Combat..

[Shadeling]

but ask yourself brian, whos mocking who... i felt my comment was best left as is, with tongue firmly placed in cheek... but thats just me i guess.  I'll probably use the Rune system for the game anyway, no sense in changing "so" much of TROS, i'l just start using it as a sourcebook, it'll get demoted to the same status as star wars d6, and my old AD&D books...thats ok though, they still serve a purpose

But Brian does have a point, kind of the same one I made earlier-if you are trying to demonstrate TROS to people, you should give people TROS, not a changed TROS.

And no one was telling you not to play TROS, they were just asking you reasonable questions.

[prophet118]

mayhaps, but you guys made me realize that the system as a whole cant stand change, it'll crumble, so im going to stop trying, i'll simply run it using a different system, one more like what i wanted.

[Shadeling]

mayhaps, but you guys made me realize that the system as a whole cant stand change, it'll crumble, so im going to stop trying, i'll simply run it using a different system, one more like what i wanted.

Not crumble...but systems are generally designed the way they are intentionally.

[Lance D. Allen]

I'm finding myself hard-pressed not to answer something extremely curt and more than a little rude. I will attempt to be polite. I really will.

I have seen absolutely nothing of any worth in this thread from you, prophet. I've seen things of merit from you in the past, which makes this all the more bewildering. Regardless, this thread..

Ahem. You don't like the combat system, you don't like the die-pool system. What is it that you do like? Maneuvers? Fine, use them. Anything else? If not, then this thread has nothing to do with TRoS, and really doesn't belong in this forum.

...well, I tried to be polite.

Take this as a piss-poor attitude if you will. I really don't care.

[Jake Norwood]

Prophet-

What do you want to keep? Why? Acentuate the positive, you know.

This thread is closed until Prophet answers. If he never does, than it's closed forever. Once he answers, we're have a better idea of where to go. I personally feel that (a) he can do whatever he wants with TROS in his own house, (b) Demos in public venues should be "vanilla" whenever possible, and (c) Prophet might be happier with another game, or with a TROS-something else hybrid. Let's all just be happy.

Jake

[prophet118]

what do i like about TROS

- simplistic system for playing, which focuses more on the players and story, than on DM driven plot

- players have a real chance to actually contribute to the game

- the sorcery system is as free form as i would like it to be, which i have tried to simulate before, since i cant stand wizards, but love playing sorcerers

- i like the margin system on damage, but Atlas games has been doing this for a long time, , in Rune specifically, but i do beleive in Ars Magica as well..

- stats are great, as are SAs as they give direction to a character, without having to deal with alignments

- combat manuevers are generally acceptable, though usually my players complain about "thats all i can do?"

- the skill system is a nice change from the standard D20 system, and i like the packages, very nice and thought out

things i dont like

- the amount of dice, they simply get in the way, though the method is interesting, my players were always tossing everything in at once, and when asked, they said they preferred that, even mentioning Rune by name

- the sorcery system could be a bit longer... maybe more levels, as is its easy to master many vageries at creation, and then have nothing left to strive for magically

- my group desires less focus on the die pool system, and more focus on just getting the job done, if they wanted chess, they would play chess


i truely only have a few complaints, but they are important to me. Usually anytime i started tweaking a game, even the the smallest degree, the purest come out and threaten to burn me at the stake. i changed Rune to fit my players, and their styles, but that got me branded a heretic, i altered D&D 3rd ed to fit more closely to what i wanted to see, and most of my friends refused to play, though they still complain about the base system.

i know that if i am running this at a convention, i should do it vanilla, but when you only have 5 hours to get a story across to someone, sacrifices must be made. i had no intention of letting too many people know about TROS, only if they asked, at which time i would tell them that i had altered the rules base, and if they ask why, i'll simply say, for ease of play, and quickness of pace.

there is truely nothing more i can say.. however i do know that if i change this system, and you roll a single die, there would be no true room for error, and pretty much everyone would succeed at skills. But honestly, on 7 dice, i can gaurentee you that i will rollat least 5 successes at any given time, unless the difficulty is outrageous. My method would level the playing field, letting anyone have at least a chance at a great success

[Mokkurkalfe]

I find it curious that you think that dice takes away so much from the
story telling. Granted, when you have to look for them on the floor, it might take up some time better used for other things... :-)

Still, some reflections:

On the "that's all I can do?" comment, maneuvers they're usually pretty easy to come up with on the fly. Almost all are a variation on giving you more dice or making your opponent lose dice.

You'll probably see more sorcery stuff in Sorcery and the Fey.

The main issue for you seem to be that tros uses too many dice. Fine. Personally, I like using a lot of them. You and your group obviously don't. So if you still want to play tRoS, then of course you should change it. The tricky thing is that while changing the dice mechanic is a pretty small thing in and of itself, it is the very foundation of the game. This means that there can be a *lot* of unforseen consequences and potential unbalancing. The only way to find them all would be to playtest it. A lot.
Still, if it works, then good for you.

Oh, one thing that confuses me. Your thought on the margin system on damage. You put it in your list of things you don't like, but you say that you like it. From your post, it looks like you like margin systems on damage in general, but not in tRoS, because Atlas games did it first. Is that correct?

[prophet118]

yeh, the margin thing shoud have gone on the likes... i cant even remember what my original point was for that one... something about the wounds i think... i'll edit it and move it to the like section

[prophet118]

i flip flopped two of them, the damage thing moved to things i liked, and the dice pool thing moved to things i dont

[Eamon Voss]

prophet118 brings up an interesting thought.  Is it possible to make a dice-light version of TROS?

For reference, I like the TROS style of dice pool.  Instead of juggling difficulty values and modifiers in my head, I just add and subtract dice in my hand.  Means I can focus more on the play of the game.  I do enough map in my dayjob to not want to bother to much with number-crunching (even small values), during one of my favorite hobbies.

