Fading Suns-How Beautiful You Are

[Karak]

So after my last debacle I dropped out for a bit. Rejiggered the entire way we played the rules, mostly rewrote a couple of the smaller card system rules and went to work creating a game, and the troubled player for last game couldn't join us.

One solid month of work later and boom-
Payoff.
It's nice when a game works out you know? 12 hours later, dimmed lights, half eaten bags of chips everywhere, popcans in a tower beside me, breakfast eaten, lunch eaten, dinner eaten, late dinner eaten.

The games first session ended. In the entire thing only 24 dice rolls had occurred, everything was card system rules except for three things that I felt needed something outside of the cards. No table, just some pencils, a piece of paper to sketch a map, and our characters sheets, oh and 4 decks of cards.

Battles in 0g with laser pistols and bad guys flying around, entire ships sections losing gravity, bits and pieces of wall and floor flying around, spilling a swimming pools water into giant bubbles of moving "confusment" everywhere. A moment of terror when a character ended up in the giant bubble of 0g water and almost drowned with no idea how to get out.

We did 0g battle with 4 characters, and 9 npc's, no mini's and no arguments. Just perfect flowing battle with everyone in complete understanding.

Amazing.
The guys really played well. A forty minute pause at the start where the guys tried to mend their backgrounds together ended in a moment of bliss when the new guy sat back on the couch, paused a minute and in a strange voice said "When I was young I worked as a slave for a treacherous woman of ill faith and dark power-"
FUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK.
He totally played us. It took us a moment to even realize that he was doing something in game.
For about 2 minutes he took the stage and basically told a backstory that took every player into account totally off the cuff. No pauses, no nothing, just him talking like he had performed a play a hundred times.
After some back slapping and a couple "Damn mans!" We had everything in place.

I am stoked.
The next game is planned, or as planned as I make them. Which is lists of characters, a general style of gameplay I want to push, some ship maps and various source material.
Anyway. Hope everyone else got a good game in, in the last couple weeks as well. Feel free to share a story.

[Superman's Dead]

That sounds awesome, Karak. Your posts in this forum always want to make me try new games.

I'm presently putting together my first D&D 3.5 character for above level 10, and the options for his items are...daunting.

That game sounds fantastic, congrats on the fun =)

[Karak]

That sounds awesome, Karak. Your posts in this forum always want to make me try new games.

I'm presently putting together my first D&D 3.5 character for above level 10, and the options for his items are...daunting.

That game sounds fantastic, congrats on the fun =)

Thanks it was epic.
As for trying a game. Fading Suns...is the shit. Written by the ACTUAL makers of the original Werewolf and Vampire WOD games. Or at least the two writers people seem to give credit to, since when they left everything started changing.
Its Dune/Warhammer 40,000/Rifts/awesome.
All packed into one.

Ya options for anyone in almost any game that level or higher starts getting almost videogame like. Just a shitton of options.
I have issues with higher characters as well. Especially if I start to feel like I have too much stuff, or too many powers.
I just have a thing for the f-ing underdog:)

[Nameless]

Karak, how do the cards work in that system? It sounds like an interesting mechanic! Either way, whether due to the system or an awesome GM, it sounds like you had a fabulous time! I love when RPGs just work that way.

I was actually playing in a session the other day that just went amazingly well, and it just feels good, like back when I started and everything was new. :D

That sounds awesome, Karak. Your posts in this forum always want to make me try new games.

I'm presently putting together my first D&D 3.5 character for above level 10, and the options for his items are...daunting.

That game sounds fantastic, congrats on the fun =)

Buy some dust of sneezing and choking, arguably the most broken item in D&D 3.5! It's a cursed item that deals some CON damage, but most importantly, it stuns opponents for 5d4 rounds even on a successful save!

Don't tell your GM about it before you use it, though! ;)

[Superman's Dead]

Yesssssssssssss. I'm playing an international super-spy, so it makes sense. Just going through all of the books looking at everything and realizing I have 150k gold to spend...

[Nameless]

Yesssssssssssss. I'm playing an international super-spy, so it makes sense. Just going through all of the books looking at everything and realizing I have 150k gold to spend...

Ooo, interesting concept. I assume hat of disguise is already a given. Take a look at some of Quaal's feather tokens, or figurines of wondrous power, there are some really good utility items in there, which, for a spy, can save your ass when you least expect it!

[Superman's Dead]

Where the hell are all of those things? What books?

He's a Master of Masks, so I already have a breath weapon and proficiency with all martial and exotic weapons...

