The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[Nightfly]

This is a good way to go. If you have open-minded friends, you might try to nudge them to try it out as well. Gaming is like any hobby, those who are into it may not be the friendliest. There are the min/maxers, the über roleplayers, the rules lawyers, etc. Is there a particular system you are interested in? Some of them have a good fan community with websites, discussion boards, etc. Sometimes they can help you find players too. Also sometimes local cons have a gaming element.

Steve Long (top boss @ HERO) answers fan/rules questions daily at herogames.com
He's been doing it for years (at least five).
It's pretty cool settling arguments with answers straight from the horse's mouth

[Benderbrau]

RIFTs confused me.

I loved the concept: tears in the fabric of reality open gateways to a post apocalyptic Earth. Atlantis returns. Vampires in Mexico. It was crazy awesome shit. And several of the addendum books had a guy named John Zeleznik IIRC who drew some mecha shit that was just fucking awesome.

I even had a shirt with this pic on it.


Visually this game was awesome. But...holy jebus the game made no fucking sense. Half the stats would be missing. They'd have a listing for battleships and tanks and they'd tell you how much armor they had but there'd be no listing for the gun damage. There were mistakes like that through out the whole fucking series.

It was great to look at but impossible to play.

[Strict31]

RIFTs confused me.

I loved the concept: tears in the fabric of reality open gateways to a post apocalyptic Earth. Atlantis returns. Vampires in Mexico. It was crazy awesome shit. And several of the addendum books had a guy named John Zeleznik IIRC who drew some mecha shit that was just fucking awesome.

I even had a shirt with this pic on it.


Visually this game was awesome. But...holy jebus the game made no fucking sense. Half the stats would be missing. They'd have a listing for battleships and tanks and they'd tell you how much armor they had but there'd be no listing for the gun damage. There were mistakes like that through out the whole fucking series.

It was great to look at but impossible to play.

Never played it, but people sure did love that game.

[Benderbrau]

Never played it, but people sure did love that game.

The MDC system made it probably the most destructive game around at the time. We used to always joke that Godzilla would've been considered a pussy in RIFTs. The damage level was off the chart...if one could ever find out how much damage anything did.

[Strict31]

The MDC system made it probably the most destructive game around at the time. We used to always joke that Godzilla would've been considered a pussy in RIFTs. The damage level was off the chart...if one could ever find out how much damage anything did.

People used to always try and get me to play it, and it sounded very much like the Robotech/TMNT system, just ramped up, like crazy.

But I would get turned off by guys talking about ripping the ass out of vampires with machineguns that fired wooden bullets.

[Benderbrau]

People used to always try and get me to play it, and it sounded very much like the Robotech/TMNT system, just ramped up, like crazy.

No surprising. They were all published by Palladium IIRC.

But I would get turned off by guys talking about ripping the ass out of vampires with machineguns that fired wooden bullets.

I'd have wished good luck to them. Vampires were fuckin' crazy powerful even by RIFTs standards and once you crossed the Mexico border they were EVERYWHERE.

[sdsichero]

Steve Long (top boss @ HERO) answers fan/rules questions daily at herogames.com
He's been doing it for years (at least five).
It's pretty cool settling arguments with answers straight from the horse's mouth

Steve Long is a really nice guy. Used to chat with him on the Star Trek RPG (when it was with Last Unicorn Games) mailing list a bunch. Sent him some resrouces to help with his research on ships, etc. Glad to hear he is still in the biz.

[sdsichero]

People used to always try and get me to play it, and it sounded very much like the Robotech/TMNT system, just ramped up, like crazy.

But I would get turned off by guys talking about ripping the ass out of vampires with machineguns that fired wooden bullets.

Really wanted to try TMNT, but no one else wanted to play.

[Strict31]

Steve Long is a really nice guy. Used to chat with him on the Star Trek RPG (when it was with Last Unicorn Games) mailing list a bunch. Sent him some resrouces to help with his research on ships, etc. Glad to hear he is still in the biz.

