and can you play a Shadowrun Game in D&D land?

An RNG with noticeably different effects, inherent ties between the setting and dedicated subsystems in Shadowrun, and significantly different character power curves.

Are you talking about a D&D/Shadowrun crossover, or playing one of the games with (an adaptation of) the other's mechanics?

Basically, it's more about letting a player just play a Cyborg, and have me not care.

So, I guess crossover more than anything else. Sort of like Koumei's Dungeon Crusade idea.

Because honestly... while the kitchen-sink 'idea' of say... Rifts, is cool. The implementation is off, since you're actually playing different games at the same time. While in D&D, there is less pretending that different things are at the same power levels.

OGL Cybernet. does that, now I don't know how well it does it though.

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10475.phtml

Then there's d20 Future...*sigh*

Fuck that. No using failing rules.

Just use D&D monsters; and use Tome rules for everything else; and give things a flavour re-skin.

No or improvised items at the bottom; Imagine stone weapons, basically a penalty on all checks, but you can still perform the checks.
A Zip Gun, Pipe Rifle, One-hand Mortar.

Stock items as mundane PHB items. Items you would commonly do a task with (Rifle (shoot bullets at range, shotgun in a blast, Automatic Car, Stick-shift Car)

Expert made items are masterwork items (SMG, Assault Rifles, etc. Most stuff fits in here, Sports Car)

Minor (scaling) magic items (custom made things; guns with data ports, or sights that feed data straight to your head, High End sports Car)

Moderate magic items: A high-end item, often only made for proffessionals in a field.
The Latest Cyberdeck, or a set of cybernetically implanted hand-spurs, perhaps made from a special substance that is really tough (adamantine), A laser pistol, a Flying Car).

Major Magic Items: A very high-end item, only people with specific contacts, or access to secret hardware for their setting can use this stuff. There may be a few of these (or equivalent), but they're not easy to find.
A Hatori Hanzo sword, a powered armour/suit (ie Gantz, Spess Merhines, or a Gasaraki Bipedal armour, the Millenium Falcon, the Enterprise.

Artifact: Only one, and they're incredible.
The prototype android assassin-butler, the above mentioned "d-bolts" sensor/eye-rig, a nano-factory seed 'box', a suit of powered stealth gear, the Death Star, any Borg Cube.

Hmm, playing a "modern" game using the mundane stuff might be an interesting idea.

What about using adjusted Shadowrun rules to make a fantasy adventure game?

I would really like that.

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:What about using adjusted Shadowrun rules to make a fantasy adventure game?

I would really like that.

The idea for using the SR4 system for a fantasy game keeps coming up, but it doesn't seem like it has really gained any traction as of yet.

Ganbare Gincun wrote:

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:What about using adjusted Shadowrun rules to make a fantasy adventure game?

I would really like that.

The idea for using the SR4 system for a fantasy game keeps coming up, but it doesn't seem like it has really gained any traction as of yet.

That's because SR4 does not have an interesting and dynamic melee combat tactical minigame. While dicepool systems are fine for many things, and do ensemble casts of people in roughly the same power level pretty darn well, and can incorporate new characters easily - they don't inherently have an interesting melee combat tactical minigame. You need to write one.

From scratch.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:That's because SR4 does not have an interesting and dynamic melee combat tactical minigame. While dicepool systems are fine for many things, and do ensemble casts of people in roughly the same power level pretty darn well, and can incorporate new characters easily - they don't inherently have an interesting melee combat tactical minigame. You need to write one.

From scratch.

-Username17

Couldn't you combine the dicepool combat system of SR4 with a pre-existing tactical system from a game such as D&D 3.X or GURPS and end up with a playable system? Or is there something about dicepool systems that do not lend themselves to this kind of adaptation?

Ganbare Gincun wrote: Couldn't you combine the dicepool combat system of SR4 with a pre-existing tactical system from a game such as D&D 3.X or GURPS and end up with a playable system? Or is there something about dicepool systems that do not lend themselves to this kind of adaptation?

Dicepool systems favor having a group of mooks on your side, especially with scaling stat costs. This is cool in Shadowrun, where you are supposed to fear large numbers of small foes, but it would make DnD combats un-winnable.

There are a couple of ways to get around this. Namely the Shadowrun way and the AWoD way:

The Shadowrun way. Accept that even hardcore characters will never be able to directly combat large numbers of enemies. Design the game in such a way that the real challenge is avoiding this situation rather than winning it.

In a fantasy game, you would implement this system by ensuring that everyone has stealth skills, legwork skills, and some specific focus (like using magic, assassinating people, or working with crazy steampunk tech) that makes them individually useful. Dungeon crawls that involve going room-by-room and killing everything would be right out.

The AWoD way. Give the protagonists (and important antagonists) a special set of things that they can do. Like disciplines. These abilities give players a set of new maneuvers that can be used to fight individually like an entire crowd. A good example from AWoD would be Indomitability ( or hell, Endless Persistence).

In a fantasy game, you would implement this system by making spells, magic items, and insane "anime" combat maneuvers the purview of named characters.

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At least, that's what I think Frank was referring to. Perhaps there is another problem that makes dicepool games suck at melee. I really don't know.

