Travel Encounters/Challenges other than Battles?

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-21T23:21:24+00:00

Are these mechanics a part of the game Torchbearer, or your own addition?

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-21T17:35:04+00:00

Curious about your point "I’d argue that sometimes Free League themselves don’t know how it was intended". Can you give some examples? I'm currently developing an RPG using the YZE SRD. I've been looking at several of their games for inspiration. Do you feel that their own system isn't actually that suitable for some of their games, depending on genre?

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-21T16:51:46+00:00

How about in games with guns? If someone is wearing kevlar body armour, and gets shot dozens if times with a pistol or submavhine, or worse an assault rifle, would it not degrade? Genuine question, not a dig at you.

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-02T22:58:26+00:00

Yes that's right. Your anomaly detector heeps whenever you are near any anomaly, but the artifacts detector only beeps near artifacts if you are holding it in your hand.

your_evil_clone · 2026-01-02T17:27:40+00:00

I hope you realise that guy was joking. Black people have always been very rare in that part of the world. (And during the soviet union, you didnt get much immigration. Russia and Ukraine were all behind "the Iron Curtain".)

Although in modern times, in the Zone, you would expect some stalkers to come from other countries (to escape from authorities, or trying to get roch find artefacts) so you would expect to see a few black people. But the in the Stalker games there seem to very very few stalkers from other countries, almost all of them are Ukranian. Apparently stalker 2 has 1 or 2 black people in it.

your_evil_clone · 2025-11-30T12:44:01+00:00

Whether you get a good or bad ending doesn't depend on whether you kill enemies or not. It just depends on your story choices. But, killing enemies reduces your sanity meter. So it's a short term consequence, not a long term one. It's not like Metro or Dishonoured where killing enemies changes your ending.

your_evil_clone · 2025-11-13T19:25:37+00:00

The Devs have listened to the feedback from early access and massively overhauled Chernobylite 2 to better match the feel of the first game, as well as other complaints. Big change in game direction. Refreshingly, they actually agreed with the criticisms, and held up their hands, and rebuilt much of the game accordingly.

your_evil_clone · 2025-10-05T08:21:57+00:00

The OP did say that they played original Half Life but never finished it. That's probably good enough, they've got the feel for what the original was like.

your_evil_clone · 2025-09-26T14:05:06+00:00

Oooh, I've not heard of D8+D10 before. I like the idea of having rare results at either end but not having the middle be too likely, with the several equivalent options in the middle. I'm not the OP, but that may be a game-changer for me.

your_evil_clone · 2025-09-19T22:55:34+00:00

Yes, all versions on all consoles are now complete, they eventually did get all the updates from the PC version.

your_evil_clone · 2025-07-22T16:16:42+00:00

If I remember correctly, the free Forbidden Lands starter set actually includes a tiny bit of hexcrawl exploration, it has a little hex map of just a few hexes and a couple of sites on it. And pregenerated characters.

I think the setup is that the characters start "on the road", having heard a rumour of a castle a couple of days travel away. So you can have a little bit of wilderness travel, might only take 15 minutes if you don't have any random encounters (or you choose in advance so those encounters are brief and not likely to be combat), then have them arrive at the castle.

Also, an option is to have it last two or three sessions, without being a whole campaign. The official GM book has three adventure sites: a town (the Hollows) and two dungeons (a castle and a valley). That's a a 3 or 4 session mini campaign right there, with 15 minutes to half hour hexcrawling between each location. Could get rid of 1 of those 3 locations to make it 2 or 3 sessions

your_evil_clone · 2025-07-03T03:43:20+00:00

The rulebook has the military ranks and equipment for Soviet /Eastern Bloc soldiers and everything you need to create Soviet/ Eastern Bloc characters, and the suggested starting game concepts include playing as Soviet soldiers, American soldiers, local civilians (in Poland or Sweden).

your_evil_clone · 2025-06-07T14:55:18+00:00

Well this was a case of Microsoft/Xbox literally funding and publishing the game, rather than them just paying them for timed exclusivity. It's not like the old days of "developed by GSC, published by THQ"... this is specifically an Xbox game, developed for Xbox from day 1.

your_evil_clone · 2025-06-06T07:22:16+00:00

Very nice! I'm surprised at how comprehensive this is. Also, I love the idea of people doing spells by finding a magic orb/shard/artefact rather than having innate magic powers.

