The Odyssey System -- Stripped-down Hot Rod d20 rules

[damiller]

Is there any intention of dropping the "tactical" elements of d20? (Such as AoO, and its ilk) Because that is the one thing I liked about True 20, they dropped all the tactical map related stuff (which is the only reason I keep going back to it and MnM2e, I can get rid of maps if I want, because there are no rules about that stuff. Which is my one complaint about SW Saga, the combat chapter has so many "tactical" elements too it I darn near don't want to play it.)

d

 

[ValhallaGH]

Which is my one complaint about SW Saga, the combat chapter has so many "tactical" elements too it I darn near don't want to play it.)

d

One thing to keep in mind is that it's always easier to cut those elements than it is to keep them. Just announce at the beginning of the campaign that there are no attacks of opportunity, and that all feats and abilities that rely upon them are now useless (things that just tangentially connect to the AoO system may need some rewriting).

However, for people that want such rules (and they do exist, the lack of such rules is a fairly common complaint about both True20 and MnM 2e), they don't have to go through the complicated work of designing and adding AoO back into Star Wars Saga.

My point is, if you like a system except for one big thing then look at what happens when you change or remove that thing. If you'll still like the system then get crackin', because it's not that much work to write a rules set (it's just a lot of work to balance one).

 

[GMSkarka]

Is there any intention of dropping the "tactical" elements of d20?

Absolutely. Our goal with Odyssey is that you could even play it .....*gasp!* without miniatures! (Shock! Horror!)

However, for people that want such rules (and they do exist

They sure do. And it's my opinion that they're already well-served by other, more tactically-oriented rules sets (like core d20, for example). Odyssey is being designed specifically for the players and GMs who like the familiarity of the basics of d20, but would prefer a more streamlined, so-called "rules light" approach, while maintaining the easy adaptability of other d20 products.

 

[jaerdaph]

In my opinion, I really don't think these "fracture the fanbase" -- since they're all d20-based and therefore pretty easily adaptable.

I had briefly considered it, but honestly, I have doubts about the size of the True20 fanbase. There doesn't seem to be much demand reflected in market presence of the True20 stuff, either in online or real-world stores.

Plus, in my opinion, similar to my views of SWSE, True20 doesn't go far enough in stripping down the rules.

Fair enough. I have to admit that I like the stipped down aproach you're proposing here (I can certainly see myself trying this system for quick spur of the moment pickup games, for example, and the existence of a free SRD for the game would go a long way towards making that possible).

One thing that I see as integral to a rules-light/stripped down game engine is ease of GM prep: Not only should one be able to learn the rules faster and have actual play go faster, the GM should be able to prep an adventure in a much shorter amount of time as well. Will that be something you will address directly (not just implied indirectly by the rules)? I think you'd agree ease of GM prep is a very big selling point, if not just to save time in our busy 21st century lives, than to save time for concentrating on the creative elements of the story we want to tell (the so-called "fluff").

And thanks for reminding me of the positive aspects of the so-called fracturing I brought up - Adamant Entertainment has always been a generous supporter of the d20 OGL movement with their OGC declarations, allowing for others to take things in other directions as they do the same.

 

[TonyTempest]

Occupation + Talent Trees sounds awesome. That would do it for me! I agree that in a pulp-y game (and that would include such modern fare as Die Hard and 24) the Heroes should be able to do quite a bit without having to spend skill points. As long as there's some "niche protection" (a termed I've seen kicked about on the 'net! ) by having the Talent Trees, I'm good.

As for the Death Spiral (asked above), the M&M game I played had the problem that, when the character was hit (in the first round), that character then was incapable of hitting or dodging for the rest of combat, and was barely able to run away. I could have been playing it wrong, but it felt so wrong I checked and re-checked the rules and didn't find a mistake. I've had similar (but not as extreme) happenings in other games with a death spiral, so I wasn't surprised.

The problem with any sort of damage system is it can't do the plot necessitated damage you see in movies or books. The character can stand up and take any kind of damage til the end of the fight, or have a "Per Encounter" set of hit points (hmmmm.....). I mentioned the Indy v. Giant Nazi earlier... but after the Nazi was killed by the propeller, Indy kept fighting like he had just had a Cure Serious Wounds potion in his adventuring pack, maybe he had a new set of hit points when he entered a different encounter? However, when the plot needs the hero to go down so the villain can explain his elaborate plot, in exacting detail (with diagrams), the hero goes down like he has a glass jaw. For my money, what a high-action/adventure game needs is hit points galore, but a super-easy coup-de-grace rule so a hero can be knocked out (not killed) and thrown into a Bonds-style deathtrap or a prison cell (where the other prisoner can help him build his powered armor suit) or so on. That way, when the fight is important, the hero can go on and on like the Energizer bunny, but when the nazi gets the drop on him, he doesn't have to beat the hero like a rented mule in order to knock him out and take him to the master villain. GM fiat is okay if the players trust the GM, but a way to handle "health" that emulates that would be better.

