[non d20] Buffy RPG

[Green Knight]

Bought the book a while back. Great system. Unfortunately I haven't played it, yet, but I hope to, soon. Unfortunately, there's a serious dearth of gamers in Miami for anything other than D&D, so finding people to play a Buffy game has been a bear.

 

[S'mon]

I have a copy of the rules but dont like them very much. Specifically character creation. It might just be me, but i have a hard time reading rule books that differ from the canon material of show itself (ex. how weak Buffy is compared to Angel, WTH).

There are a few stat errors like that for personalities from the show, rating Season-3 Angel Str 9 and Season-5 Buffy Str 8 (avg human STR is 2) was the one that hit me most, also. This seems to have been overly influenced by the Angel tv show, which presents him as far more superheroic than in the early Buffy seasons. I think Angel's quote that Buffy is a lot stronger than him comes from Season 1, when he was weaker - but so was Buffy, according to the rules. Probably season-5 Buffy should be Str 9, and season-3 Angel Str 8 (same as Spike), Angel after several seasons of his own show could be Str 9 also.

On the lower end I was also a bit dubious about season-3 Cordelia Str 3 vs Willow (& Jonathan) Str 1, again this seems influenced by the later Angel tv show episodes where Cordelia acquires martial arts training. Str 2 seems right for an active Cheerleader type like Cordy.

However, niggling aside, the game _looks_ excellent and well worth picking up for pure entertainment value. I'm increasingly thinking I'd like to give it a go - perhaps run a one-shot and see if my players like it.

 

[fnork de sporg]

I haven't seen all of the older episodes yet, but at least so far I can't remember any occasion where a slayer whuuped him in a straight up fight. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[SteelDraco]

I'm currently playing in a weekly Buffy game. The system is ... decent. Not my favorite by a long shot. Personally, I think the Drama Points have too big of a place in the game's mechanics - they're really the only way that normal humans can fight against supernatural baddies, at least in my experience. They don't feel appropriately dramatic if you can expect to spend one every turn you're in combat, as well as on every important roll through the course of a session. It's possible our GM is just giving us too many - it's a new system for him as well.

The game does a fair job of capturing the feel of the show. I like the magic system, with the division between ritual magic and real-time sorcery. Combat flows pretty well, and the system penalizes repeated actions, which makes things more interesting than 'Attack, damage, attack, damage, repeat ad nauseum'.

I would personally rather use d20 Modern for the game, but the other players wanted to try the system out. There was talk of using GURPS, but I really don't think that would be an appropriate fit - BtVS is too cinematic for GURPS, as far as I'm concerned. I think d20 Modern would fit well because it's a good, solid system, with Buffy-type games as one of its primary intentions. It's properly cinematic, without removing all element of challenge. I'd use the rules from the BtVS game for the magic system, and perhaps find some kind of drawback system, but other than that, it'd fit well.

The books themselves are excellent - they do a great job of capturing the feel of the show, with quotes and pictures spread liberally throughout. Very high production values there, similar to the (relatively) recent Star Trek core rulebooks.

The PCs in my campaign are a Watcher (me - an English teacher with a background in ecological terrorism), a nerd-type, two jocks (one a Potential Slayer, the other just a normal human), and an amateur demon hunter. The campaign is set in the setting from the Slayer's Handbook, Grizzly Peak. It's a fairly amusing setting, with some good NPCs and such. Of course, since I don't really know how much of that is my DM and how much is the book itself, that's not much of a helpful bit of advice.

Anyway, I'm rambling. It's a decent game, though not precisely to my tastes.

 

[S'mon]

I haven't seen all of the older episodes yet, but at least so far I can't remember any occasion where a slayer whuuped him in a straight up fight. Maybe I'm wrong.

Angel has vampire reflexes etc, but in the early eps it was made clear that the Slayer is stronger than most vampires, which the Buffy game seems to have forgetten. Of course you could argue that the show has forgetten it also, like the Slayer's quasi-psionic vampire-detection abilities (maybe those were only in the pilot episode?). A problem with modelling the TV show in an RPG is that, as has been said on other threads, Buffy almost always seems to make quite a meal out of whatever she's fighting, from lone vamps up to hellgods, she almost never seems to have a swift & easy kill. I guess Drama Points are intended to model this ability to 'rise to the occasion'.

 

[S'mon]

SteelDraco, thanks for giving your experiences. Re Drama Points, I think the idea of them is that White Hats ('normal' PCs) get lots and are expected to use them liberally, whereas Heroes get fewer and need to save them for special occasions. The GM clearly needs to take care not to give out too many, though - on my reading basically DPs are only to be given out 'free' on rare occasions, but Experience Points are gained each session and PCs can buy DPS with them rather than improve their characters, if desired. My impression is that White Hats are probably expected to acquire (through XP & freebies) 2-3 DPs per game session, Heroes 0-2, and to spend a similar amount, maintaining a decent reserve for the season finale.

 

[Cor Azer]

I can't recall exactly where I read this figure (either on the Eden boards or in one of the books themselves), but White Hats generally go through about 5 Drama Points per episode, Heros less than that.

I have to whole-heartedly agree that the books have exceptional quality, and I think the system fits the cinematic needs of Buffy quite well. I believe the game is also a test run for Eden's Unisystem Lite rules, which will be released in a stand-alone (ie, non-licensed product) book sometime in the future.

I looked at the d20 Modern rules for a Buffy-esque game, but they just didn't fit like comfy bed buddies. If you were just focusing on the combat aspect of Buffy... maybe, but Buffy is a lot more than combat (or at least in my opinion, should be), and the d20 Modern system classifies too much for my likes.

Besides... the Buffy RPG has rules for kicking someone in the groin

And CJ Carella (I think I spelled his name right) did a really good job on writing the book in Buffy-speak.

All that said... I still can't get my players to ante up for even a one shot...

 

[nharwell]

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I looked at the d20 Modern rules for a Buffy-esque game, but they just didn't fit like comfy bed buddies. If you were just focusing on the combat aspect of Buffy... maybe, but Buffy is a lot more than combat (or at least in my opinion, should be), and the d20 Modern system classifies too much for my likes.

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Actually, I'd argue that the "combat aspect" is where D20 modern really can't simulate tv-action like Buffy. The skill, feat & talent systems could do passably well, but hit Points & AC just do not simulate high action very well. Some variation of vitality/wound points might work....

 

[Valiantheart]

Angel has vampire reflexes etc, but in the early eps it was made clear that the Slayer is stronger than most vampires, which the Buffy game seems to have forgetten. Of course you could argue that the show has forgetten it also, like the Slayer's quasi-psionic vampire-detection abilities (maybe those were only in the pilot episode?). A problem with modelling the TV show in an RPG is that, as has been said on other threads, Buffy almost always seems to make quite a meal out of whatever she's fighting, from lone vamps up to hellgods, she almost never seems to have a swift & easy kill. I guess Drama Points are intended to model this ability to 'rise to the occasion'.

As a show fanatic, I can say that Buffy has been said to "play" with her enemies before going for the kill. Slaying can somtimes be considered a metaphor for sex and Buffy likes lots of foreplay before the final kill shot.

Also, Buffy has been shown to be stronger than Angel as recently as season 4. Buffy has seemed to grow stronger over the seasons as she has grown more connected to her power. On the other hand I wouldnt be surprised if Angel was actually more skilled.

Drama points. Another things I didnt really like about the system. I liked the disadvantage system but it seems like the game should only be set in a highschool setting with things lke nerds, jocks etc.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Does the system use classes, if so what are the classes (Just a brief overview)?