Recent content by Doctor Futurity

Do you do a lot of flex/improv in the storytelling aspects of play? I found intrusions get the most used when it comes to narrative advancement and providing exciting details and advancements. I like to equate intrusions as "that thing that unexpectedly happens in the movie you are...

I used to worry about this too, and for a long time I didn't play Numenera or Cypher because of it. When I finally "saw the light" and embraced the design I found this was actually a non issue, and after several campaigns under my belt I would never mess with it; the dynamic of the point pool...

I guess my players just enjoyed the choice of taking 2 XP and sharing one of them, and contemplating whether or not they wanted to pay the XP price instead to avoid whatever it was. Almost universally they went with accepting the intrusion because they trusted me to make it interesting and not...

This here. I didn't find the video game terribly inspiring but I love the tabletop game, and my group found it a refreshing change of pace once they got over equating the point pools of their characters with other RPG notions of health/action. Cypher really requires a sort of mental paradigm...

Intrusions are my favorite thing about Cypher System. Players also get them in the current Revised edition. The GM Intrusion is simply a story mechanism; my players love them. If you find there's a lot of player pushback, you might be doing them wrong.

I've run it with Vaesen, Alien and Mutant year Zero...I like it, and its very efficient at the style of game it supports. I plan to run it eventually for The Electric State (but must convince my players to NOT watch that movie, just appreciate the art book its based on), and also Forbidden...

Infinite open-ended saves made sense under the way 5th edition (and earlier) allowed for leveling up. Remember, it was possible with a bit of time to have a warrior with a STR of 200 if you set about doing it. The cool thing about saves was a snarky GM could give the STR 200 dude a Level 40 Save...

This kind of feels like change for its own sake, though.

I'll have to investigate further. The elegance of the classic saving roll mechanic was how all encompassing it was and how easy it was to explain and understand. It worked well, and it leaned in to the level mechanic of advancing stats to improve your odds of success. For me at least, seeing a...

The T&T Saving Roll is one of the most inventive and brilliant early game mechanics ever devised. If it was removed from this new edition, then I am not interested in whatever they are coming up with....it's like Alternity all over again.

Sounds like the makers of Outgunned should put in a pitch for the Tomb Raider IP.

I'm interested in seeing what they do here but as one of those old guard I'm going to brace myself for thus being a "T&T in name only" scenario. No Khazan, no Lerot'rah, no Fang? Hmmm. As for dice pool combat I published an entire expansion to the game in 1986 to bake in more developed combat...

Exactly. GURPS did this with Transhunan Space, WWII, Hellboy, Dungeons Fantasy, Traveller (iirc), and a few others I dont recall atm.

As a big GURPS fan I get your argument but when I look at this from a new gamer perspective just picking up Tomb Raider, if I were to then have to buy a bunch of FATE books to play it.....I simply wouldn't. Some games do benefit from including the rules (even GURPS does this on occasion.)

I always thought of AD&D as being wargame inspired, that's pretty clear. But 4E's criticism was that it was heavily influenced by video game design. Anyone who was deeply in to World of Warcraft in the late 00's could see the WoW DNA influencing 4E design. The secondary influence was pretty...