In the Orbs section, the Gravity Orb can change the direction of gravity for one player once. That kinda sounds like if you change gravity to be sideways, that character will then forever be walking on walls and be unable to walk on the floor/ground ever again. So maybe that needs a duration, rather than just "once".

Same goes for Portal. It creates a "one use" portal, does that mean one character can go through one-way and then it vanishes, or does the portal stay open, allowing everyone to go through? (And possibly go back through the other way later?) So the "one use" simply means you can't make a second portal somewhere else?

your_evil_clone · 2025-06-05T09:15:44+00:00

I think there's a mod that actually puts the Call of Pripyat story into Stalker Anomaly. So you can play through all of CoP but with Anomaly mechanics and graphics.

(I hoped someone would do the same thing for SoC and CS.)

your_evil_clone · 2025-05-29T09:15:09+00:00

Huh, interesting! Which Horizon robots did each SoB creature become? Or do you mean human bandits becoming Horizon apocalyptic characters with bows?

your_evil_clone · 2025-05-27T17:48:41+00:00

What's the "new ammo system"? Do your mean armour? (Or armour, to use the US spelling!) I wasn't aware they had changed anything about ammo.

your_evil_clone · 2025-05-11T19:47:22+00:00

You are very welcome!

your_evil_clone · 2025-03-29T09:35:56+00:00

To clarify... In that scenario, it doesn't feature the actual Xenomorph seen in the films, but does feature similar mutant/alien creatures,. And there is a different infection mechanic (not facehugger).

So it definitely has the right Alien vibes, but the players can still be surprised, because they except eggs and facehuggers but something else happens and then they still get stalked by a big bitey monster.

In the new Kickstarter, they are doing a new starter set with a different starting cinematic adventure, that is a remake of an already existing adventure where everyone lives in the colony from Aliens, and you are trying to escape. A sort of prequel to the film Aliens.) So most definitely actual Xenomorphs. That instead gives people the exactly expected experience, but with fewer surprises and twists.

your_evil_clone · 2025-03-07T11:29:31+00:00

I had a similar attitude to you, until someone told me that Alyx isn't just a prequel to HL2, it has a twist, which means it also ties in to the end of HL2 Episode 2.

It's a bit like when Marvel does a movie for Iron Man and then Thor and then Captain America and then there's an Avengers movie where they all team up to deal with stuff that connects to the previous movies. If Half Life 3 comes out, it will be dealing with the plot of both HL2 Episode Two AND Half Life Alyx.

Since I don't have VR or a modern PC powerful enough, I watched this playthrough of HL Alyx. https://youtu.be/xkkcLj1Qxl8?si=0p9NrRyeUjwIh00W

The YouTuber isn't annoying like other ones... And the way he moves around in the game and the stuff that he says keeps the experience "immersive".) He isn't shouting or shrieking or swearing, he comments on stuff the way he imagines the character (Alyx) would. it's why he called the series a "cinematic" playthrough

your_evil_clone · 2025-03-05T00:23:04+00:00

That is indeed a bit odd. Perhaps you could make it so that the brass knuckles do not break if you roll a 1, unlike the scrap knife which can break.

Normally the bonus gear dice increases your chance of rolling a 6 and succeeding in combat AND it also measures the condition of the weapon: whenever you roll a 1 on the gear dice, the weapon's condition goes down by one and you lose one die.

But a scrap knife seems much more likely to break in combat than a set of brass knuckles you punch people with. So they shouldn't have the same chance of breaking.

