I've pretty much decided to pick up and try TRoS, but....

[Lance D. Allen]

Hi Mord,

You seem to have resolved this issue for yourself, but you keep bringing up Merlin and Gandalf as the sterling examples of what kind of wizardry and spellplay that you want.

My question to you is this: They never DID call down meteors on an island to sink it, but did that really mean they couldn't? Merlin supposedly lived backward in time. He would have known about nukes, and naphtha and all sorts of nasty ways to kill people. It's even possible that he knew how to make and use these things. But he didn't, because it wasn't his goals. Gandalf on the other hand was a fairly renowned wizard, with many years of study and practice under his belt. I believe he was capable of a great deal more than he ever did in the series. But he didn't, either because of the watchers who might pinpoint him due to his magic, or some other cost, and for the same reason.. What good would it have done to call down a meteor on Mordor.. Sauron could have turned it aside, I'm sure. It's often about the checks and balances. TRoS sorcery is, according to some, capable of destroying the world. But it doesn't happen because of the checks and balances. Other sorcerers who can stop it, or the gods, or whatever.

That said, it's perfectly acceptable to limit the power level of magic in your game. I definitely wouldn't allow someone to call down meteors every time some island pissed them off... Or if I did, they'd have people looking for them, and these people wouldn't intend to chastise them, slap 'em on the wrist and say "Stop that."

[Brian Leybourne]

they'd have people looking for them, and these people wouldn't intend to chastise them, slap 'em on the wrist and say "Stop that."

LOL. See, it's for comments like that that we keep Lance around ;-)

(Just kidding, mate)

Brian.

[Bankuei]

Sorry again Mord if I contributed to the Hornet's nest idea...

I've just seen a lot of the nifty ideas for TROS get thrown out before they ever get tried in play.  Frustration and overreaction on my part.

Like everyone else, looking forward to hearing you play.

Chris

[Morfedel]

HAHAHAHA!!!!

A multivariable power pool? Yeah, those were the days. And elemental control..... You could munchkin the heck outta that game! :)

ITs been several years, but man, that game was.... well, fun, if in a bulky, I'm wearing a ballroom dress to play raquetball sort of way. :)

Hey, Ron, do you like the game? I'd assumed you did, but I just read an "Actual Play" report where you said you eyed another's play report suspiciously, and made comments on your concerns over a very bulky combat system.


I also need to have a better grasp of the learning curve, and let me explain why:

I have a group of players back in texas I haven't seen in years. I'm moving back there soon, from seattle.

They are the "old school" types. It took me ages to get them to play Palladium fanasy instead of second edition D&D, although later I got them to try out Ars Magica without quite the fuss.

There is a three person core besides myself. Two of them might be bent, but they arent comfortable with learning something with a high learning curve. And the third.... man, he gets lost fast, and a complex system is gonna see him swimming.

So I've been debating on which game to run when I get back. I've been considering:

3rd edition D&D - just because they know it. (sigh.... ugh)

Lord of the Rings RPG - very similar, but every so slightly, superior to 3E IMHO

Ars Magica - A far better alternative, but A) it focuses a bit TOO much on mages (meaning that the rules revolve around them so much that the other characters feel kind of like a supporting cast), B) we arent terribly fond of troupe style play (although we love the magic system, and covenants are cool)

The Riddle of Steel - dont own it, so dont know, but like what I've heard.

Hackmaster - D&D, sigh, but at least its a funny version of it. Don't own this either, but hearing about spells like the socially enhancing spell "Strengthen Smile Muscles" made me laugh out loud, and I love the comics. And it would be familiar to the D&D set, yet again.

I WAS considering Harnmaster, but the new third edition, with the Religion and Magic rules seperate, are too expensive for my tastes, and my players would rebel :)


Even toyed with the idea of a couple other games on the side that I was told about (Agone, Arrowflight, FUDGE) but I know little about them, and haven't investigated them.


