Project: RPGSTUCK

[FowlJ]

I may try to work out a system as well - No reason not to see which one works the best.

[tom cruise]

Yeah, the more the merrier honestly. I mean if we didn't want more variety in systems avaliable then this thread wouldn't even be a thing, everyone would be off playing the gamma world conversion. Also I suggest that once things get underway, we split off into our own threads so this doesn't become a clusterfuck of systems.

Also, to people working on more narratively inclined systems, give Spirit of the Century or the Dresden Files RPG a look (both based on the Strands of FATE system). They've got some very interesting concepts.

[nobleTiger]

This sounds great! With all those long posts that finally came through, what I was trying to do was not to convince everyone that this kind of system is the only way to do it – just that it's the way that would work out best regarding my design goals, and therefore the only one I'm very interested in doing. But yeah, there are systems which are not Gamma World and still more traditional than "everyone helps out being the GM". That's cool.

I'd like to keep hanging around this thread and see how things work out, but most of my writing will be in that Gdoc. Lesse:

Here's my draft, which I just gave everyone the rights to comment on. To comment, just highlight the text you'd like to discuss and Insert->Comment.

Here's a new brainstorming doc, where anyone interested can write down pretty much anything – small ideas, things that are cool in Homestuck and should be covered, or why not ideas for character moves and Strife! techniques.

[Wiwaxia]

Very much what I was thinking, yes. On the subject of time-fuckery, does anyone reckon there is any reliable way to actually handle that? I personally have no idea how that would work in something like this.

There is actually an entire RPG dedicated to that! It's so out of print it's not even funny, but I'm sure a resourceful person like you could find *ahem* other ways of getting their hands on it.

Basically, the system is that paradoxical events generate fragmentation, or "Frag". After a certain point, frag lowers your effectiveness, and if you hit frag 7, you are erased from existence consigned to a doomed timeline. So, if you wanted to have your future self save you from death, you would have to suffer a point of frag until you got around to doing it, or you could "find" a pen behind a convenient rock, and take a point of frag until you put it there, or if you pick up a frog that's confirmed to be somewhere later, you need to put it back exactly how it was, and you get a point of frag until you do, etc.
In the original game, everybody keeps track of their own frag, but with only one time-traveler, you could just keep a pool of frag for all players that the time player has to look after, which is simpler and fits the setting better. There would also be events, like the death of a player or the violation of an established time loop which could send you past frag 7 instantly. The other major point with this system is that by knowing something you are bound to fulfill it, so knowing too much or too little is dangerous (see also: sprites, exiles, Skaian clouds, horrorterrors), and everybody has to keep careful track of what they know.

Note: I personally haven't tried this, and it's supposed to be a bitch to GM, so be careful with it.

e. also, there's some weird shit that happens at high frag, but that should probably be ignored, as it doesn't really fit with Sburb's setting

[tom cruise]

That does sound very interesting, but it really does sound like a bitch to GM. I think it's fine to leave time players powers as a largely narrative role if you can trust your players to not be total munchkins about the whole thing and try and undermine your GMing.

Also, what are people's opinions on drafting up rules for the sylladex? I'm leaning towards not using the idea at all mechanically, as really there's not much in the way of means to do it without a heap of paperword. Plus once people start alchemising blank cards the entire concept basically becomes useless anyway. I think it'd be better to use a more traditional inventory and include rules for weaponising the contents (basically throwing with style, really)

[FowlJ]

You could say that the sylladex has a limit to the number of cards it can use at once, and just have it so that players already have a full deck. Essentially hand-waving the problem while remaining mostly canon.

Different fetch ma-things would be mostly a roleplaying choice, really. The default would be letting people just use whatever whenever, but allowing players to use something silly and impractical if they really want.

[Rikushadow5]

Alas, I must drop out of this project to go focus on other things.

[Wiwaxia]

You could say that the sylladex has a limit to the number of cards it can use at once, and just have it so that players already have a full deck. Essentially hand-waving the problem while remaining mostly canon.

