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Hypothetical Fun: What If A Different Genre Was The RPG Foundation?
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<blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9300398" data-attributes="member: 6779310"><p>[USER=4937]@Celebrim[/USER] The board admins haven't enabled the rolleyes response emoji.</p><p></p><p>I think your apparent key point - most SF isn't really SF - is a worthless deconstruction in this context - it doesn't matter at all, because what the people think of as SF is still largely grounded in the greats of 50's and 60's SciFi/SpaceOpera... while the SFWA's one-time standard of no more than 3 breaks from known reality has narrowed to the point of almost nothing fitting it as various things became tested; it may open a bit soon due to AI... but it's also telling that Asimov, Heinlein, and Niven, arguably the most important and influential authors of that wave, paid only lip-service to it in general. Niven's <em>The Integral Trees</em> being a self-stated exception.</p><p></p><p>I do think medivalish fantasy is ENTIRELY accidental; Greek-themed and Grego-arabic fiction far outstripped the box-office of vagely medieval, and even Tolkien's premedieval, in theaters until the 21st C. Conan, for example, isn't medieval, it's essentially iron age. John Carter is technofantasy... as is Flash Gordon. And so are a couple of less well known planetary romances, including the much beloved by its fans Trigan Empire. The only notable European medieval themed movies I can think of pre-1975 are <u><em>Camelot</em></u> (1967) and <u><em>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court</em></u> (1949). Tolkien's not even that early on film...</p><p></p><p>As for the mechanics...</p><p>HP? Many people came in with damage steps and stayed happy with that... coming in via: WEG Star Wars; White WolfWoD VTM, WWTA, MTA, WTO... The thing is, the people coming in from these other games just happen to also coincide with the downward slide of TSR, rendering their impact able to be semi-credibly aimed at TSR...</p><p></p><p>Most of the players I've gamed with don't prefer D&D style <u>climbing</u> HP. </p><p></p><p>Classes I agree - they're key to easy adoption... </p><p>Let's see, the most successful games of the 70's and 80's:</p><table style='width: 100%'><tr><td></td><td>Classes</td><td>Levels</td><td>Damage Model</td><td>Skill Model</td><td>Level Effects</td></tr><tr><td>D&D</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>HP, climbing by level</td><td>OE: None<br /> early AD&D: Atts/background <br /> AD&D-3.x: leveled<br /> 4e-5e: boolean </td><td>HP and caster spells, later weapon proficiency and class abilities, 3.x incremental skills</td></tr><tr><td>Tunnels and Trolls</td><td>Yes¹</td><td>Yes</td><td>HP=Con</td><td>≤5.0: None<br /> ≥5.5: leveled</td><td>≤5.5 Attribute increase by level<br /> ≥7: more skills, </td></tr><tr><td>Traveller</td><td>No²</td><td>No</td><td>damage to atts</td><td>leveled, hard to raise</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>RuneQuest</td><td>No²</td><td>no</td><td>HP by atts</td><td>Leveled, percentile</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Drakar och Demoner</td><td>Yes⁷</td><td>No</td><td>HP by att.</td><td>leveled percentile</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>The Fantasy Trip</td><td>Yes³</td><td>No</td><td>HP = ST⁴</td><td>Boolean, some chained.</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Palladium</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>HP, base = PE, climbing by level</td><td>Percentile non-combat, d20 mods and SAs for combat.</td><td>All skills increase by skill specific increment⁵, 1d6 HP</td></tr><tr><td>Rolemaster</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>HP, climb bought as skill</td><td>leveled.</td><td>Points to increase skills; HP and MP are raised as skills.</td></tr><tr><td>Champions/Hero System</td><td>No</td><td>No</td><td>Dual Att based HP tracks Body and Stun</td><td>Leveled.</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>WFRP 1e</td><td>Yes</td><td>sort of ⁶</td><td>HP = Att</td><td>boolean</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>FASA-Trek</td><td>MOS</td><td>No</td><td>HP figured from atts</td><td>leveled </td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Twilight 2000 1e</td><td>MOS</td><td>No.