[Nameless]

Where the hell are all of those things? What books?

He's a Master of Masks, so I already have a breath weapon and proficiency with all martial and exotic weapons...

It's all in the DM Guide! Check out in the SRD here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#anchor) and here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/WondrousItems.htm#bronzeGriffon)!

I don't have access to any other books since I switched to Pathfinder (much better than 3.5, IMO), so I'm getting used to what's available in the core books.

[Karak]

Karak, how do the cards work in that system? It sounds like an interesting mechanic! Either way, whether due to the system or an awesome GM, it sounds like you had a fabulous time! I love when RPGs just work that way.



Thanks man. I have been DMing for maybe 23 years I think. So over time I sort of picked up stuff that worked from every game I have played and continue to use it.
For me its 5 things that I am ironclad on;

1 Take game prep seriously(because some of my players drive, and to be a good host I should...prepare:)

2 No flavor text. Written blurbs are fine, and written in a color to depict what emotion or thought they should give, what smell is occurring, what the physical description is supposed to feel like so:

Red for anger-fury-rage. Or dynamic tension. Also it stands for bad smells, burning smells. It its something physical, red stands hooked, barbed, wicked, demonic and some such.

Blue for peace, humor, lightness. Also stands for good smelling things, foods, meals, home, comfort. If its physical, blue would be something I would describe as honored, old but strong, wise, proud.

I have usually 5-6 colors in the descriptions of things.
This way if I come back to it an hour or so later, it is not the same flavor text. Also its easier to describe things as people layer their own perception on it.

If they glance at an item, you say one or two things, as they investigate, smell, touch, thought, emotion.
Look at a gun, sitting on a table. Its nothing if not a item you know about. Until you get close. The smell of iron, a small hint of menace perhaps, the look of wear on the handle.
That kind of thing.

3 Movement of hands and body. Emotion and thought at all times shown by motion.

4 No pride. Don't get embarrassed ever. Don't say a character says something. I say it out loud. Don't say a character shuffles, explain it.

So basically I don't say "Karak thinks a moment and nods 'Ya I can do that'"

I nod slowly, think a moment about something perhaps about the game later, twist my head a bit and say "Ya...you know what....I can do that"

5 Players don't tell one another something EVER. They talk to one another.
So in the same way, one player doesn't say, "I tell Jimmy about the spaceship."
Instead the player turns to Jimmy and says "Ya...so...remember that ship last week that was on our tail...do you think it is bad that they are there again?"


I will do a separate post for the card system.

[Karak]

Karak, how do the cards work in that system? It sounds like an interesting mechanic!


Cards is pretty easy to do but a bit hard to explain.
Short explanation.
Fading suns has a Trait+Skill=success style. Each Trait and Skill has 1-5 points. Luckily this equals 10(I will get to that later)

So if you want to shoot a gun its Perception+Shooting and the difficulty is what I choose.
Now breaking from dice. We take a single deck of cards. Remove the jacks and queens, leave the aces and kings and joker's.
Aces=critical fail
2-10=their worth
Kings=success plus another card
Jokers=critical success(Basically like a king+another king)

Now lets say you want to shoot. You have 2 in perception and 2 in shoot.
Normally that would be 4 ten sided dice.
This time it is just a +4.
Then you(without looking) flash me a card.
I add the card+your bonus to find if you beat the difficulty.

It takes a couple minutes with whatever system you are playing to figure out base difficulty as it might be a bit higher or lower.

Nice things are this.
NO ONE KNOWS-what they roll.(I see the card they don't)
So when searching if they get a 2. They have no clue in real life if me saying "there is nothing" versus if they watched a dice roll. They simply know their bonus. Leveling up still matters, but also suddenly smaller skills become more important.

Have you ever seen a group watch someone fail a dice roll and start doing the same action just to succeed in it? As if the NPC won't notice that they are doing this in a barter situation or something?(OF course a DM can stop this...I am just using this as an example)
It leaves them with a cloud of doubt that is astounding for rollplaying.

Take the same example but you are at a door. If you want to see if someone is on the other side by listening. Perception + Listen
Did you succeed when I said, you didn't hear anything?
What if I said you did...were you sure? If it was a Joker then I would make sure you knew you were right. But if it's anything else, there is just a wee bit of danger and a bit more humanity.

For me its battles though. Everything is sooooo much faster, people showing cards, putting them down, moving around, flicking cards, thinking about what I said.

