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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8935476" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>In terms of EXPLORING your character, these flashbacks are fine. Also, they're just a tool, and honestly I don't find myself using them a lot while playing my current character, who's function is basically just plain killing stuff straight up. Now, if I was playing a 'spider' I'd probably use those flashbacks a lot to show how he is a little super genius who thought of everything. Honestly, in the midst of all the back and forth about what the situation is, and who's doing what, and what the position and effect are, the flashback thing is nothing. </p><p></p><p>And honestly, I don't find there's a big dichotomy in 'generality' between RPGs. Yes, some present a pretty narrow milieu, and might focus on it to a degree, but the FitD engine, as an example, is not really like that. It can certainly handle any sort of situation that could come up in a game like D&D. As utilized in Blades it includes a fairly milieu-specific set of playbooks and crew types, but even the supplied ones are not exactly all that weird. You have Cutters (fighters), Leeches (techies/alchemists), Lurks (thieves), Spiders (Kind of a devious Sherlock type), the Whisper (A kind of skill monkey), and the Hound (kind of the BitD equivalent of the Ranger). </p><p></p><p>The crew types are equally archetypal, being Assassins, Bravos, Cult, Hawkers, Shadows, or Smugglers. I don't really need to describe those beyond the names, you already get what they are. Now, BitD is only, in its core rules at least, focusing on 'Scoundrel' PCs, but I don't see that as any different from 5e focusing on 'heroic' PCs.</p><p></p><p>I could easily imagine creating a Delving B/X style game using the FitD engine. You'd have various sorts of parties with different overall goals and orientation, and the PCs character types would probably be slightly more diverse, but you could create this game basically just by creating a crew sheet for the party, and maybe creating a couple variations of the 'Scoundrel' style character types. Its not exactly a radical rewrite. </p><p></p><p>Now suppose you wanted to use 5e to play something close to BitD? You'd need to recreate the crew mechanics, add rules for scoping out jobs, getting intel, interacting with the Bluecoats (cops), what happens when you have to 'do time', etc. You might also want to develop at least a couple subclasses and/or feats to allow PCs to specialize a bit more on their nefarious activities. </p><p></p><p>It is thus hard for me to see 5e as somehow being a much more general game in any sense than BitD is. There is certainly nothing inherent in the design of BitD which holds it back from working for a variety of genres. Sci-Fi, Supers, JAMES BOND!!!, some kind of X-Files type game, or various sorts of Urban Fantasy. These would all be pretty easy and wouldn't require any changes to the core rules at all. </p><p></p><p>There are in fact a lot of FitD-based games:</p><p>Court of Blades: courtly intrigue</p><p>Brinkwood: Rebels against the system</p><p>Mutants in the Night: Another game of rebellion, but you are a super</p><p>Misbehavin': Prohibition era gangs</p><p>Desks in the Dark: Magical High School </p><p>MortallyBankrupt: Some kind of offbeat existential horror about reality stars</p><p>Glow in the Dark: Mad Max style post apocalyptic survival</p><p>To Boldly Go: Star Trek</p><p>Runners in the Shadows: Cyberpunk game</p><p>The Final Frontier: Another Trek RPG</p><p>Harbingers of Twilight: Game of Magic Users in a Renaissance Era world</p><p>Laws of the Dark: RP in the world of Max Gladstone (sort of Urban Fantasy I guess)</p><p>Mothlands: Post-apocalyptic Bronze Age warriors</p><p>Sea of Dead Men: Pirates!