</td><td>Attribtue derived, by location</td><td>leveled</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Car Wars⁸</td><td>No</td><td>No</td><td>fixed HP (3)+ some for certain skills</td><td>leveled</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>GURPS</td><td>No</td><td>No</td><td>HP by att</td><td>Leveled</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>WEG Star Wars d6</td><td>No²</td><td>No.</td><td>Damage Steps</td><td>leveled</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Cyberpunk 2013</td><td>Kind of⁸</td><td>No</td><td>Damage Steps</td><td>Leveled</td><td>n/a</td></tr></table><p>¹: only 4, and they only regulate magic and weapons. They are Warrior, Wizard, Rogue Wizard, and Warrior-Wizard. Non-casters are warriors.... reguardless of other abilities.</p><p>²: these games have class-like character gen, but don't have class effects outside char gen.</p><p>³: Two: Hero, Wizard. If you're not a wizard, you're a hero.</p><p>⁴: I don't recall if it's damage to Att or HP= Att, but we always played it as HP=Att in combat, then refigured "when the adrenaline wears out"</p><p>⁵:Early editions table based; later make skills x+y, where X is level 1 and y is per level increase, but keep tables for combat skills with special abilities and modifiers at specific levels.</p><p>⁶: Number of careers completed is used in a level-like manner for adventure suitability and campaign longevity bragging; for spell-casters, the sequential 5 to 6 career path is leveled, but primarily affects casting.</p><p>⁷: 1st ed has several classes, setting initial skills and maxima for categories </p><p>⁸: Each class has a specific special ability as a skill; this augments related skills and provides a bit of extra effect; other than access to those, the game is classless.</p><p></p><p>All of those are much beloved, by their fans, Only WEG's Star Wars and FASAs Star Trek aren't available legally (but are pirated almost as much as D&D, Pathfinder, and Palladium. All of them have descendants in current availability except FASA-Trek... WEG SW had to drop the label at end of license, but d6 Space is available in PDF, and is what happened with WEG SW 3e when the license was pulled while it was in Dev.</p><p>GURPS, TFT, Rolemaster: all three have current editions that are very close to their first edition.</p><p>Traveller, T&T, Palladium, RuneQuest, and Champions/Hero System all have current eidtions with significant changes, but largely considered interoperable with their first edition (I disagree strongly on Traveller, but the fans of MGT insist it's compatible).</p><p>Twilight 2000, Star Wars, Star Trek: all have new games with the same setting.</p><p>Car Wars: some used it as an RPG, and SJ intended it to support RPG-mode play... the current edition is pure boardgame mechanically unrelated, but the final edition of classic is available in PDF, and is just as RPG adjacent as the first deluxe box - only half the skill list is combat related.</p><p></p><p>The thing is, Most D&D players only ever play D&D, and many drop out of RPGing entirely, often at an edition change or college graduation.</p><p>Most Traveller players seemingly didn't.</p><p></p><p><strong>I'm arguing that HP without penalties until death are dominant because Gygax and Arneson happened to pick that mode</strong>, instead of the more-common-in-wargames damage steps (often 2 step: temporarily disabled and off the table, sometimes with campaign rules determining if off the table recovers or dies), not because they're inherently better/easier than damage steps. Note that when I use damage steps, it means damage at a given level doesn't fill in all the lesser levels, but duplication does do a higher level.</p><p></p><p>Once we get into the 1990's, the move away from no-penalty HP pool has been made by a number of successful (meaning still selling for profit) game lines. </p><p>Damage Steps: Storyteller (WoD, etc), several WEG d6 system games, FATE, End of the World</p><p>HP with penalties: Prime Directive, a couple WEG d6 system games, LUG Trek, Decipher-Trek, GURPS, </p><p>Damage to Attributes: Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller T4, Mongoose Traveller</p><p>HP with critical threshold: later Palladium (it's a standard option), WFRP1, WFRP 2, WFRP4</p><p></p><p>D&D 3.X and 5.X have threshold options, as does Palladium. In later Palladium, that threshold is damage to HP, period. (pSDC, however, is also present in those.