Can you do it with dice? Of course.
But it requires more physical constraints such as hiding rolls and blah blah.
So I just went with this with an old cagey group of mini-maxers who thought every game they played was the same. These guys basically played dnd because...there was nothing else to do. They knew everything about the rules. I introduced this and actually had 3-4 of them giving high fives on the way out the door and that group with one 59 year old is still playing with me.

I do not claim its better. But this will now be the 9th group I have introduced to it who have instantly dropped their current systems to adopt it.
Warhammer, 4e, 3.5e,3e, WFRP(I use both their rules and cards at times by the way), and gurps are some of the game systems they dropped.
Rules can be found of all kinds of cards systems online that use normal poker decks.

I have also left out many of the tidbits but once you start its pretty easy to do.
Like I started to use some optional stuff where the suite of the card also mattered in how I was going to have something occur.
Just another optional rule that you can do with the cards.

[Superman's Dead]

That's a really sweet system, Karak! I dig it! I think if I ever to WoD in real life that's how I'd do it.

[Karak]

That's a really sweet system, Karak! I dig it! I think if I ever to WoD in real life that's how I'd do it.

Thanks. They work for any D20 system, any WFRP system as well. Sorry Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Ya it is sweet.
As Nameless said, a good game brings that...feeling of newness back.
And to be honest this system has kept me in that feeling for maybe 9 years now. I mean its that good. Probably because of the flow.
EDIT:
I also have awesome players. These are the guys who take negative modifiers ALOT for roleplaying.

This last game our gunman got caught flatfooted and a guy had a gun to his back.
The player looks at me and says. "The moment this fucksore makes any kind of move and that gun goes away from my back and I leaping and doing a broken ass mule kick."
When I asked what that meant he said.
"One that looks like I am kicking from another planet. One that has negatives because I don't care IF it hits, I care that IF it hits it kills this shit."
They do that all the time.
Oh and the move worked.
He killed him.

[Lint of Death]

Nice! Definitely good thinking that each player should have their own deck. Did you use one, too?

Incidentally, so I recently heard, a WH40k RPG was just released called Rogue Trader.

I'm looking to have some fun in my upcoming 4e sessions with vehicles including (but not limited to) airships and submarines. I'm also toying with some wacky ideas like "unlockables" that go beyond items - like, after discovering and befriending a civilization under the sea, they become a playable race and might even introduce a new class or powers that was previously restricted.

[Karak]

Nice! Definitely good thinking that each player should have their own deck. Did you use one, too?

Incidentally, so I recently heard, a WH40k RPG was just released called Rogue Trader.

I'm looking to have some fun in my upcoming 4e sessions with vehicles including (but not limited to) airships and submarines. I'm also toying with some wacky ideas like "unlockables" that go beyond items - like, after discovering and befriending a civilization under the sea, they become a playable race and might even introduce a new class or powers that was previously restricted.

Sorry...man I can't be believe I left that out.
Yes I did to.
One of the nice things is you can easily lay out 4-5 actions down on a table by laying a card face down almost like solotaire. Then when you want an npc to do something flip it over. If the move is complex flip a couple over.
I can usually run 4-5 bad guys, plus the players all doing maybe 5-10 things with 3 of those being complex in a round with almost no sound, no rolling and pretty much all roleplaying.
Its really pretty fantastic.

Good idea with the unlockables. We did the same with each planet we went to. Each place offers not only items, put people, backgrounds, and so forth. What this did is it MADE the PC's very inquisitive as to what they were seeing in the world. They began to search out things that they thought may be cool not only for themselves, but perhaps heirs(children or new rolled characters).

Our Hazat learned a Vorax fighting art once he befriended them.

I seriously think much of the art of DM'ing and just good ideas has died a bit. And it makes me sad.

Those ideas you talk about are good. Do them. If you have even slightly interested players it will pay off. As they feed you that interest you can create the world around them.

[Karak]

I am going to start another thread about good roleplaying suggestions guys. Many people deserve to see some of your ideas WITHOUT having to read my shit.

[Karak]

All you guys go post blurbs of what you put and other things you do to make a game run well. I love that kind of stuff and it helps all of us.

[zarathstra]

Karak, I'm sorry I missed this thread! I agree that Faded Suns is amazing, I just wish I could get someone around here to agree with me! I was legitimately sad when I realized how far apart we lived...

[Karak]

Karak, I'm sorry I missed this thread! I agree that Faded Suns is amazing, I just wish I could get someone around here to agree with me! I was legitimately sad when I realized how far apart we lived...

Ha.
When I read that I was like damn that would be cool(then saw where you were and doh! came out)
Ya that sucks. Because it is a1 awesome man.