You played LUG Trek? Wait a minute, what the fuck am I saying...of course you did. I used to think the character creation was complex until Decipher took over and redid the rules.

Fucking Decipher...

[Strict31]

Really wanted to try TMNT, but no one else wanted to play.

TMNT gave rise to Omar the Killer Possum, who then beset my high school with cryptic images of a cigar smoking possum in sunglasses, and strange proclamations such as "OMAR LIVES!"

It was a dark time.

[sdsichero]

You played LUG Trek? Wait a minute, what the fuck am I saying...of course you did. I used to think the character creation was complex until Decipher took over and redid the rules.

Fucking Decipher...

Yeah, a part of me died when LUG lost the rights.

[sdsichero]

TMNT gave rise to Omar the Killer Possum, who then beset my high school with cryptic images of a cigar smoking possum in sunglasses, and strange proclamations such as "OMAR LIVES!"

It was a dark time.

If he had a Krang in his belly it would double his awesomeness.

[kingbobb]

People used to always try and get me to play it, and it sounded very much like the Robotech/TMNT system, just ramped up, like crazy.

But I would get turned off by guys talking about ripping the ass out of vampires with machineguns that fired wooden bullets.

I ran a series of campaigns using the Palladium system. We had a Heroes Unlimited game that lasted for a couple years, and also did a Robotech game. Later the Heroes game switched over to a Rifts campaign.

MDC is a terrible concept. Combat with a simple grunt can take hours. You're wearing MDC armor with 100 points. The guy you're fighting is, too. You're both armed with laser pistols...1d6 MDC. Do the math.

There's a reason in D&D why orcs have 8 hps.

Palladium has a great series of source material that's unfortunately bogged down by overly complex and unnecessary rules. If you ignore 50%+ of the rules, you can have a great time.

[Strict31]

I ran a series of campaigns using the Palladium system. We had a Heroes Unlimited game that lasted for a couple years, and also did a Robotech game. Later the Heroes game switched over to a Rifts campaign.

MDC is a terrible concept. Combat with a simple grunt can take hours. You're wearing MDC armor with 100 points. The guy you're fighting is, too. You're both armed with laser pistols...1d6 MDC. Do the math.

There's a reason in D&D why orcs have 8 hps.

Palladium has a great series of source material that's unfortunately bogged down by overly complex and unnecessary rules. If you ignore 50%+ of the rules, you can have a great time.

I always thought the entire concept of hit points (and by extension, levels) was flawed. If people grew stronger the more they learned, Stephen Hawking would be the toughest guy on earth.

And something else I never got; the random damage...

But from what little I could remember from the Robotech rules, the damage concepts seemed very simila to D&D's style of hit points. Which was pretty much all we knew back then. West End Games' Star Wars RPG tried a different style of recording damage though. There might have been other systems too, but like I said, that was all we knew at the time.

Really found myself liking the White Wolf style of damage and damage recording. nIt seemed like a simpler version of Shadowrun's style. When D&D 3rd ed came out, Mutants and Masterminds used the open license to swap out hit points and random damage with a condition monitor similar to White Wolf's. And it worked. Worked perfectly, in fact. The company's motto was "D20 done right," and they weren't kidding.

[kingbobb]

I love the M&M system. If I were to make my own RPG rules, damage saves would be all I'd use. It's easy and simple, it's a wonder it wasn't used earlier...although I know White Wolf has been around for a while, so maybe it has been used longer than I'm aware.

Hit points show D&D's Chainmail origins, when the game was an extension of a table top minis game. Of course it leads to this:

GM: "you get stabbed in the heart by the assassin's dagger."

Player, ok, so I've got 50 hit points...the dagger does, 1-4 damage, plus str. bonus, so I've got like 40 hps left?"

GM: "no, you've been stabbed. In the heart. With a dagger. You're dead!"

Player: "Wait, what did you roll to hit, 'cause I've got a +4 ring of protection on, remember. Did you remember that."

GM: "It doesn't matter what you've got on, you've been assassinated!"

Player: "But I have 40 hit points left..."



I'd love to run a fantasy campaign using the M&M combat rules.