Fantasy Heartbreaker Dicepool Game System?

[souran]

So,

The thread on optimal resolution mechanics has got me thinking.

Dice pool systems are neat and their lack of the swingyness of d20 is something that always attracts me back to such systems time and again.

However, I like fantasy rpgs and have never seen a good dicepool fantasy rpg. I also like things like levels and tiers because they help you know when something is an appropriate challege (or at least they try to).

Also, it seems like dice pool games are more normal for sci-fi/horror type games as opposed to "stock" fantasy type games.

Are there any good dice pool fantasy games out there?

[Username17]

Are there any good dice pool fantasy games out there?

Mouseguard probably fits the bill. It's genuinely good and it's fantasy, and it uses dice pools.

Personally, I find Burning Wheel to be circle jerking tripe, but it has its proponents. Exalted is crap and there are a number of rant threads about that fact.

There are a number of board games that use dice pools and happen to have fantasy trappings. Not just shitty tie-in products like the WoW boardgame, actual games you might want to play.

In answer to your probable secret question of whether there are any dicepool fantasy games with robust tactical minigames, the answer is no. There's no reason there couldn't be one, there just happens to not be.

-Username17

[Previn]

Warhammer FRPG is a dice pool that just uses funky sides on the dice.

L5R (I think) though it may not fit the deffiniton of 'fantasy heartbreaker.'

I think, and I could easily be wrong, that dice pools don't scale well enough for the ranges of power that we would expect from a D&D type game.

[PoliteNewb]

Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronin is pretty decent.

[souran]

Mouseguard probably fits the bill. It's genuinely good and it's fantasy, and it uses dice pools.

Personally, I find Burning Wheel to be circle jerking tripe, but it has its proponents. Exalted is crap and there are a number of rant threads about that fact.

Mouseguard while interesting is not really what I am looking for. Also I have heard that the combat is slow and crap.

The fact that burning wheel is crap is completly shocking! Who could have thought that a game that far up its own ass would be crap!!!

Exalted is mechanically broken and both subtly and overtly offensive, however there is an idea for a game in there along with enough background/flaire/history/kitchen-sink to make something if you were really willing to build from the ground up.

In answer to your probable secret question of whether there are any dicepool fantasy games with robust tactical minigames, the answer is no. There's no reason there couldn't be one, there just happens to not be.

-Username17

Wha? Am I that easy to read? It would be nice to have a game that had a good enough combat engine that it was worth really playing. Also, fantasy heartbreaker with bad combat engines die when people find out that the part where they let go and enjoy some good old fashioned escapist carnage is not fullfilling.

A lot of work has been done here at the Den to use a stripped down version of SR4 as the mechanical background for games (awod/after sundown after shadowrun/your game about hte people who don't know htey have superpowers)

I know it has problems with death spirals and terrible hand to hand combat but how robust would that system be as the backbone of a fantasy heartbreaker? How much could you tart altering combat without destroying the base mechanic?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Mouseguard while interesting is not really what I am looking for. Also I have heard that the combat is slow and crap.

It's not slow. It's extremely non-tactical and relies on narrative sleight-of-hand, but it's not slow. I can totally understand why you wouldn't want to play that system though.

I know it has problems with death spirals and terrible hand to hand combat but how robust would that system be as the backbone of a fantasy heartbreaker? How much could you tart altering combat without destroying the base mechanic?

Unless you're going for grim-and-gritty, just take out the wound penalty or at least severely curtail it.

The combat system is by no means terrible except for a couple of hiccups like the gymnastics thing and extra-linear soak rolls, the problem is that there is no tactical positioning system. Because it was a game in which you're primarily expected to use ranged weapons. You will have to write something from scratch.

Because Shadowrun maintains a very unsteady detente with technology and magic to keep both systems balanced, if you want to keep magic in the game you need to come up with some kind of replacement for technology that will not only replicate the numbers but simultaneously has functions that magic can't touch. Since you're doing a fantasy setting, good fucking luck with that. There is the fact that Shadowrun's system is very specific and people will cough 'ripoff' into their hands unless you rehaul it from the ground up, but it is still a really good magic system.

[MfA]

You could try to replace the scifi with steampunk ... still not fantasy proper, but closer.

[souran]

You could try to replace the scifi with steampunk ... still not fantasy proper, but closer.

Meh, writting the non magic "powers" wouldn't even be hard for my group. Its just a matter of not wanting to do it/its easier when other people can go to the store and buy shit for the game.

[DrPraetor]

Oh, screw it, let's write one.

For a starter template, we've got After Sundown. After Sundown has too many skills, so we're going to swap those around into:

Physical:
Athletics, Combat, Empathy, Intimidation, Larceny, Perception, Persuasion, Stealth, Survival

Technical:
Animal Ken, Craft*, Expression, Heal*, Literacy*, Lore*, Occult*, Ride*, Tactics

Notice that we have, by virtue of making them technical, made *any score whatsoever* in Animal Ken, Expression and Tactics a bigger deal.

