How to run a system game?

[Thufir Hawat]

I chose D&D because I wanted to make a Small Group game set in the Forgotten Realms, where they would travel Faerun, being all adventurish and such. :p

I just thought that people more interested in system games would be more knowledgble of the FR Campaign Setting as well.

Why don't you use a simpler system? Odds are that whoever is interested in a system game has played in the Forgotten Realms, which is what you want, but it doesn't need to be the same system.
I would recommend something with far fewer dice rolls, like HeroQuest2, which has a preview and most players probably don't need to read much more.

[Cythieus]

Thing is he's better off dropping the system than switching systems, because then you have to do all the conversion.

[Thufir Hawat]

Actually, no, he doesn't, that's why I suggested HeroQuest2.
The players will convert it for him while creating their characters. As long as he can manage telling a story in the suggested genre, there is no need for other conversion :D!

[Cythieus]

So the players will convert all the monsters? The challenges? The traps and rewards?

[Thufir Hawat]

So the players will convert all the monsters? The challenges? The traps and rewards?

Yes-they are converted according to the player's starting abilities anyway. The goal is to tell an engaging storya nd everything els is secondary.
No, you don't need to re-write any part of the setting, unless WotC are paying you! From my take on the rules, it would likely be counter-productive anyway.
Of course, all you need to describe them are two or three words or phrases, followed by a number each. Coming up with "Necromancer W3", "Fry you all 18" and "My rusty +1 Dagger of Slaying 14" is all you need for a NPC necromancer. You need only one of those for a trap, like "The Dwarves built me to take your head 18", but it better be an entertaining trap ;).
I admit I fail to see the problem here. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I recommend to the OP.

[Cythieus]

Yes-they are converted according to the player's starting abilities anyway. The goal is to tell an engaging storya nd everything els is secondary.
No, you don't need to re-write any part of the setting, unless WotC are paying you! From my take on the rules, it would likely be counter-productive anyway.
Of course, all you need to describe them are two or three words or phrases, followed by a number each. Coming up with "Necromancer W3", "Fry you all 18" and "My rusty +1 Dagger of Slaying 14" is all you need for a NPC necromancer. You need only one of those for a trap, like "The Dwarves built me to take your head 18", but it better be an entertaining trap ;).
I admit I fail to see the problem here. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I recommend to the OP.

If that's all it is, it seems to lack the depth of a lot of the more complex system games. While story counts a lot, if its all you want you might as well free form.

[Thufir Hawat]

Having a system is not the same as haveing the system be "rules-heavy". There is also "rules-medium" and "rules-light", and HeroQuest2 is somewhere in this range.
I don't do freeform, but I'm fine with most rulesets between Exalted and Risus.

[Cythieus]

Having a system is not the same as haveing the system be "rules-heavy". There is also "rules-medium" and "rules-light", and HeroQuest2 is somewhere in this range.
I don't do freeform, but I'm fine with most rulesets between Exalted and Risus.

Risus was too light for me, looked it over for a game I ran before and just went D6 which is pretty simple. But I don't think that running the game with a full 3.5 (or 4E if you have the resources) ruleset hurts things.

[Thufir Hawat]

Risus is too light for you, for other people, D&D is too heavy and no game can please everybody ;).
What I'm doing is giving the original poster an option to consider, but I'm not joining his game. He will have to pick the system that works better for him and his group, and now he has another option, that's all.

[Sydonai]

Got a question here, is there a rp system for role playing as an entire kingdom instead of the usual one character? preferably medieval fantasy settings? I would love to learn about the system(if it exists) and perhaps even start a game with it.

[Moonsword]

The Mandate of Heaven rules from Exalted 2E work for that, although how well is an open question.  D&D had a spinoff like that (Birthright, I think), too.  I'm sure there are others.

[Cythieus]

Got a question here, is there a rp system for role playing as an entire kingdom instead of the usual one character? preferably medieval fantasy settings? I would love to learn about the system(if it exists) and perhaps even start a game with it.