So, there you go. A group that has been pretty much D&D / Palladium fantasy for many many moons, and are resistant to new games. If its too "hard," they will just veto it and go back to D&D or something.

I'm a game system junkie myself, but... So, how hard a sell am I going to have with them?

[Morfedel]

Hey Chris, no worries, and thanks man! :)

[Stephen]

[But, what are you so damn afraid of?  Will your little preconceived plot go down the drain?  

I'll ask you directly:  What is being abused?  What is it you are afraid of as a GM, that your players will do?  What will "ruin" the game?  How?

While I don't disagree with your point, I will note that doing hours and hours of work on a situation intended to provide a challenging, complex plot, only to find it derailed by a player's imaginative shortcut in the first hour of play, is a valid complaint.

Now some imaginative shortcuts are truly representative of player ingenuity, and should be rewarded, but others are simply powergaming gone nuts -- and much as I like TROS' vision of sorcery as it stands, there are plenty of players I can see "abusing" it, in the sense not of helping to shape a story cooperatively but in simply monkey-wrenching everything the Seneschal tries to do in order to provide an entertaining challenge.

The easy solution is, of course, to say, "Don't game with those kinds of players," but that's difficult when said players are your friends outside of the game, and even more difficult when they're the only ones you can find in your neck of the woods.

Because TROS is character-driven rather than situation- or puzzle-driven, it does require a somewhat different GMing style than other games can typically get away with.  Because sorcery in TROS does not have the automatic inbuilt limits that magic does in most games (its only cost is an insidious erosion that, like a credit card balance, is very easy to ignore in the short term, which is all many players ever think about), learning to deal with its presence takes some practice and adaptation.  These are strengths as far as making a unique game goes; they can be weaknesses to someone trying to learn something superficially similar to what they already know, but in fact profoundly different.

[Vanguard]

Concerning how I believe TROS allows a DM to handle sorcery is pretty much as Wolfen described.  As stated, Merlin and Gandalf might well have been capable (technically) of achieving such munchkinny feats. But factors and forces at play would discourage overt displays like that.

In your world, you run it like you want. Maybe the PC is the only wizard around. Powerful enuff and he becomes unstoppable. On the other hand, Populate ur world with a multitude of gods, devils, saints, demons, and institutional wizards probing the ether for unsanctioned sorcery, and what u'v got is very cautious practitioners. And beyond this, there are costs and risks involved in sorcery on top of narrative issues which limit sorcery use.

And concerning combat. Phew.

The system basically revolves around a contest of how many successes opponents have rolled. Tactics comes down to the way in which you invest those dice: aggressive, probing, evading, etc... What can confuse new players is then introducing the manouvers on top of this.

I've found that the best way to get new players comfortable with TROS is to explain to them the basics of combat only (it's fun and tactical enuff as it is) and then explaining the specifics of a manouver only when a player wants to do something special. 'I want to bash his sword away with my shield, and then smack the pomel of my sword against his skull - what do I roll, DM?'

Or another way is to have NPCs demonstrate new manouvers; letting the PCs gradually become familiar with what can and can't be done with the system. Sometimes the hard way. 'Wow! What a clever thing that man did with his foot against my face.' It works out.


Phew. Sorry for rambling. And hope that helps at all. TROS really is a great game. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea (misguided helots), but it got me back into RPGs from a long absence. I even had to dig out some old mates in order to play the bloody game.

[Morfedel]

I did ask a question that somehow got lost.

Does the magic system lend itself to tweaking, if I wanted to, say, retool it into something more akin to my vision, such as Ars Magica style magic?

I ask because, lets face it, not all games are as easily tweaked. trying to forge D&D into something akin to Ars Magica would not be an easy endeavor, heh!

[Brian Leybourne]

Does the magic system lend itself to tweaking, if I wanted to, say, retool it into something more akin to my vision, such as Ars Magica style magic?