Different fetch ma-things would be mostly a roleplaying choice, really. The default would be letting people just use whatever whenever, but allowing players to use something silly and impractical if they really want.

You could also offer feats/benefits/whatever allowing players the option to weaponize their sylladex (e.g. Dave or John), hold larger objects (e.g. Jake) or gain a benefit to alchemy from it (e.g. Jade and Jane).

[tom cruise]

That's what I was thinking. Either straight up attacks or bonuses like drawing weapons without taking up any time.

[Cute_Riolu]

This sounds great! With all those long posts that finally came through, what I was trying to do was not to convince everyone that this kind of system is the only way to do it – just that it's the way that would work out best regarding my design goals, and therefore the only one I'm very interested in doing. But yeah, there are systems which are not Gamma World and still more traditional than "everyone helps out being the GM". That's cool.

I'd like to keep hanging around this thread and see how things work out, but most of my writing will be in that Gdoc. Lesse:

Here's my draft, which I just gave everyone the rights to comment on. To comment, just highlight the text you'd like to discuss and Insert->Comment.

Here's a new brainstorming doc, where anyone interested can write down pretty much anything – small ideas, things that are cool in Homestuck and should be covered, or why not ideas for character moves and Strife! techniques.

I go by Cariyaga on google, so any notes made by comments can be linked to myself.

[nobleTiger]

As those of you who are up to date with those gdocs (which have been well-visited!) already know, I've decided to start a new thread for this. Right now I don't have enough posts though, so just wait a little while.

[Wiwaxia]

I've been thinking of doing a Sburb campaign in 4e D&D for a while (with stuff like the frag system mentioned above looted from other systems), but dont' want to design a bunch of stuff that will never be played, so I was thinking of statting out the players classes and aspects (statted as races) at first level, then making up powers one or two levels ahead as we went along. This would gve me an option to tailor powers to the PCs play styles, and fits with Sburb's whole "personalized mythology" theme. Does this sound workable to you guys?

[Cute_Riolu]

I've been thinking of doing a Sburb campaign in 4e D&D for a while (with stuff like the frag system mentioned above looted from other systems), but dont' want to design a bunch of stuff that will never be played, so I was thinking of statting out the players classes and aspects (statted as races) at first level, then making up powers one or two levels ahead as we went along. This would gve me an option to tailor powers to the PCs play styles, and fits with Sburb's whole "personalized mythology" theme. Does this sound workable to you guys?

There's a 4E-esque system already available for sburb. Here it is.

[Wiwaxia]

I am aware of it, and I'll probably loot things like server cursors and sprites from it, but I'm not a big fan of the Gamma World deck thing, and I found the classes singularly uninspiring. There's also somebody else on this forum, I forget who, exactly*, doing a closer-to-default-4e conversion, but I don't know how it'll turn out and I certainly don't want to wait around for however long it takes them to finish, especially as the don't seem to be very far.

That aside, does this plan look workable?

*e. its unbridledExüberence. also i'm dedicated enough to find a u with an umlaut, but too lazy to capitalize properly? go figure

[tom cruise]

Seems completely workable. I'm not too knowledgable on 4E but your plan sounds solid enough.

Also, making some headway on my Savage Worlds conversion, in the form of a few rough google docs! I'll make a thread when I have more to show for it.
Some basic concepts; Titles, Prototyping and God Tier
Character creation (pretty damn similar to the default process in Savage Worlds though)
Time Edges
Seer Edges


Of course none of this is final or anywhere near complete, and these aren't the only Edges there'll be for Seer and Time (I'm thinking 7-10 per class/aspect, plus a few God Tier ones)

Comments should be enabled on the Docs, so comment away. If you want more direct talkback, add my Pesterchum; airshipAcupuncture

[Wiwaxia]

How do you think I should select titles?