Well do you mean for the purpose of Wargaming?

[HairyHeretic]

It sounds more like you're after a wargaming campaign system, as its hard to RP an entire kingdom :)  I can't think of any fantasy ones beyond those mentioned, but I do know at least one sci fi one, Victory By Any Means. It might well be possible to convert their core rules to a fantasy setting, rather than a sci fi one.

[Moonsword]

I'd thought of that.  VBAM could work pretty well, actually, although you'd have to do some serious work on the unit and unit price side of things to represent the radically different paradigm of conflict on the ground as opposed to the assumed interstellar milieu.

[HairyHeretic]

The companion has a variety of ground units in it. You could ignore the space battles section entirely, and rename the different ground units to something more fantasy like.

I wouldn't mind getting a VBAM like game going here, if the interest was there.

[Sydonai]

well hairy you got my interest there, I've been meaning to start a rp where the players took control of an entire nation or organization but haven't found the system to suit it yet

[HairyHeretic]

My main issue with VBAM is that there's a lack of customisation in the ships, and little to no tech advancement. You have the stock ones to start, and it tends to play a historical campaign where in year X you get tech Y. It looks like they're rectifying that in the 2nd ed rules, but those are still in beta at the moment.

Hmmm. They did mention an upcoming public playtest on the forum ...

I wonder ....

[Sydonai]

well I did read the Exalted's mandate of heaven rulebook and I find it requiring less complicated system involving die rolls and numbers, with a little bit of tweaking here and there I think it can be used for a forum role play, what do you think?

[HairyHeretic]

It probably would work. I haven't gone through the rules in any great detail, but they looked simple enough.

[Sydonai]

It probably would work. I haven't gone through the rules in any great detail, but they looked simple enough.

alright then work with me here hairy and we might be able to come up with a system of our own ;D now I know many of you abhors system based rp but I much prefer the storyline of the rp to be spontaneous instead of planned out in pms, I don't know about you guys but there's a certain satisfaction for me knowing that "hey! I won the battle! let see what spoils of war did I get and what I get to do with 'em! hehehe", that kind of thing you know.

so i've read through the mandate of heaven's rulebook(not finished yet) it seems it does require the use of die rolls, but i'm trying to simplify the rules a LOT! and here's what I could come up with, for example players need to die roll 1d9 one time before they can submit any nation profile, the number they get determined the magnitude or size of their nation and these number can be divided into these 3 nation's attributes: military, government, culture and these bonuses can then be used for further action, for example in battle nation A attacks nation B, nation A has the military value of 3 while nation B has military value of 4 and then nation A rolls 4 while nation B rolls 2, the calculation would be:

Nation A: 3(base value) + 4(die roll) = 7
Nation B: 4(base value) + 2(die roll) = 6

so here we can see that nation B has lost the battle, so then the players may role play however they wished it to just as long as in the end nation B lost the battle. Hence the said nation lost one magnitude point, from here on out the loser may detract the magnitude point from whichever attribute they wished OR we can treat the magnitude point lost this way like a hitpoint, so the player need not detract any points from their base attributes score so their attributes won't be affected even when they are left with one magnitude/HP left, this would give the players equal chance to win every battle and perhaps turning the tide of battle(perhaps rping that somehow or somewhere a hero emerges amongst the defeated generals and rally the remaining force to victory. However the lost magnitude point from the losing side will not add up to the winning nation, their base attributes will stay the same until the end of the war. .

A nation will be completely defeated and annexed once all of their magnitude points are diminished. At the end of the war, the winner will get one extra magnitude point and that's it, ONLY ONE. Now I have only figured out the military part of this game, I'm still working on bringing the other two attributes into the whole game, I was thinking that the other two attributes can be used for other actions, like inciting rebellion uses Culture point, so that the opposing nations need to roll die, added up to their base attribute score bonus and see whose value is the highest and then proceed from there, or bribery of government officials uses Government attribute point instead and...well you know what to do by now.