</p><p>Copperhead County: Organized Crime in the modern US South</p><p>A Nocturne: Hard Sci-Fi Space Opera ala Andre Norton from what I can guess</p><p>Blades of the Inquisition: WH40K inquisitors</p><p>Blades of New Crobuzon: BitD set in China's fantasy city</p><p>Game of Darkness: Medieval game of guilds and intrigue</p><p>Blood Red Blossoms: You protect the people in a horror fantasy Japan</p><p>Replicant or Lesbian: Bladerunner-esque sci-fi</p><p>Streets of Passion: Adventures in a fantastical Los Angeles</p><p>A Fistful of Darkness: Weird West</p><p>The Messengers: Psychic operatives fighting a war in the modern world against ancient evil</p><p>The Typhoon Atolls: Sort of a fantasy RPG set in an Earthsea-like world</p><p>No Place Like Home: Horror/Mystery</p><p>Our Lonely Worlds: Outcast supernaturals against the system</p><p>Frontier Kingdoms: Demigod-avatar magical princesses balance tea parties and giant monster attacks to grow their kingdom.</p><p>Slugblasters: Teen hoverboarders exploring other dimensional gates</p><p>Swords Under the Sun: Heroic Fantasy</p><p>Blood and Sacrilege: Vampire RPing</p><p>Children of Midnight: Witches!</p><p>Studies in Darkness: I honestly don't know how to describe this...</p><p></p><p>This is just the list from the BitD web site, I'm sure it is not even close to a complete list. <a href="https://rpggeek.com/rpgsystem/48735/forged-dark" target="_blank">Forged in the Dark</a> has some more... It goes on and on, there are Supers games, Hard and soft Sci-Fi, Urban fantasy, Cyberpunk, Pirates, Wild West, Supernatural stuff of all kinds, Straight up dungeon delves, and on and on and on.</p><p></p><p>But this is what we've been saying: The structure of a game where the primary play loop is about the players engaging with what their characters are about, and the fiction building around that, is very inherently flexible! I almost guarantee you, with a modicum of dedicated mechanics you could turn practically any dramatic TV show online today into a FitD game (obviously some will be more compelling than others). </p><p></p><p>I suspect it is also a pretty easy system to 'drift' in terms of things like character survivability, power curve, etc. I would say maybe the most limiting thing about the FitD engine would be the fact that its dice pool mechanics only have fairly limited scalability. Since success is gated on the highest die out of N dice there's a pretty narrow range of dice pool sizes that work (from 1 to maybe 6 or so I'd say). To make a game that spanned a PC range similar to say, 4e, would probably require a bit deeper work, but I can think of some approaches that would work and not really alter the core mechanics of the system.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8935476, member: 82106"] In terms of EXPLORING your character, these flashbacks are fine. Also, they're just a tool, and honestly I don't find myself using them a lot while playing my current character, who's function is basically just plain killing stuff straight up. Now, if I was playing a 'spider' I'd probably use those flashbacks a lot to show how he is a little super genius who thought of everything. Honestly, in the midst of all the back and forth about what the situation is, and who's doing what, and what the position and effect are, the flashback thing is nothing. And honestly, I don't find there's a big dichotomy in 'generality' between RPGs. Yes, some present a pretty narrow milieu, and might focus on it to a degree, but the FitD engine, as an example, is not really like that. It can certainly handle any sort of situation that could come up in a game like D&D. As utilized in Blades it includes a fairly milieu-specific set of playbooks and crew types, but even the supplied ones are not exactly all that weird. You have Cutters (fighters), Leeches (techies/alchemists), Lurks (thieves), Spiders (Kind of a devious Sherlock type), the Whisper (A kind of skill monkey), and the Hound (kind of the BitD equivalent of the Ranger). The crew types are equally archetypal, being Assassins, Bravos, Cult, Hawkers, Shadows, or Smugglers. I don't really need to describe those beyond the names, you already get what they are. Now, BitD is only, in its core rules at least, focusing on 'Scoundrel' PCs, but I don't see that as any different from 5e focusing on 'heroic' PCs. I could easily imagine creating a Delving B/X style game using the FitD engine. You'd have various sorts of parties with different overall goals and orientation, and the PCs character types would probably be slightly more diverse, but you could create this game basically just by creating a crew sheet