Borderlands RPG

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shlominus
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Post by shlominus »

RobbyPants wrote:
Josh_Kablack wrote: Tl;Dr: Feng Shui would take a bit of massaging, but is a good fit for the frenetic combat involving guns, melee and odd powers of Borderlands. It is a horrible fit for modeling the equipment subsystems of Borderlands.
The more I'm hearing about it, the more interesting it sounds. I don't want to track a treadmill style progression where you have to keep getting better and better guns. That being said, would Feng Shui care about the differences between a rifle, a shotgun, or an SMG, or is that all window dressing?

It sounds like the different trees might be tweaked to what I want. Each character in the game has a signature power, and you can gain skills after that to improve your numbers in various things. The signature powers of the six playable characters in BL2 are:
  • Toss out a gun turret that shoots people from its location on its own.
  • Draw out a second gun and shoot with two at once. Heal 1/2 your HP when you initiate this. You can one-arm a two-handed gun.
  • Turn invisible, leaving a holographic duplicate. Strike for extra damage (ending effect).
  • Lift opponent into the air with "magic" for a few seconds. They cannot attack.
  • Summon a robot to fight for you.
  • Go into a berserk rage where you beat on people in melee and heal to full health on each kill.
I don't expect the game to necessarily handle these exactly as-is, but are those the types of things that might seem in-line with the game?

Would Feng Shui care about the differences between sniping from cover or running and gunning? I get the impression "style" is supposed to matter in this game, but I'm not sure how that actually translates to game play.
the differences between weapons are minimal in feng shui, you'd probably have to design a new subsystem for that, if you want more mechanical variety. weapons only have 3 stats, damage, concealment and reload. there are rules for automatic weapons, but that's about it. this might seem insufficient for a borderlands style game, but that depends on how much you want to focus on the gunporn. i don't see how making up rules for the different weapon-modifications could be a problem. as long as you remember to keep it simple, you should be alright.

the signature powers of the main characters should be easy to reproduce, they are quite similar to what some of the archetypes already get. you could arguably recreate recognizable copies of some of the borderlands-characters by using already existing archetypes. maya = sorcerer, krieg = gene freak. only gaige's robot summoning might give you trouble. there is a summonig spell for comparison, but it seems op to me.

one problem you might face is the fact that in feng shui all characters have a different kind of "mana" (fortune, chi, genome or magic) powering most of their abilities. in feng shui, this runs out over time and is rarely recharged during a fight. in borderlands, all abilities recharges over time. this is easily solved by adding a basic action for each character to replenishes their "mana". there are some options like that in the game already, use them for inspiration.

the game suggests using the dodge interrupt for taking cover. feng shui values style > everything, so running and gunning is not penalized in any way. in feng shui this results in people doing entertaining stuff all the time. i don't see how that could possibly hurt in borderlands.

there's a schtick called eagle eye. add x "shots" (=ini-slots) to an attack to gain x "guns" (=attack skill) for that attack. x cannot exceed 3. et voilà, an aimed attack.

when you are attacking an unaware target, they are sitting ducks with def0. sounds like a headshot to me. ;)
Last edited by shlominus on Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RobbyPants
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Post by RobbyPants »

Looking Feng Shui up on Wikipedia, it looks like there are two editions, and the second one came out in 2015. Does anyone have any input on that?

Would just the core book (of either edition) be good enough for what I want to do here?
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Post by virgil »

Josh_Kablack wrote:You can find my lengthy ranting about Feng Shui 2 elsewhere on this forum.
The actual link is HERE
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Post by deaddmwalking »

Would it make sense to give certain guns a 'signature ability' so anyone wielding that weapon would have it available? Not familiar with the system, but perhaps reduce the number of signature abilities that characters get automatically if some of that burden is handled by equipment?
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shlominus
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Post by shlominus »

RobbyPants wrote:Looking Feng Shui up on Wikipedia, it looks like there are two editions, and the second one came out in 2015. Does anyone have any input on that?