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="aramis erak, post: 9300398, member: 6779310"] [USER=4937]@Celebrim[/USER] The board admins haven't enabled the rolleyes response emoji. I think your apparent key point - most SF isn't really SF - is a worthless deconstruction in this context - it doesn't matter at all, because what the people think of as SF is still largely grounded in the greats of 50's and 60's SciFi/SpaceOpera... while the SFWA's one-time standard of no more than 3 breaks from known reality has narrowed to the point of almost nothing fitting it as various things became tested; it may open a bit soon due to AI... but it's also telling that Asimov, Heinlein, and Niven, arguably the most important and influential authors of that wave, paid only lip-service to it in general. Niven's [I]The Integral Trees[/I] being a self-stated exception. I do think medivalish fantasy is ENTIRELY accidental; Greek-themed and Grego-arabic fiction far outstripped the box-office of vagely medieval, and even Tolkien's premedieval, in theaters until the 21st C. Conan, for example, isn't medieval, it's essentially iron age. John Carter is technofantasy... as is Flash Gordon. And so are a couple of less well known planetary romances, including the much beloved by its fans Trigan Empire. The only notable European medieval themed movies I can think of pre-1975 are [U][I]Camelot[/I][/U] (1967) and [U][I]A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court[/I][/U] (1949). Tolkien's not even that early on film... As for the mechanics... HP? Many people came in with damage steps and stayed happy with that... coming in via: WEG Star Wars; White WolfWoD VTM, WWTA, MTA, WTO... The thing is, the people coming in from these other games just happen to also coincide with the downward slide of TSR, rendering their impact able to be semi-credibly aimed at TSR... Most of the players I've gamed with don't prefer D&D style [U]climbing[/U] HP. Classes I agree - they're key to easy adoption... Let's see, the most successful games of the 70's and 80's: [TABLE] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]Classes[/TD] [TD]Levels[/TD] [TD]Damage Model[/TD] [TD]Skill Model[/TD] [TD]Level Effects[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]D&D[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]HP, climbing by level[/TD] [TD]OE: None early AD&D: Atts/background AD&D-3.x: leveled 4e-5e: boolean [/TD] [TD]HP and caster spells, later weapon proficiency and class abilities, 3.x incremental skills[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Tunnels and Trolls[/TD] [TD]Yes¹[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]HP=Con[/TD] [TD]≤5.0: None ≥5.5: leveled[/TD] [TD]≤5.5 Attribute increase by level ≥7: more skills, [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Traveller[/TD] [TD]No²[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]damage to atts[/TD] [TD]leveled, hard to raise[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]RuneQuest[/TD] [TD]No²[/TD] [TD]no[/TD] [TD]HP by atts[/TD] [TD]Leveled, percentile[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Drakar och Demoner[/TD] [TD]Yes⁷[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]HP by att.[/TD] [TD]leveled percentile[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]The Fantasy Trip[/TD] [TD]Yes³[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]HP = ST⁴[/TD] [TD]Boolean, some chained.[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Palladium[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]HP, base = PE, climbing by level[/TD] [TD]Percentile non-combat, d20 mods and SAs for combat.[/TD] [TD]All skills increase by skill specific increment⁵, 1d6 HP[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Rolemaster[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]HP, climb bought as skill[/TD] [TD]leveled.[/TD] [TD]Points to increase skills; HP and MP are raised as skills.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Champions/Hero System[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]Dual Att based HP tracks Body and Stun[/TD] [TD]Leveled.[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]WFRP 1e[/TD] [TD]Yes[/TD] [TD]sort of ⁶[/TD] [TD]HP = Att[/TD] [TD]boolean[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]FASA-Trek[/TD] [TD]MOS[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]HP figured from atts[/TD] [TD]leveled [/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Twilight 2000 1e[/TD] [TD]MOS[/TD] [TD]No.