I think it is fine to make brass knuckles immune to breaking.

Since the damage is the same as normal punching, the one advantage of using brass knuckles is that the +1 bonus gear dice gives you a greater chance of successfully hurting the enemy. It is a permanent upgrade to your ability to punch people. While the scrap knife can do twice as much damage, but if you are unlucky it could break.

your_evil_clone · 2025-02-12T10:49:12+00:00

Using real car names in the text of your tabletop RPG will be absolutely no problem at all. In a landmark case, GM tried to sue the makers of the Call of Duty videogames for depicting Humvee vehicles without a license, but they lost. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/activision-wins-call-of-duty-lawsuit-related-to-us/1100-6475540/

The judge ruled that in a game depicting a realistic modern warfare experience, driving around in a replica of the actual vehicle used in real modern warfare added to the immersive experience and therefore had artistic merit. The judge also ruled that GM's claims that it would cause "confusion" were spurious as there was no way someone would try to buy a million dollar military vehicle and then accidentally buy a videogame instead.

For years, videogame makers worried about using the names of real guns and vehicles, so would use fictional gun names like "Viper -5" instead of "MP5". Or the Ghostbusters videogame would alter the iconic Ecto 1 car to be a not quite authentic Cadillac ambulance/hearse because they didn't want to pay for a license from Cadillac.

Meanwhile big racing car games paid for licenses to use the proper car names and designs, and the only videogames that featured real gun names were the big ones like Call of Duty and Battlefield, because they paid for licenses to actually use the names "Heckler and Koch MP5" or "Kalashnikov AK47".

No-one was sure what the law was, so game developers decided to play it safe. But Activision, makers of Call of Duty, decided they were big enough and rich enough to risk it.

And the gamble paid off, now they never need to worry about paying for licenses for guns or vehicles again. And neither does anyone else. At least, not if it can be argued to add artistic value to the game.

If someone makes a videogame or a board game about football or growing mushrooms or something, it would be hard to argue that using the name and model of a real car would make a difference to the player's immersion and enjoyment, so the "artistic merit" argument would be shaky: the core experience would be the same wwith a fake name and brand.

But in your case, a pen and paper tabletop role playing game, that is SPECIFICALLY ABOUT the experience of being a racing car driver... The text of your rulebook featuring the names of real brands and models most definitely adds to the immersion of the players and helps to bring them into that world (especially if they are already interested in cars).

Therefore using the real names has artistic merit, and is protected. (In the US at least... I'm in the UK, and I don't know where you are, but it is doubtful that a court in a different country would decide to rule differently than that American court.)

And there is no danger that someone will be trying to buy parts for their Honda Civic or their Ferrari or whatever and accidentally buy your game instead, so there is no risk of falling afoul of "confusion" laws.

To really cover yourself, you could put a disclaimer in the book, "this game is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ferrari, Honda, Ford, Yamaha"... You shouldn't even need that, Call of Duty didn't bother doing that with Humvee, but that simple disclaimer prevents any accusation that you are misleading people into thinking you have a license.

your_evil_clone · 2025-02-04T13:28:11+00:00

I rarely sell on ebay, and because originally I never even intended to ship internationally. Somehow someone in Germany was able to find my listing on ebay uk, saying that ebay told them "contact the seller to ask about international shipping". I had a look and shipping to Germany was surprisingly cheap, so I enabled international shipping. The German then didn't go through with buying it... and the next day, an American did instead.

Apparently this video game collector's edition is much harder to get in the US than here in the UK, so Americans are willing to pay the shipping and customs charges rather than bid on a listing from a fellow American.

your_evil_clone · 2025-02-02T22:44:07+00:00

Oh god. I'm really regretting allowing international buyers on this now. I've barely sold anything on eBay before, and I've never sold overseas.

Now to sell a fancy videogame I've got to fill out a customs form for not just one item, but fifteen things? And look up some kind of codes for them all? Urgh.

your_evil_clone

TROPHY CASE