I've seen how the dice bot works, one can hardly cheat this way since everyone can view recent rolls and see if a player rolls more than he/she is allowed to, the issue right now is that do we need a GM in this and if this system, that I come up with the aid of mandate of heaven's rulebook, can be used for a forum based role play we're planning? feel free to correct me wherever needed too.

[HairyHeretic]

I've actually been busy butchering the 1st ed VBAM rules for the last while :) Trying to get friends co-ordinated long enough to actually beta test the resulting system is the problem for me now. I suspect they're more complicated than what you want to use though.

[Sydonai]

I've actually been busy butchering the 1st ed VBAM rules for the last while :) Trying to get friends co-ordinated long enough to actually beta test the resulting system is the problem for me now. I suspect they're more complicated than what you want to use though.

I've been trying to find the correct VBAM rule book that teaches from the basic but there's so many of them that I'm confused right now lol, in anycase what do you think? is it usable for forum based rp or do I need to further butchered it and make it less complicated(although I think I've reduced it to the most basic core rules now ;D ) but I suspect further simplifying of this system would require the presence of a GM for the game to run smoothly and still retains its spontaneity aspect.

[HairyHeretic]

I'm on a phone conf right now, I'll reply properly later.

Edit

Ok, the basic VBAM books are the Campaign Guide, the Companion (expands on some stuff) and the Menagerie (racial traits and other fun goodies). The other books are setting specific ones.

VBAM is a good system, from what I can see, but the rules are thorough. You're probably talking 300 pages worth between those three books. I wanted to reduce the overall complexity level down somewhat, but expand the ship customisation and tech development, which I found lacking in the core books.

As an example, this is the game turn sequence from my version

Turn Order

1 – Income phase.

Calculate and gather income.

2 – Orders phase.

Order research
Order new construction
Order Colonisation of new system
Order movement of fleet assets.
Order trade fleet established.
Order Intelligence operations planned.

3 – Intel Phase

Conduct intelligence actions.

4 – Movement phase.

Fleets move to new location.

5 – Exploration phase.

Supply checks made.

Fleets scan for new system layout and enemy fleets.

6 – Combat phase

Establish Blockades
Space combat.
Break Blockades
Orbital Bombardment.
Ground combat.

7 – Order completion phase.

New technology researched.
Constructions completed.

8 – Updates phases.

Update assets.
Check for population growth.
Roll Random Event (optional)
Check for Pirate Raids
Check for change in planets Morale
Perform system loyalty check for planets for planets in state of Unrest or Rebellion.

I stripped out a lot of the internal political stuff, since I figured being Dictator for life and making exclusive decisions for your empire was more fun than seeing if the government would agree to making or breaking assorted treaties :)

I still have bits I want to tweak, like setting up Rules of Engagement for ships. That way the player can pass orders to their captains, and the GM will actually implement them whenever you run into someone else out in the black. After all, when the shooting starts, the player shouldn't really be in position to give turn by turn orders to a single destroyer on a fringe system, or even an entire war fleet. That's what your officers are for, implementing your will.

[Sydonai]

wow! isn't that a bit too complicated? I mean there's so many phases in a turn and how do we translate these phases into an rp post? or does the GM handles all that and post a report after each player turns? I guess it could work with the aid of a very dedicated GM but don't you think players going to be disheartened to play in a game that uses such system because its too complicated?

[HairyHeretic]

This was designed more as a wargame campaign system than an RPG type. And trust me, it's a lot more simple than the VBAM core rules :)

In our first test run, turns were taking about a half hour to work out. And yes, the game does require a GM. Player works out their turn orders and sends it to GM, GM waits til all orders are in (in case of combat) then sends player results of exploration, combat, random events and so on.

The guys I was testing with are all local wargamers, so we didn't find it that bad.

If you're coming from a freeform background, it may look complex. If you're coming from a systems games background, probably not so much.