[/TD] [TD]Attribtue derived, by location[/TD] [TD]leveled[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Car Wars⁸[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]fixed HP (3)+ some for certain skills[/TD] [TD]leveled[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]GURPS[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]HP by att[/TD] [TD]Leveled[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]WEG Star Wars d6[/TD] [TD]No²[/TD] [TD]No.[/TD] [TD]Damage Steps[/TD] [TD]leveled[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Cyberpunk 2013[/TD] [TD]Kind of⁸[/TD] [TD]No[/TD] [TD]Damage Steps[/TD] [TD]Leveled[/TD] [TD]n/a[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] ¹: only 4, and they only regulate magic and weapons. They are Warrior, Wizard, Rogue Wizard, and Warrior-Wizard. Non-casters are warriors.... reguardless of other abilities. ²: these games have class-like character gen, but don't have class effects outside char gen. ³: Two: Hero, Wizard. If you're not a wizard, you're a hero. ⁴: I don't recall if it's damage to Att or HP= Att, but we always played it as HP=Att in combat, then refigured "when the adrenaline wears out" ⁵:Early editions table based; later make skills x+y, where X is level 1 and y is per level increase, but keep tables for combat skills with special abilities and modifiers at specific levels. ⁶: Number of careers completed is used in a level-like manner for adventure suitability and campaign longevity bragging; for spell-casters, the sequential 5 to 6 career path is leveled, but primarily affects casting. ⁷: 1st ed has several classes, setting initial skills and maxima for categories ⁸: Each class has a specific special ability as a skill; this augments related skills and provides a bit of extra effect; other than access to those, the game is classless. All of those are much beloved, by their fans, Only WEG's Star Wars and FASAs Star Trek aren't available legally (but are pirated almost as much as D&D, Pathfinder, and Palladium. All of them have descendants in current availability except FASA-Trek... WEG SW had to drop the label at end of license, but d6 Space is available in PDF, and is what happened with WEG SW 3e when the license was pulled while it was in Dev. GURPS, TFT, Rolemaster: all three have current editions that are very close to their first edition. Traveller, T&T, Palladium, RuneQuest, and Champions/Hero System all have current eidtions with significant changes, but largely considered interoperable with their first edition (I disagree strongly on Traveller, but the fans of MGT insist it's compatible). Twilight 2000, Star Wars, Star Trek: all have new games with the same setting. Car Wars: some used it as an RPG, and SJ intended it to support RPG-mode play... the current edition is pure boardgame mechanically unrelated, but the final edition of classic is available in PDF, and is just as RPG adjacent as the first deluxe box - only half the skill list is combat related. The thing is, Most D&D players only ever play D&D, and many drop out of RPGing entirely, often at an edition change or college graduation. Most Traveller players seemingly didn't. [B]I'm arguing that HP without penalties until death are dominant because Gygax and Arneson happened to pick that mode[/B], instead of the more-common-in-wargames damage steps (often 2 step: temporarily disabled and off the table, sometimes with campaign rules determining if off the table recovers or dies), not because they're inherently better/easier than damage steps. Note that when I use damage steps, it means damage at a given level doesn't fill in all the lesser levels, but duplication does do a higher level. Once we get into the 1990's, the move away from no-penalty HP pool has been made by a number of successful (meaning still selling for profit) game lines. Damage Steps: Storyteller (WoD, etc), several WEG d6 system games, FATE, End of the World HP with penalties: Prime Directive, a couple WEG d6 system games, LUG Trek, Decipher-Trek, GURPS, Damage to Attributes: Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller T4, Mongoose Traveller HP with critical threshold: later Palladium (it's a standard option), WFRP1, WFRP 2, WFRP4 D&D 3.X and 5.X have threshold options, as does Palladium. In later Palladium, that threshold is damage to HP, period. (pSDC, however, is also present in those.) [/QUOTE]
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