Play Something Else

[MintRabbit]

So in the spirit of the thread: what game did you play that really made an impression on you and changed the way you looked at playing RPGs in general, or even the way you looked at your favorite game.

Fiasco was the first game I played that didn't have a GM responsible for the world. It helped me realize that a) everyone at the table having an equal say in what happens is a good thing and b) the plot doesn't always have to make sense.

The way External Containment Bureau presents mysteries showed me just how good the players are at coming up with solutions to problems, and that I really don't have to stress about not knowing all of the answers.

Bones Deep gave me an all-new appreciation for proper hyperlinking, and showed me how lovely a series of roll-tables truly can be.

Last Fleet was a great lesson in how stacking consequences and having them set pieces of the plot off like dominoes can really give the players a lot of emergencies to juggle with - and you don't even have to try that hard.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

As the person who created the prototype for Hero Disads, that's exactly why it bribed you with them; because I could quite see how unlikely it was most people would take such things without some tradeoff for them, and in superheroes they're endemic.

Thank you, mate, for your contributions to Champions. I've been enjoying the game for about 35 years now.

I've never played Champions and know nothing about Fuzion. But I enjoyed this story of evolving taste in RPGing.

And thank you, mate. I enjoy a compliment.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Thank you, mate, for your contributions to Champions. I've been enjoying the game for about 35 years now.

Though not quite to my taste these days, I played it on and off for decades myself; it was a much better game than the houseruled S44 it was partly based off of.

 

[billd91]

Games where you built in disadvantages for your characters. GURPS and Champions specifically. My first thought on encountering the idea was something like "Why would anyone want their character to have disadvantages?" It was one of the things that broadened my understanding of role playing.

I can see that. In my case, the idea that “if it doesn’t hinder you, it isn’t worth any points” inspired me for other games too, particularly magic item creation in 3e D&D. There were discounts on the market value of items for restrictions like being limited to a class or alignment. But if a player was applying them to their own item to fit THEM, I wouldn’t apply the discount since it wasn’t limiting them. No limit = no discount.
And then Mutants and Masterminds pushed it even farther when they shifted how complications worked. If the complication isn’t actually invoked, it doesn’t get you anything for the character or play session. It’s only when a complication comes into play that you get a hero point. Love it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And then Mutants and Masterminds pushed it even farther when they shifted how complications worked. If the complication isn’t actually invoked, it doesn’t get you anything for the character or play session. It’s only when a complication comes into play that you get a hero point. Love it.

I always thought M&M's approach was simultaneously brilliant and didn't cover the ground, in that it was good at showing frequency of a problem, but not intensity. Someone who is impaired in his ability to operate when their phobia is present and someone who absolutely freezes up both have a problem, but they're not the same degree of problem, and that should be represented in the reward for same.

 

[Reynard]

I always thought M&M's approach was simultaneously brilliant and didn't cover the ground, in that it was good at showing frequency of a problem, but not intensity. Someone who is impaired in his ability to operate when their phobia is present and someone who absolutely freezes up both have a problem, but they're not the same degree of problem, and that should be represented in the reward for same.

Disadvantage like that are entirely in the hands of the GM so it is tough to value them.

 

[Shardstone]

So in the spirit of the thread: what game did you play that really made an impression on you and changed the way you looked at playing RPGs in general, or even the way you looked at your favorite game.

When I played DC Heroes for the first time, it was my first "point based" TTRPG (after playing D&D and Heroes Unlimited) and it BLEW MY YOUNG MIND. That degree of character customization was a paradigm shift for me.

Much more recently, I never "got" PbtA or FitD games until --after a couple threads here -- I gave Scum and Villainy a try and fell in love. But what really did it was a combination of watching Season 2 of Me, myself and Die where he plays Ironsworn, and then me playing Starforged. Complete mental shift on why people love that style of no/low prep, play to find out, narrative game.

Honorable mention: 2d20, for a specific element: I have adapted the Momentum and Threat pool to every game I run with a metacurrency. it works especially well for Bennies in Savage Worlds and Force Points in WEG Star Wars.

Vampire V5. I'm not quite sure why, but the Dynamic Combat in that game really opened my eyes. It was like, why have specific actions and imitative if you have skills? State what you're doing, build your dice pool, and do it, and the world (the GM) will respond in kind. It was very neat and is a feeling I've been left wanting for a long time.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I always thought M&M's approach was simultaneously brilliant and didn't cover the ground, in that it was good at showing frequency of a problem, but not intensity. Someone who is impaired in his ability to operate when their phobia is present and someone who absolutely freezes up both have a problem, but they're not the same degree of problem, and that should be represented in the reward for same.

I'm still noodling through how to do this with my Hero houserules.

I'm currently going with 1-3 hero points (I'm calling them soap points) are earned for invoking a disd, depending on the intensity. The number of times a disad can be invoked depends on the frequency of the disad. Very common is no more than 3 sessions in 4, Common 2 in 4, Uncommon 1 in 4.

And I've gone and stolen Fate's bidding mechanic as well. So a player can always invoke a disad (frequency limits appply) and gets the soap points for it. The GM can offer soap points to invoke a disad but the player can counter bid soap from their pool of points to resist. The player only needs to match the GM's bid. THe GM may bid no more points than the disad is worth for its severity.

None of this is actually play tested.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Disadvantage like that are entirely in the hands of the GM so it is tough to value them.

I think with a game with a somewhat less chunky form of metacurrency, it could have been handled by having intensity tell you how many of the points you got when it came up, but M&M hero points were too chunky for that.