So, next agenda item, magic.

Magic comes in three varieties, of which the natives of the setting only identify *one* as magic.

First, there is Spirit Magic, which takes the form of blessings you obtain by bargaining with spirit entities. You can have one such blessing per point of Charisma you have, they have skill requirements, and you can trade them around during play if you pass the requisite social minigame. Civilized characters (who have high ratings in Expression, Literacy, and so forth) tend to get these blessings from their ancestor spirits. Barbarian characters may get them from the spirits of the land as well (as can anyone else with Survival skill). Being a shaman just means you have a high Expression skill as well, so you can trade these around a lot.

Second, there is Divine Magic, which comes from otherworldly or celestial gods. It costs either Faith or Edge to use and is quite impressive; having it at all requires you to take Faith, which is nearly as good as having a second Edge stat but which costs characteristic points. You also need to pick a religion which determines what miracles you can perform, as well as giving you deeds which recover you a Faith point at end of session.

Finally, there is Sorcery, which is what people in the setting mean when they say "Magic". In contrast to After Sundown, we have some characters who are Magic Users, who are specifically deficient in the mundane stuff that the other characters can do. Therefore, sorcery requires it's own set of skills:
Animate (the Dead)
Conjure (Demons)
Ensorcell
Shift (Shape)
Weave (Illusions)

In general, you get a spell for each point in each magical skill that you have. You also have to choose a method by which you do Sorcery, which determines how you regain power points, and also what you do to something in order to use your magic on it.

Conjure let's you call upon Demons, who are not recognized as being a sort of spirit or a sort of God, but are some other sort of thing entirely. Demons are insubstantial beings, generally speaking, but you can curse people by sending demons to harry them (or turn them into something unpleasant). Demons possess things - including you, which is how you change shape (a favorite thing for Sorcerers to do) but that's a different skill, and having demons specifically animate dead bodies is necromancy. You can also animate dead bodies or inanimate objects by conjuring demons to inhabit them, and

Ensorcell let's you confuse people, make them fall asleep, mess with their memories, make them do what you say, and so forth. Weave let's you weave illusions.

Bladesharp (Combat 2)
When fighting with an heirloom weapon, take a -1 die penalty to your combat test to make the proper obsequies to the ancestors. In exchange, if you hit, your enemies gain no soak bonus from armor.

Blood of Courage (Combat 3)
When engaging multiple enemies, you take no dice pool penalty for being outnumbered. However, if you beat a cowardly retreat from combat (many retreats are not cowardly: covering someone else's escape, for example) you attract the Wrath of the Ancestors.

Ward against Demons (Occult 1)
Assuming you remember your obsequies (assume you do unless there's reason to doubt it - various entities will try to trick you into not doing them but that's pretty damn obvious) demons cannot touch or possess you. If they try, they suffer a 2 pt. wound, use your Charisma + Expression to stage up the damage, they can soak normally. They can do other things to you (like, for example, picking up a spear and stabbing you with it) without being harmed, but no touching.

Whistle up a Fog (Survival 2, Stealth 2)
At night, you can call upon the spirits to send a fog to shroud you. Roll Persuasion + Willpower; if you get 2 hits, you get a fog for a scene; but, if you roll no hits, you attract the Wrath of the Ancestors.

Star Crossed (Lore 3)
Your ancestors guard your horoscope from malign influences. Any attempt to use Sorcery to afflict ill luck on you (that is, reduce your Edge stat) simply fails.

***
Faith of Zin, Deity of Purity
Strictures:
* Remain spiritually pure (no Sorcery)
Deeds:
* Purge the impure. Regain a Faith at the end of any session in which you make material progress fighting practitioners of Sorcery.
Miracles: Abjuring, Dispelling, Smiting.

Faith of Elyvilon, Deity of Mercy
Strictures:
* Be merciful
Deeds:
* Suffer for your convictions. Regain a Faith at the end of any session in which you suffer material setbacks or significant hinderance because you were merciful or generous in a way that was clearly detrimental to you.
Miracles: Abjuring, Healing, Revelation.

[...You Lost Me]

Well here's a terrible one.

[OgreBattle]

Riddle of Steel

make the balls metaphorical.

[Murtak]

Dice pool systems are neat and their lack of the swingyness of d20 is something that always attracts me back to such systems time and again.

However, I like fantasy rpgs and have never seen a good dicepool fantasy rpg.

The issue here is not with bad dicepool RPGs but bad RPGs period. More than 90% of all RPGs are shit and the 10% that are left are merely partially shitty. Anways, if you like dicepool systems for their lack of swinginess, GURPS might work out for you, since their 3d6 system also reduces swinginess as compared to a single die system.

[MGuy]

Because Shadowrun maintains a very unsteady detente with technology and magic to keep both systems balanced, if you want to keep magic in the game you need to come up with some kind of replacement for technology that will not only replicate the numbers but simultaneously has functions that magic can't touch.