2d12 (advantages: random; disadvantages: random)
Plot out all 24 for 1st level and have the players choose (advantages: allows for good character construction; disadvantages: players know their title from the get-go, shitton of legwork for me, PCs might not fit the title's fluff)
Give the players the fluff for all 24, and have them design characters towards a certain Title (advantages: characters will probably fit their title's fluff; disadvantages: players know their title, either I assign their stats (limits players influence on their character), they assign stats without knowing which stats the need (very bad), or they assign stats later (turns out crazy ninja dude actually has terrible dex due to mechanical necessity)*)
Have players design and roleplay characters, and assign Titles based on the PCs (advantages: players don't know their title, disadvantages: limits character customization, some players might be bad/inexperienced at roleplay)

*edit: maybe I spell out primary and secondary stats in the fluff pitch?

[tom cruise]

"Have players design and roleplay characters, and assign Titles based on the PCs (advantages: players don't know their title, disadvantages: limits character customization, some players might be bad/inexperienced at roleplay)"
This option sounds best in my opinion. I'm having all the players I intend to have play in my test session of the Savage Worlds conversion give me a decent summary of their character so I can assign titles, then work on those classes and aspects first.

[nobleTiger]

2d12 (advantages: random; disadvantages: random)

Not to mention 2d12 will only give results between 2 and 24, which is only 23 different titles, and has higher probability for the middle results.

[tom cruise]

I think he meant rolling them seperately for each part of the title and just wrote it that way. If not, yeah, kinda a silly way to approach it.

[nobleTiger]

Silly me. I'm so very stupid.

By the way, I now have a thread for my version. It's here.

[Wiwaxia]

I think he meant rolling them seperately for each part of the title and just wrote it that way. If not, yeah, kinda a silly way to approach it.

That's what I meant.

[tom cruise]

I went ahead and split off into my own thread, even if I have a relatively minor amount of stuff set in concrete.
http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread...38#post5989938
Suggestions and feedback welcome, and requested.

[DaviTheEccentric]

I've been thinking of doing a Sburb campaign in 4e D&D for a while (with stuff like the frag system mentioned above looted from other systems), but dont' want to design a bunch of stuff that will never be played, so I was thinking of statting out the players classes and aspects (statted as races) at first level, then making up powers one or two levels ahead as we went along. This would gve me an option to tailor powers to the PCs play styles, and fits with Sburb's whole "personalized mythology" theme. Does this sound workable to you guys?

It should work, as long as the players know ahead of time you're making the classes up as you go along. I wouldn't suggest it for something destined for public consumption, but since you don't have to worry about not every Seer of Light making pacts with horrorterrors you're in the clear.

Give the players the fluff for all 24, and have them design characters towards a certain Title (advantages: characters will probably fit their title's fluff; disadvantages: players know their title, either I assign their stats (limits players influence on their character), they assign stats without knowing which stats the need (very bad), or they assign stats later (turns out crazy ninja dude actually has terrible dex due to mechanical necessity)*)

I'd go with this option, myself. Mostly because, assuming your group is familiar with Homestuck already, they're going to gravitate towards those 24 titles anyway. Also because titles are closely tied to a character's development and they'll probably have a better idea of what they want it to be than you will after a session or two of roleplaying. (Also, if you're making the mechanics to fit the characters anyway, no reason you can't make the Knight use Dex for his attacks so the crazy ninja dude can keep stabbing things effectively.)

Still, no matter how you decide to do things, here's hoping your game goes well.

[PanchromaticRhythm]

Wow, so lots of posts since I last was able to get on here, will be looking at them ALL and responding as I go.

[PanchromaticRhythm]

sooooo minutes people, lets consolidate all the ideas into one post and look into exploring them. This project is less... if we don't make anything from it thats fine, but one of the ideas here is to basically try a whole bunch of systems and see how each one handles Homestuck, and then from there Stage 2 of the plan would be to actually design a system taking the best aspects of the systems we try, and smash them together into a new original system