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:The AWoD way. Give the protagonists (and important antagonists) a special set of things that they can do. Like disciplines. These abilities give players a set of new maneuvers that can be used to fight individually like an entire crowd. A good example from AWoD would be Indomitability ( or hell, Endless Persistence).

In a fantasy game, you would implement this system by making spells, magic items, and insane "anime" combat maneuvers the purview of named characters.

This certainly would be my preference. But when we talk about "insane anime combat maneuvers", what do we have to choose from? DBZ planet crackers are right out, but what special attacks would be appropriate for Heroes to have?

Ganbare Gincun wrote:

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:The AWoD way. Give the protagonists (and important antagonists) a special set of things that they can do. Like disciplines. These abilities give players a set of new maneuvers that can be used to fight individually like an entire crowd. A good example from AWoD would be Indomitability ( or hell, Endless Persistence).

In a fantasy game, you would implement this system by making spells, magic items, and insane "anime" combat maneuvers the purview of named characters.

This certainly would be my preference. But when we talk about "insane anime combat maneuvers", what do we have to choose from? DBZ planet crackers are right out, but what special attacks would be appropriate for Heroes to have?

I probably shouldn't have said "anime". Think about nifty action sequence moves. I'll give a couple of examples, without specifying numbers or system details:

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Foe-tossing charge
You move in a straight line towards a chosen enemy. Along the way any mooks through whose space you need pass are knocked aside and prone. When you reach your chosen foe, you may make a melee attack or just straight up tackle them.

This is awkward
If you take only defense actions on your turn, and are in the same round flanked/ganged up on by multiple (a certain number of) attacking mooks, these foes instead direct their attacks towards each other.

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Right, so, I am a terrible game designer, and I am sure that someone like Frank could (and in this case, has) come up with better maneuvers, but I think that you get the point. You create a set of numerous options that have variable worth depending on the number, placement, goals, and type of enemy guys.

In this case, the first would be useful if you need to get across the battlefield to a specific enemy, but not so useful if doing so would leave you in the middle of a mob. The second would allow you to defend an area (or fallen ally) against hordes of crappy melee fighters, but would mean that you couldn't move around or do much else. It would also leave you vulnerable to archers and the like.

Not that I'm saying that these abilities should be in game. In any game.

FrankTrollman wrote:That's because SR4 does not have an interesting and dynamic melee combat tactical minigame. While dicepool systems are fine for many things, and do ensemble casts of people in roughly the same power level pretty darn well, and can incorporate new characters easily - they don't inherently have an interesting melee combat tactical minigame. You need to write one.

From scratch.

-Username17

This is perfectly true. We have a lot of fun with the SR4 Medieval adaptation we've written, but melee combat is, to put it bluntly, terribly boring. It doesn't help that tactical movement in SR4 is a nightmare to work out in any practical fashion.

The Vigilante wrote:We have a lot of fun with the SR4 Medieval adaptation we've written, but melee combat is, to put it bluntly, terribly boring. It doesn't help that tactical movement in SR4 is a nightmare to work out in any practical fashion.

Can you please elaborate on its shortcomings? I'd like to know more about your experience with SR4 Medieval. And are these rules posted online somewhere? If so, can you please provide a link to them? I'd love to take a look at them.

Tactical combat requires a number of choices that are meaningful commensurate with the amount of time it takes to resolve. Dice Pool Systems take more time than single die + modifier systems do. And SR goes for 3 die rolls per attack (attack, dodge, soak), which is more than necessary (aWoD cuts that down to 2 and combat still takes too long). So to be interesting as a tactical game, characters would have to be selecting several unique actions every round. But let's face it: they are not.

The only reason SR combat is tolerable is because you get one shot per SA and you can drop pretty much anyone in two shots. So after rolling piles of dice six times (which is too many times to roll piles of dice), you end up having actually double tapped a dude in the chest and watched them drop. So combat fucking ends, and then you can go back to the game. SR Melee combat is fucking painful, because all anyone does is make "attacks" and they only make one per complex action. And each one takes 3 die rolls to resolve, and none of them are more interesting than a AD&D basic attack. And you're rolling Initiative every round, but you already know what your action is going to be (attack with sword). After chopping your way through eight goblins, you're ready to just let them kill you to make it all end.

What you need is first of all: a reduction in the number of rolls. Attack Roll and Soak Roll is fine. Attack, Damage and Soak or Attack, Dodge, and Soak is just too much. Secondly, you desperately need to have to make decisions about Positioning, Attacking, and Defenses. For Positioning to matter, you need some kind of zones of control. For attacks to matter, players need to have a choice of several different attacks that are meaningfully and usefully different. For Defenses to matter, each character must have access to a set of defensive stances that are meaningfully and helpfully different from one another.

So now let's say that you want to have a minimalist fantasy system. So you have 3 different kinds of characters who fight (in OD&D terms, this is Fighting Men, Thieves, and Clerics - but practically this might be skirmishers, hoplites, and cavalry - I don't care). And each of them needs to be able to be different from another person in his type. And each of them needs at least three things to do when presented an attack or defense choice. So in pure minimalism, you need to write up 36 attack and defense modes. And that's a bullshit minimalist system, right? Add in any kind of depth, and you're going to want lists of martial maneuvers to be roughly as long as the basic Shadowrun high tech equipment list. And it could easily and cheerfully benefit from being several times longer than that.

-Username17