How is Grim Tales grim?

[Eltharon]

Hi
I was looking around for some books for my campaign and saw Grim Tales. Its marketed as High Adventure, Low Magic, but from reading through reviews and posts on this forum, how is it any "grittier" then D20 modern? (which is what its based on, right?) Are there any changes to combat?

Thanks

Eltharon

 

[Henry]

...from reading through reviews and posts on this forum, how is it any "grittier" then D20 modern?

One thing that doesn't come out in many of the forum discussions is the "threat level" rules adjustments that are in the text, reminiscent of the "one, two or three skulls" in the old Grimtooth's Traps books from Flying Buffalo. The default is "two skull" -- reasonably deadly, but not too uncinematic.

Example: Massive damage threshold. one skull is Con score + armor bonus; two skulls might be CON score; three skulls might be straight 10. (This one is replicated in Modern, but there are other examples throughout that I'm blanking on right now, including one where flatfooted is pretty killer!).

You can make the game extremely deadly or more cinematic, as you choose. But the game is geared so that characters, while having all sorts of cool abilities in their own right, don't have very many physical-reality-breaking abilities, and attaining those physical-reality-breaking abilities (like fly, teleport, raise dead, etc.) Is not only health-risking, but very spectacular to gameplay due to their power.

Beyond all that, it's a marketing tool.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

How is Grim Tales grim?

Like snakes on a mutha------- plane, that's how.

 

[Eltharon]

Coming from the guy who wrote the game, that isn't very reassuring....

 

[Vigilance]

Well first, I think they mean "grim" compared to D&D, and it is more grim than D&D. But as mentioned earlier, there are options in the game to make it deadlier than d20 Modern as well as I recall.

But I always took it to mean that it was lower magic and grittier than D&D, which it is in spades.

Chuck

 

[king_ghidorah]

I didn't really take Grim Tales to mean the game was grim and gritty, but more that it was playing on the sorts of titles that old pulp magazines had. And I figured that since the cover and logo looked like a pulp magazine, and the "High Adventure, Low Magic" tagline was pretty direct and connected to pulp magazines, that it all fit.

If you want some pulpiness with a game that can scale well with just core classes and has some tweakable mechanics that allow the game to range from highly cinematic to something far less cinematic by built-in adjustments to the rules, then it works.

If you want the grittiest, most hard-core realism in the gaming market... d20 isn't probably your best bet anyway.

 

[Henry]

Coming from the guy who wrote the game, that isn't very reassuring....

A response like that is how I know it's FROM the guy who wrote the game.

The "Slavelords of Cydonia" play-by-post over in the "Playing the Game" subforums is a good example of the "Grim" in "Grim Tales." Currently, the PCs are working on plans to escape slavery and to try and cultivate a smallpox strain through crude tools in order to combat their alien captors. That's pretty grim, to me.

 

[Fenris]

How is it grittier?

Magic can kill you. That goes double if you're trying to cast it.

Massive Damage Threshold as Henry mentions is on a sliding scale to fit your grittiness, but suffice it to say that a good hit will trigger a save. And Saves in GT are lower than Core as well.

I don't have Modern so I can olny compare it to Core. But it has that flexibility of Modern in building a character but to an even greater exent.

But as Wulf says in the book, this is a toolbox. You choose how gritty you want it to be. There's a defense bonus for each class. But one option sets when you get to apply it: all the time or you can lose the DB if caught flat footed.

The Horror rules rock. Undead aren't that bad in Core. in GT, whoa nelly. Half the time you end up running for your life, which is as it should be. But there again you can choose how severe the rolls will be based on.

You can use GT to tweak out the system until it does what you want it to. Take a peek, it's well worth the price of admission.