for the party, and maybe creating a couple variations of the 'Scoundrel' style character types. Its not exactly a radical rewrite. Now suppose you wanted to use 5e to play something close to BitD? You'd need to recreate the crew mechanics, add rules for scoping out jobs, getting intel, interacting with the Bluecoats (cops), what happens when you have to 'do time', etc. You might also want to develop at least a couple subclasses and/or feats to allow PCs to specialize a bit more on their nefarious activities. It is thus hard for me to see 5e as somehow being a much more general game in any sense than BitD is. There is certainly nothing inherent in the design of BitD which holds it back from working for a variety of genres. Sci-Fi, Supers, JAMES BOND!!!, some kind of X-Files type game, or various sorts of Urban Fantasy. These would all be pretty easy and wouldn't require any changes to the core rules at all. There are in fact a lot of FitD-based games: Court of Blades: courtly intrigue Brinkwood: Rebels against the system Mutants in the Night: Another game of rebellion, but you are a super Misbehavin': Prohibition era gangs Desks in the Dark: Magical High School MortallyBankrupt: Some kind of offbeat existential horror about reality stars Glow in the Dark: Mad Max style post apocalyptic survival To Boldly Go: Star Trek Runners in the Shadows: Cyberpunk game The Final Frontier: Another Trek RPG Harbingers of Twilight: Game of Magic Users in a Renaissance Era world Laws of the Dark: RP in the world of Max Gladstone (sort of Urban Fantasy I guess) Mothlands: Post-apocalyptic Bronze Age warriors Sea of Dead Men: Pirates! Copperhead County: Organized Crime in the modern US South A Nocturne: Hard Sci-Fi Space Opera ala Andre Norton from what I can guess Blades of the Inquisition: WH40K inquisitors Blades of New Crobuzon: BitD set in China's fantasy city Game of Darkness: Medieval game of guilds and intrigue Blood Red Blossoms: You protect the people in a horror fantasy Japan Replicant or Lesbian: Bladerunner-esque sci-fi Streets of Passion: Adventures in a fantastical Los Angeles A Fistful of Darkness: Weird West The Messengers: Psychic operatives fighting a war in the modern world against ancient evil The Typhoon Atolls: Sort of a fantasy RPG set in an Earthsea-like world No Place Like Home: Horror/Mystery Our Lonely Worlds: Outcast supernaturals against the system Frontier Kingdoms: Demigod-avatar magical princesses balance tea parties and giant monster attacks to grow their kingdom. Slugblasters: Teen hoverboarders exploring other dimensional gates Swords Under the Sun: Heroic Fantasy Blood and Sacrilege: Vampire RPing Children of Midnight: Witches! Studies in Darkness: I honestly don't know how to describe this... This is just the list from the BitD web site, I'm sure it is not even close to a complete list. [URL="https://rpggeek.com/rpgsystem/48735/forged-dark"]Forged in the Dark[/URL] has some more... It goes on and on, there are Supers games, Hard and soft Sci-Fi, Urban fantasy, Cyberpunk, Pirates, Wild West, Supernatural stuff of all kinds, Straight up dungeon delves, and on and on and on. But this is what we've been saying: The structure of a game where the primary play loop is about the players engaging with what their characters are about, and the fiction building around that, is very inherently flexible! I almost guarantee you, with a modicum of dedicated mechanics you could turn practically any dramatic TV show online today into a FitD game (obviously some will be more compelling than others). I suspect it is also a pretty easy system to 'drift' in terms of things like character survivability, power curve, etc. I would say maybe the most limiting thing about the FitD engine would be the fact that its dice pool mechanics only have fairly limited scalability. Since success is gated on the highest die out of N dice there's a pretty narrow range of dice pool sizes that work (from 1 to maybe 6 or so I'd say). To make a game that spanned a PC range similar to say, 4e, would probably require a bit deeper work, but I can think of some approaches that would work and not really alter the core mechanics of the system. [/QUOTE]
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