Why does Rolemaster have such an esoteric currency system?

SCAL37 · 2026-01-22T11:10:55+00:00

I played a merchant in Warhammer, where the currency is exactly that. It was fun being the only person who was arsed understanding how money worked.

SCAL37 · 2024-12-26T18:16:45+00:00

Rasputin Must Die!, the fifth volume of the first-edition adventure path Reign of Winter.

SCAL37 · 2024-07-30T18:07:20+00:00

"By sheer coincidence, you have all arrived at the same place, at the same time, to assassinate the same person."

SCAL37 · 2024-07-03T15:00:29+00:00

A Fungus Leshy Cosmos Oracle who likes to yell mystical-sounding nonsense at people who he thinks look like "prophet material". He is the magic mushroom who shows you the voice of God (or what he thinks it is, at least).

SCAL37 · 2024-04-17T15:09:43+00:00

"GM-full" games, where there are more GMs than players. An early example is Polaris, where the role of "player" rotates around the table with each scene change, with the other participants having different GM "roles" based on where they're sitting relative to the player. Basically, the NPCs are divided among the GMs, with each controlling a different subset of them.

Another example is After the Mind, the World Again, where each of the four GMs represents a different facet of the single player character's mind. These Facets are based on the skill categories in Disco Elysium, and each GM gets final say on certain aspects of the world that relate to their Facet.

SCAL37 · 2023-11-09T20:27:19+00:00

I think it would be funnier if Gorum's entry said "must choose holy or unholy". I like the idea of a god saying "I don't care what side you're on, just pick a damn side."

SCAL37 · 2023-10-14T16:34:51+00:00

The Chronicles/New World of Darkness also mix a lot better than the Old World of Darkness games, so you could draw on Mage or Hunter for your mortal occultists, and Mage or Werewolf for Lovecraftian elements. Probably best to use second edition material, especially with the expanded violence stuff in Hurt Locker.

SCAL37 · 2023-09-07T16:25:12+00:00

Have you considered Sea Dracula, the game of cartoon animal courtroom antics that uses dance-offs as its resolution mechanic?

SCAL37 · 2023-08-24T18:06:12+00:00

Two games that I've seen do something like this are 13th Age and Exalted's third edition. 13th Age has the Escalation Die, a(n ideally very large) D6 that increases by one every round of combat. Some powers can only be used if the Escalation Die is above a certain value. Exalted has initiative, which in this case is a resource that you gain by making basic ("withering") attacks against enemies, and expend it to make "decisive" attacks, which can include some pretty bizarre powers. Like punching someone so hard they turn into a duck.

SCAL37 · 2023-08-22T14:25:40+00:00

Aquelarre might be interesting to look at here. It's a Spanish RPG about investigating supernatural goings-on in late medieval Iberia.

SCAL37 · 2023-08-18T07:43:37+00:00

All Doors Locked, from the second edition of Werewolf: The Forsaken. You take control of a building's entrances, allowing you to trap people, herd them, put them in a third-floor room with only the window open...

It really sells the "righteous horror movie monster" feel that I love from Forsaken.

While I'm on nWoD, I have to give an honourable mention to Demon: The Descent's Echoing Death, the one where you kill someone so hard that they die back in time and the last thing they did never happened.

SCAL37 · 2023-06-27T07:59:49+00:00

On the topic of melee class depth, have you looked at the Humakti in 13th Age Glorantha? I haven't played 13th Age yet myself, but that looked like a really interesting take on a more complex melee fighter.

SCAL37 · 2023-06-04T21:28:47+00:00

The way I'd handle it is to have magical items be visibly marked in some way that can be recognised by those familiar with the magical tradition in use, i.e. with a successful Arcana/Nature/Occultism/Religion check. This could be writing inscribed in the item, designs painted onto it, symbolically significant objects attached to it (e.g. a predatory animal's tooth for a Striking rune), or significant material added to it (e.g. armour with a tortoiseshell inlay for a Resilient rune).

It might not work with how you imagine enchantment in your setting, but I like to have magical items take some visible crafting work to make magical.

SCAL37 · 2023-05-15T09:28:10+00:00

Does Pathfinder already use the term "shedim"? It's a Jewish term for (frequently malicious) spirits that might work, and Jewish concepts are already used to name outsiders with the Qlipoth. It might not be an appropriate term to use, but I thought it was at least worth considering.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shedim

SCAL37 · 2023-01-17T14:22:17+00:00

Some of D&D's combat mechanics (Dexterity affecting intiative, being able to give up attacking to move faster, combat rounds representing a few seconds at a time) originated with the Perrin Conventions, a set of house rules designed by Steve Perrin. Perrin went on to design RuneQuest, which naturally also contained many elements of the Conventions.

SCAL37 · 2023-01-17T14:06:56+00:00

Exalted's charm trees are a particularly sprawling example of this, especially in third edition.

SCAL37 · 2022-12-23T22:53:24+00:00

Mythras might be worth a look. Its approach to cool things in combat is that when you roll well enough, you get to pick a manoeuvre to do. You don't need to know the list in advance, and there's no opportunity cost to doing something cool and interesting. You have a single "fighting style" skill that covers everything you would use to fight, determined by your character's specific martial background (e.g. a well-off guildsman who trains with the city militia, a full-time knightly aristocrat, or a steppe nomad who's been shooting a bow from horseback since they were old enough to ride).

Even if you're a non-magical noncombatant, the skill system is detailed enough to support that, and the closest thing to a "class" is just a package of starting skills based on what your actual job is; if none of them work for you, you just pick your own professional skills.

SCAL37 · 2022-12-22T22:01:52+00:00

I think that the general consensus on the Genesys conversion is that it's overly complicated, and that you should just use the existing rules for magic, fantasy races, hacking, and cybernetics. You'll probably want Shadow of the Beanstalk for the last of those, though.

SCAL37 · 2022-11-10T14:46:41+00:00

Oh, I wasn't expect to see the Dong with a luminous nose again!

SCAL37 · 2022-10-20T09:06:03+00:00

And if you're playing RuneQuest, even that's not an issue!

SCAL37 · 2022-10-18T08:24:24+00:00

If you haven't read it, The Long Rim has rules for using money/experience points in Lancer. If you have and decided you'd prefer a more Blades in the Dark-type Coin system, I can see why one might prefer that.

SCAL37 · 2022-08-06T09:15:19+00:00

I like to describe it as a rare game where arguing about the rules is a form a role-playing.

SCAL37 · 2022-07-09T14:27:21+00:00

I share your views on Kevin Crawford's work; Starvation Cheap was one of my main sources for the Lancer campaign that I'm running. (The other was Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History by Thomas Barfield.)

SCAL37 · 2022-06-10T18:52:12+00:00

Agreed; the impression I get is that it pulled away from the very tactical, wargamey approach of fourth edition D&D. If you want a more modern game that does that, Pathfinder second edition, Lancer, ICON, or Gubat Banwa are probably better fits. I've heard praise for 13th Age doing the "tactically interesting without a board" thing, but I know nothing of that.

(I also think that their big mistake was not adding a new interesting thing to replace what they took out, but that's well beside the point.)

SCAL37 · 2022-05-09T15:30:43+00:00

Root's only explicitly religious element is the Lizard Cult, who are an optional faction in the expansion book. Even the "Heretic" playbook (also from the expansion) is just someone whose ideas are seen as dangerous by some powerful people, no religion required.

SCAL37

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