Would just the core book (of either edition) be good enough for what I want to do here?
2nd edition is the one i am talking about. as far as i can tell it's an improvment over 1st edition in every way.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

RobbyPants wrote:
Josh_Kablack wrote: Tl;Dr: Feng Shui would take a bit of massaging, but is a good fit for the frenetic combat involving guns, melee and odd powers of Borderlands. It is a horrible fit for modeling the equipment subsystems of Borderlands.
The more I'm hearing about it, the more interesting it sounds. I don't want to track a treadmill style progression where you have to keep getting better and better guns. That being said, would Feng Shui care about the differences between a rifle, a shotgun, or an SMG, or is that all window dressing?

It does care about the differences but not much. Guns have damage values that range from 7 (bow an arrow) to 13 (combat shotgun, assault rifle). Note that against unnamed opponents, damage values do not actually matter. Guns also have ammo values and concealment ratings and may have tags that allow for automatic fire, use of the dual wielding schtick, getting extra damage by pumping your shotgun and/or a bonus against unnamed opponents.
It sounds like the different trees might be tweaked to what I want. Each character in the game has a signature power, and you can gain skills after that to improve your numbers in various things.
Yeah, that is basically the Feng Shui archetype setup. Each "signature power" would be the a unique starting schtick of a custom archetype you'd have to write yourself.
Would Feng Shui care about the differences between sniping from cover or running and gunning? I get the impression "style" is supposed to matter in this game, but I'm not sure how that actually translates to game play.
Lemme just quote:
FS2's Cover Rules Blurb wrote: Cover
Hiding behind objects to avoid being shot is treated as part of a fght’s normal narrative flow. No extra rules mechanics apply to it. You can always describe yourself colorfully seeking cover. It is especially apt when making a Dodge.
So mechanically, no the game does not care about cover vs run-and-gun. Stylistically, players are kind of supposed to use description of combat actions as character-portrayal tools.
That may be either a plus or minus depending on your design goals and your playergroup.
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RobbyPants
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Post by RobbyPants »

Josh_Kablack wrote: It does care about the differences but not much. Guns have damage values that range from 7 (bow an arrow) to 13 (combat shotgun, assault rifle). Note that against unnamed opponents, damage values do not actually matter. Guns also have ammo values and concealment ratings and may have tags that allow for automatic fire, use of the dual wielding schtick, getting extra damage by pumping your shotgun and/or a bonus against unnamed opponents.
That might be fine enough. I'd have to look it over more closely to see how I feel. I don't care about concealment, because in-universe, vault hunters are pretty much assumed to be armed to the teeth. If I expanded enough on the universe where you might have to have diplomatic meetings with Hyperion, or whatever, maybe it'd matter. Given that digistructing is a thing, concealing a physical weapon probably would be a waste of time.

Josh_Kablack wrote: Yeah, that is basically the Feng Shui archetype setup. Each "signature power" would be the a unique starting schtick of a custom archetype you'd have to write yourself.
That makes sense. I gave a look at your 2E review, and I think you mentioned something like 35 archetypes as being a pain in the ass from a "just pick an archetype and start playing!" perspective. I'd probably run with 6-12, depending on how many classes I ported over and which get combined.

Do you level in the game, or does "level" only matter relative to who you're fighting (mooks vs bosses)? Does the game support gaining stats to make you better at shooting, getting stronger, or faster? Does your signature power improve?

Josh_Kablack wrote: Lemme just quote:
FS2's Cover Rules Blurb wrote: Cover
Hiding behind objects to avoid being shot is treated as part of a fght’s normal narrative flow. No extra rules mechanics apply to it. You can always describe yourself colorfully seeking cover. It is especially apt when making a Dodge.
So mechanically, no the game does not care about cover vs run-and-gun. Stylistically, players are kind of supposed to use description of combat actions as character-portrayal tools.
That may be either a plus or minus depending on your design goals and your playergroup.
I could go either way on that. From a Borderlands perspective, any time I get sloppy and come out from cover, I tend to get hurt/killed a lot. From a mechanical perspective, I've spent the last 20 years of my life playing 2E Combat & Tactics or 3E. So, I'm used to running combat on a grid, where things like cover could matter. In a gun-based game, it'd matter more.