Certainly, I don't see why you couldn't use Ars Magic's err.. I forget what they're called.. spheres? domains? Well, whatever they're called, you could simply put those in the place of Vagaries if you wanted to. Of course, you would need to re-tool what having a certain number of dice in Ignum or Aquam etc means in TROS play, but I don't think it would be that hard really.

Similarly, Mage's spheres system fits really well into TROS (better than AM actually) if that's your bag, and I have more than once considered using something like the demon-summoning magic system of Ron Edward's Sorcerer as the base magic for TROS.

But hey, I happen to quite like TROS magic as it is and usually just use it "canon".

Brian.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mord,

You asked whether I liked the game ... I'm not sure whether you're referring to TROS or to Champions.

If it's TROS, then see my review of the game in the Reviews section (see links across the top of this webpage).

If it's Champions, then let's head over to Actual Play or to RPG Theory forum to discuss it. I humbly suggest checking out my article called "GNS and related matters of role-playing theory," which is in the Articles section (see links above), beforehand 'cause I'll use a lot of terms from there.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Hi Stephen,

While I don't disagree with your point, I will note that doing hours and hours of work on a situation intended to provide a challenging, complex plot, only to find it derailed by a player's imaginative shortcut in the first hour of play, is a valid complaint.

I empathize with the GM in this case, but I think I stated my point much more clearly(and with less emotion) right here:

http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4491&highlight=

Stephen, Mord, and anyone else concerned with "player power" and "abuse" may want to take a close look at this thread.

Chris

edited because I used emphasize instead of empathize :P

[Ben Lehman]

I did ask a question that somehow got lost.

Does the magic system lend itself to tweaking, if I wanted to, say, retool it into something more akin to my vision, such as Ars Magica style magic?

I ask because, lets face it, not all games are as easily tweaked. trying to forge D&D into something akin to Ars Magica would not be an easy endeavor, heh!

BL>  As someone who has tweaked the magic system of TROS into a form that barely resembles the original (a system where you progress via pacts with gods and embodiment of heroic legends), I can say that tweaking is very possible and, in fact, highly supported by a very open-ended system.

yrs--
--Ben Lehman

[Caldis]

Hey Morfedel loved the example of the cheat character in Champions with the mindless minions buying a death star.  Gave me a good laugh, though I think that would be an example of what Ron called people abuse rather than game abuse.  I dont think the rules of the game actually allow for his billions of followers to pool their leftover points to buy a death star, it may not specifically disallow it but it's definitely munching the spirit of the rules.

[Morfedel]

We once had a contest on who could make the most broken character using the hero system.

Ah, the days! :)

We also once ran a champions silly superheroes game. Where everyone had, well, unusual powers.

The two most memorable heroes from that game were:

Jean Claude, ze super frog! who has super strength, but only in his legs.

And the Incredible Duckmaster! Who has all his powers based on summoning and controlling ducks. For instance, his power "Force Wall" summons a wall of force, defined as a bunch of summoned ducks that fly in front of attacks - the poor ducks - and his energy blast with explosive on it was a duck who would waddle up to you, drop a grenade, then look up at you with these innocent eyes a second before the grenade goes off at your feet.

The Duckmaster had an archvillain, known as The Infamous Toadmaster!

Then the entire group had a single, archvillain known as Incredibly Dark Person. His powers was that he was always incredibly depressed, and had the power to do presence attacks that make your characters feel the same way:

[door to base swings open, and the dreaded Incredibly Dark Person comes in...] "Hi guys. My life really sucks. I've never had a girlfriend, and today a dog peed on my leg, and I'm broke and don't have a job, and no one likes me..." [GM rolls for presense attack, and watches the other PCs descend into waves of depression themselves]

:D

[Caldis]

The closest I ever came to that kind of lunacy was the evil clock assassin, a recurring villain through several different games I played.  He was always in the background and you could never catch him but every once in awhile when no one expected it boom a grandfather clock would come falling off the top of a building aimed at one of the characters.

And then I guess in D&D we did come up with a vampiric were-whale once but thats another story.