The problem I see with taking out the dice pool is that you lose the ability for players to make strategic decisions in the game, unless you track more things on paper.  

So instead of doing a 2 die attack vs. DTN followed by an 8 die defense vs. DTN in a turn as is portrayed in standard TROS, in a dice light system I would do a d10 + Proficiency + Attribute + Modifiers attack versus a d10 + Proficiency + Attribute + Modifiers defense.  The combat pool could be added in as a modifier each round, and would (as I said earlier) have to be tracked on paper.  Compare the total rolls of attacker versus defender and figure out damage.

The d10 roll and its wide spread versus TROS smaller number factors means that the difference between weapons and people is trivialized, so perhaps you should use an exploding d6 or d8.

In any case, this is Ars Magica 3rd Edition, or maybe Rune (never played it).  Ars Magica 4th Edition combat is wretchedly broken, with the whip being the best and most lethal weapon around, and armor causing you to take more damage instead of less!

Anyway, in my experience of running convention games for Sengoku and FUDGE and Godlike, I've found that simplification of the core system is usually better than completely revising a game system.  In the case of TROS, I would probably run with a version of the free rules in a convention.  I would make clear that we were doing a rules-light version of the game, and have some NPC or two use some of the more complicated rules (like Sorcery).  I would also keep the setting as familiar as possible, doing something like  a Chivalric tournament, complete with jousting and pol-axe bouts, with a murder mystery to add spice to things.  

So, prophet118, I hope that is helpful!

[prophet118]

i actually havent played Ars Magica, mainly because i dont really want to buy it, or download the free 4th edition pdf..its not my thing..... Rune was closer from a combat system, so what i desired.... basically a weapon had an attack rating, an initiative raiting, a defense rating and a damage rating...

the weapons final was determined by the weapon stats, your stat, and then your skill....basically you just wrote down all the relevant numbers on the front sheet, and you were pretty much done....

of course the skill system was prety much similiar to any other ST game, sorta..... roll 1 d10 (theres the difference) the add skill plus attribute

armor gave whats called protection rating, which adds to your soak.....so you would add your stamina, plus armor protection, then have your soak,, which could be as low as 0, or around 6 or 7 starting.... you took that muych off the damage... anythign over would hurt you..... they also had my fav thing.... wound threshold, basically you wouldnt take an official wound until the damage went over your wound threshold... if it went over twice, you would take two wounds... and so on...

the problem was that wound thresholds could easily get outrageous.... upwards of 10-15

[Eamon Voss]

i actually havent played Ars Magica, mainly because i dont really want to buy it, or download the free 4th edition pdf..its not my thing..... Rune was closer from a combat system, so what i desired.... basically a weapon had an attack rating, an initiative raiting, a defense rating and a damage rating...

Ars Magica has an awesome magic system.  Worth looking into just for that, that is for sure, especially as the game is now free.  Combat and skill wise, I don't like it.  Combat is the typical roll-off you get in every other RPG with the added onus of unrealistic weapons and armor.  Skills are problematic since the dice roll is so much more important than your stats and/or skills.  My wife's Ars Magica game uses the Godlike rules for skill checks and combat, since that works so much better and was easy to tack on.  Now if only I could switch her to TROS for skills and combat...

of course the skill system was prety much similiar to any other ST game, sorta..... roll 1 d10 (theres the difference) the add skill plus attribute

Ahh... but the dice roll makes the attribute and skill in any check not as important as luck.  The roll is too wide, with no bell curve.  That means that Joe the Farmer can all too easily best Frank the Fisher in fishing contests.  Compare that to the bell-curving action of TROS.  In that, Joe the Farmer can still beat Frank the Fisher, but it doesn't happen so often.

[prophet118]

well with Rune, all the PCs are vikings, and are not the norm, ya know?

the npcs may have a skill or two, but if joe the farmer would like to have a contested leadership roll with the villiage leader, hes probably going to fail....lol

not having a skill gives you a -3 to your roll, and not having the equipment (if skill needs equipment) nets a -2 on top of that...

i know that may not make them even, but then to inspire the people it isnt hard, but the stats system ranging from -3 to +3, (i think just like AM, but i dont know for sure)

that modifies your roll as well, joe farmer is likely going to have a 0 or -1 in communication, whcih is the attribute used for leadership (if im not mistake, the book is in my car)

[Shadeling]

Well to comment on a couple of your points:

The number of dice do not get in the way at all. Sure the combat system takes a little getting used to, but after the learning curve, things go very smoothly. Take it from someone who has been running the game for quite sometime now (6+ months, 2 games, a couple characters have enough insight for bonus C priorities, almost bonus B). No one has had a problem with the dice, even me who doesn't normally like dice pools. If the system is being run the right way, especially combat, then there shouldn't be a massive release of all the dice in the pool. Characters who use all their dice in one attack, generally leave themselves open for a retribution. One player used to do this alot. After he suffered a level 4 inner thigh wound, and a level 4 head wound, he decided to be more prudent. Sure there are the characters who will do this-use all their pool in one shot, but they will quickly be taking a dirt nap.

Secondly on your point of more dice=more success. This does not necessarily hold true. I had a character with 7 Wit in a game I played. On a Ridicule roll, he only got a single success. Another example is the PC from the above example-the one who used to use all his combat pool. Even with ATN of 6 from his morning star, and using a 9 dice attack, I have seen several instances where he only got meager successes-2-3.

Hope this helps in demonstrating what I see in the system. This is no attack, just a demonstration.

[prophet118]

well those are your experiences, with your group, i cant just expect my group to play a game whose mechanics they loathe, it just isnt that simple.