That being said, it doesn't have to be that way. I may just buy a copy of the core book to read through it and get a better idea how I feel. If I can do this all with one core book, it's not that big or a money or time investment on my part.
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Post by shlominus »

RobbyPants wrote:I'd probably run with 6-12, depending on how many classes I ported over and which get combined.

Do you level in the game, or does "level" only matter relative to who you're fighting (mooks vs bosses)? Does the game support gaining stats to make you better at shooting, getting stronger, or faster? Does your signature power improve?

I could go either way on that. From a Borderlands perspective, any time I get sloppy and come out from cover, I tend to get hurt/killed a lot. From a mechanical perspective, I've spent the last 20 years of my life playing 2E Combat & Tactics or 3E. So, I'm used to running combat on a grid, where things like cover could matter. In a gun-based game, it'd matter more.

That being said, it doesn't have to be that way. I may just buy a copy of the core book to read through it and get a better idea how I feel. If I can do this all with one core book, it's not that big or a money or time investment on my part.
i wouldn't port over any archetypes from the original feng shui. just use them for inspiration and create new ones from scratch. it would be really easy to create new schticks and have the characters truly resemble their borderlands counterparts. once you take a look at the rules this will be obvious.

you don't gain levels in feng shui, you gain advancements. what kind of advancements you can chose is based on your archetype, so it should be easy to recreate the talent-trees from borderlands. most advances are a new schtick (you can upgrade secondary skills), but every 5th advance can be a major stat like main attack style, fortune or defense. wound points are fixed for all characters at creation.

a lot of schticks have different levels, that would be a way to improve signature powers.

feng shui is all about theater of the mind-combat, introducing grid-based combat sensibilities will most likely cause problems. :)
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

RobbyPants wrote: That makes sense. I gave a look at your 2E review, and I think you mentioned something like 35 archetypes as being a pain in the ass from a "just pick an archetype and start playing!" perspective. I'd probably run with 6-12, depending on how many classes I ported over and which get combined.
That sounds like about the right number, and for a single campaign, you'll almost certainly be fine with fewer than 12.

Do you level in the game, or does "level" only matter relative to who you're fighting (mooks vs bosses)? Does the game support gaining stats to make you better at shooting, getting stronger, or faster? Does your signature power improve?
It is not level based, but there are advancement rules. 1st edition had a really problematic triangular advancement scheme where the long term correct answer was always "save up to increase primary combat number". 2e. Has somewhat better, but still problematic advancement rules where characters get to choose an item from their classes's advancement tracks, most of which are something like:
  • "Gain an additional schtick from the type of schticks you already have"
  • Gain a new skill at the minimal rating
  • Improve an existing skill from the minimal rating to a good rating
  • Improve an existing skill that is already good (or better) by +1
  • Increase one of your secondary attack numbers to one less than your primary attack
And then every fifth advancement is a STAT Advancement where everybody can raise their primary attack or defense or other combat-driving numbers by +1 -- with the RNG restriction that you cannot raise one of these stats if it is already higher than all the other PCs values in that stat.

Unique signature schticks do not generally have ways to advance -- although some of the existing non signature schticks have I, II, III and IV levels you unlock by spending additional schticks on them -- so if you were writing custom schticks and archetypes anyways, you could write up advancement options along those lines.
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Post by Iduno »

RobbyPants wrote:I'm used to running combat on a grid, where things like cover could matter. In a gun-based game, it'd matter more.
Grid-based combat only matters in gun combat if you're taking the time to determine if the cover is still blocking someone from whatever angle you're standing at. It works in a grid-based tactical game like X-com or Wasteland (2 at least), because the computer is doing the calculations and measurements. At a table, that will slow the game down. It sounds like it fits the game you want, but slowing the game down is also the opposite of another thing you want in your game. It's a tough balance, so do whichever is more fun for your players.
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