thanks

david

 

[SirKerry]

For my money, what a high-action/adventure game needs is hit points galore, but a super-easy coup-de-grace rule so a hero can be knocked out (not killed) and thrown into a Bonds-style deathtrap or a prison cell (where the other prisoner can help him build his powered armor suit) or so on. That way, when the fight is important, the hero can go on and on like the Energizer bunny, but when the nazi gets the drop on him, he doesn't have to beat the hero like a rented mule in order to knock him out and take him to the master villain. GM fiat is okay if the players trust the GM, but a way to handle "health" that emulates that would be better.

Yes, but what would stop the players from using it on the big bad and then just slitting his/her/its throat - kinda anti-climatic.

Kerry

 

[TonyTempest]

Well, they would have to sneak up on the big bad to do that, and hopefully by fighting through all the minions he would know they were coming.....

I dunno... I got nothing.... but something like that would be nice.

david

 

[2WS-Steve]

Well, they would have to sneak up on the big bad to do that, and hopefully by fighting through all the minions he would know they were coming.....

I dunno... I got nothing.... but something like that would be nice.

david

Jonathan Tweet actually tried to address this once on his website and it struck me as at least a good place to start:

There is no Try

I'll also copy and paste the whole thing below so people can discuss if they wish (if I'm over-stepping, I'm sorry. But I figure it was intended to be shared).

****************
In classic Trek, Captain Kirk is unlikely to try to escape from a villain that has him under the gun and fail to do so. Sometimes he tries and succeeds. Other times he doesn't try at all, being led around by goons, defeated. (It's incongruous when this happens because we've all seen him get out from under the gun at other times.) How would this dichotomy translate into RPGs?

[This question is tangentially related to the recent issue of whether action movies, or other media in general, are good models for RPG mechanics.]

Most roleplaying games follow a simulationist model for determining whether a PC can get the better of a villain holding a gun on them. The player decides that the PC will go for it, and only then do the dice roll. Star Trek does not look like that. The Star Trek model would go something like this:

Player: I try to take out the guy who's holding the phaser on me.

GM: Roll for it.

Player: [rolls & fails]

GM: He's too alert. You know that if you tried it you'd almost certainly get disintegrated.

Player: Dang. OK, I go through the door like he's telling me to.

The player has tried to get the PC out from under the gun, but the PC hasn't actually tried (just like Kirk doesn't try—he either does it or doesn't do it).

Now if the player's roll had succeeded, the PC would have taken out the villain with the phaser. Maybe if the player has failed badly, then the PC would have tried to take out the guy with the phaser and gotten beaten into unconsciousness, or maybe disintegrated. The less Kirk-like the PC is, the worse you can do to them with a bad roll.

Why would one want to use such a system? It would be to make the PC's more Kirk-like. That is, there's something base and demeaning about trying to do something and failing (especially trying to get the better of some mook and failing). Of course, whether Kirk takes out his captors or gets led meekly around depends on the needs of the plot, not dice rolls. But at least a system like this would let you look like Kirk while still using the roleplaying convention of dicing for success.

I'm not saying that having Kirk-like PCs is a good thing, or that I want to play that way. I'm just exploring how you'd handle Kirkliness in an RPG.

—JoT
August 2002

 

[2WS-Steve]

Commenting on it now:

You could translate that to a bigger fight scene by dicing out the entire combat, then having some point where the players could either choose (or spend) action points/story points to retcon that they didn't actually fight it out, but instead accepted being captured. The players might want to do this if, for instance, one of the PCs died.

Perhaps this could even be a standard use of Action points (though I'm thinking more like White Wolf's Adventure! style story-changing points).

Then, for quiet ambushes, maybe a different use where you spend the Action points in advance -- and if you win (defeat the opponents in under ten rounds or something) then you're considered to have dropped the target with one blow or whatever.

 

[BadMojo]

Fewer skills would be great. No skills at all (as mentioned above) would be even better, IMO.

I'd love to see some sort of mechanic like action dice, but more integrated than we see in the Eberron or Unearthed Arcana versions. It'd be great to be able to have my character do something completely crazy and cool but actually have it work.

Point buy as default character creation would be nifty too.

Sounds like it'll be a fun, light alternative to True 20. As much as I like True 20 it still seems too close to standard D20.