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Game Design Masterclass: Ars Magica
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<blockquote data-quote="RareBreed" data-source="post: 8422402" data-attributes="member: 6945590"><p>Since Living Steel by Leading Edge Games also came out in 1987, I would argue that it concurrently had the idea of Troupe style play. In Living Steel, you had two kinds of characters you could play; Ringers or Alpha Team members. The "Ringers" who were the military characters who came out of stasis from an earlier failed war against the Imperium, and the Alpha Teams, were made of members like paramedics, policemen. engineers and construction to help with societal functioning and rebuildinng.</p><p></p><p>The players were supposed to create at least one Ringer each and a total of 30 Alpha Team characters for the entire group. The background of the game is sort of like a sci-fi version of The Morrow Project. The setting is an apocalpyse in the future caused by an alien invading force to a planet called Rhand. It has a very deep history with many major players (the "good guys" Seven Worlds, the "bad guys" Imperium made up of their Starcaste and Landcaste trampling on the poor Bondsmen, the honorable but warlike alien Dragoncrests, and the implacable and insidious Spectrals).</p><p></p><p>Where Ars Magica had a Covenant that acted as a base of operations and Vis was a strategic resource for the Mages to acquire, Living Steel was in essence an apocalyptic game setting where things like power generators, industrial plants, and food production were important. An entire chapter and at least 1/4th of the charts were dedicated to rules about building tooling and infrastructure (if you played Fallout 4, scrounging for componennts to build and repair things will feel similar). Somewhat similar to The Morrow Project's "bolt holes", the Ringer and Alpha Team were awoken from specific locations, but these locations were not designed as a long term base of operations. Part of the goal of the game, as in The Morrow Project, was to establish a base and help survivors (except in Living Steel, the setting was either immediately after the apocalypse or one year after, not 150 years like in TMP). Where the Ringers were the heavy hitters (think Mars team from TMP, the Alpha Team characters were like the Recon and Science Team). When you rebuild society, you don't just want combat monsters, you want people with the right skills to do so.</p><p></p><p>And if anyone is curious, Living Steel uses a slightly modified version of the infamous Phoenix Command Combat System (PCCS). I personally think the notoriety is not deserved even if you do have to look at a lot of charts. PCCS was the first game to have "continuous initiative" (a system later borrowed by 1st ed Shadowrun and Hackmaster). Instead of "rolling for initiative" and giving each character X number of actions, every action had an action cost, and you just kept adding it up. Therefore, it wasn't as important as who started an action first, as who completed an action first. I still find this system to be the best form of initiative.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RareBreed, post: 8422402, member: 6945590"] Since Living Steel by Leading Edge Games also came out in 1987, I would argue that it concurrently had the idea of Troupe style play. In Living Steel, you had two kinds of characters you could play; Ringers or Alpha Team members. The "Ringers" who were the military characters who came out of stasis from an earlier failed war against the Imperium, and the Alpha Teams, were made of members like paramedics, policemen. engineers and construction to help with societal functioning and rebuildinng. The players were supposed to create at least one Ringer each and a total of 30 Alpha Team characters for the entire group. The background of the game is sort of like a sci-fi version of The Morrow Project. The setting is an apocalpyse in the future caused by an alien invading force to a planet called Rhand. It has a very deep history with many major players (the "good guys" Seven Worlds, the "bad guys" Imperium made up of their Starcaste and Landcaste trampling on the poor Bondsmen, the honorable but warlike alien Dragoncrests, and the implacable and insidious Spectrals). Where Ars Magica had a Covenant that acted as a base of operations and Vis was a strategic resource for the Mages to acquire, Living Steel was in essence an apocalyptic game setting where things like power generators, industrial plants, and food production were important. An entire chapter and at least 1/4th of the charts were dedicated to rules about building tooling and infrastructure (if you played Fallout 4, scrounging for componennts to build and repair things will feel similar). Somewhat similar to The Morrow Project's "bolt holes", the Ringer and Alpha Team were awoken from specific locations, but these locations were not designed as a long term base of operations. Part of the goal of the game, as in The Morrow Project, was to establish a base and help survivors (except in Living Steel, the setting was either immediately after the apocalypse or one year after, not 150 years like in TMP). Where the Ringers were the heavy hitters (think Mars team from TMP, the Alpha Team characters were like the Recon and Science Team). When you rebuild society, you don't just want combat monsters, you want people with the right skills to do so. And if anyone is curious, Living Steel uses a slightly modified version of the infamous Phoenix Command Combat System (PCCS). I personally think the notoriety is not deserved even if you do have to look at a lot of charts. PCCS was the first game to have "continuous initiative" (a system later borrowed by 1st ed Shadowrun and Hackmaster). Instead of "rolling for initiative" and giving each character X number of actions, every action had an action cost, and you just kept adding it up. Therefore, it wasn't as important as who started an action first, as who completed an action first. I still find this system to be the best form of initiative. [/QUOTE]
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