Couldn't you just break magic over your knee then split and relegate certain aspects of it. Say Shamanism deals with all things spirit. You can't trap a soul or even Astral project without knowing this school of magic. Get your Chi/Ki/Effort flow going for the martial types. This would be where your self transformation stuff goes on. Getting instantly stronger, faster, some third physical thing, would be done through this. Make sure they HadouCAN do something interesting. Then you get your 'psionics' in another bundle. Anything that goes along with mind tricks would go here. Your telekinesis, your mind reading/raping, etc. Elementalists would make use of the elements. Planar magicians will teleport/summon shit. Blah blah blah, you get the point.

[Username17]

There are two concerns as regards game balance. The first is minigame effectiveness. Many RPGs only have a combat minigame to worry about, and in any case this is extremely easy to balance. If shooting arrows at dragons is a reasonable way to bring them down, then the players won't feel that the archer is underperforming in combat. And that remains true for whatever minigames you choose to add. If you decide you need a social minigame or a kingdom management minigame, you can easily give warriors commanding presences that will be as useful as anything spells do in your system.

But no matter how many minigames you have, a very large part of any RPG worthy of the name is "doing other stuff". And a large amount of that is going to be magical teaparty. And within magical teaparty, being stronger or faster is almost useless because you're mostly just telling the MC that you want to go up stairs or open doors or write a letter or whatever and every character can do that. You're just "using normal physics", but if you have access to some other physics (like say, magical powers), then you can use those as well.

Every player character has knees, eyes, and thumbs, so any character can walk up stairs and pull a lever with their hand. But only the telekinetic character can pull a lever with telekinesis.

Shadowrun bypassed this problem to an extent by taking place in the near future where technical skills allow you to do all kinds of extra stuff in magical teaparty. Not everyone can plug their brain into steam shovel and start piloting construction equipment around with their mind or download knowledge of a new language into their cranial memory - but some of the player characters can. In a generic fantasy Europe setting, that kind of stuff doesn't exist, and people who don't have personal magical powers are at a huge disadvantage during magical teaparty portions of adventures.

---

Now more generally, what most decent Dicepool systems have as far as combat goes is the tactical concerns of excessive force and stealth. That is, there are weapons big enough to kill anything, but using weapons that are too big gets society down on you and society as a whole is large and powerful enough to crush anyone. And so you end up trying to sneak up on enemies and arrange for battles to be fought on your terms so that they don't get a chance to bring the laser sharks or whatever. It's actually OK for the battles themselves to be "Bang! You're dead!" because most of the conflict is in the sneaking, planning, scouting, and getting away before the cops show up.

If you wanted to go fantasy, those concerns mostly don't exist. So you'd need to graft in a set of tactical options that would make the actual sword fights interesting. And that involves writing up a bunch of maneuvers pretty much from scratch.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Make sure they HadouCAN do something interesting.

"Seems like your Hadouken is more of a... Hadoucan't. A Hadon'tken... no wait, No-can-do-Ken!"

CryingKen.jpg

[OgreBattle]

So how do dicepools handle things like "and the eight kobolds attack"

Do you just have to deal with 8 teeny die pools

Or is there something like a "mob die pool"?

[Username17]

So how do dicepools handle things like "and the eight kobolds attack"

Do you just have to deal with 8 teeny die pools

Or is there something like a "mob die pool"?

Most systems these days have a system in place for teaming up by which you can have a group that rolls one pile of dice that is based on the leader's dicepool plus a fraction of each of the other pools. So you might have a 3 die kobold, but roll a 10 die attack for 1 kobold +7 accomplices. Others have maximums that can be attained through team-ups, so it wouldn't be weird to split the kobolds into two groups of 4 that each rolled 6 dice.

Older systems make each kobold roll in sequence, which is more time consuming.

-Username17

[CCarter]

Dice Pool fantasy RPGs do seem fairly uncommon. Not sure if you're meaning just the count successes type rather than just where the pool of dice are added together?

Of the success-counting type, there's
*Warhammer 3rd Ed.
*Weapons of the Gods (wuxia) - match counting rather than hits.
*One Roll Engine has a fantasy version as well (Reign) - again match counting.
*Vampire had "Vampire: Dark Ages".

I'm mostly not familiar enough with any of these to particularly say whether they're good or not.

If you count the "add bucket of dice together" type of dice pools there's also:
Legend of the Five Rings
Tunnels and Trolls (can't claim this is good);
and D6 System had a "D6 fantasy" awhile back.

Dying Earth (not good) sort of has dice pools, except that you only roll one at a time and the pool size tells you when you run out of rolls.

[MGuy]

Make sure they HadouCAN do something interesting.

"Seems like your Hadouken is more of a... Hadoucan't. A Hadon'tken... no wait, No-can-do-Ken!"

CryingKen.jpg

This one. She gets it.