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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Willowhugger on December 14, 2006, 11:44:28 PM
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I don't know what system they'll use for the Dresden Files RPG because I don't know much about it but I'm curious whether there will be a D20 version possible.
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I don't know what system they'll use for the Dresden Files RPG because I don't know much about it but I'm curious whether there will be a D20 version possible.
I won't rule it out, but it's not how we're going to be releasing the game at first. We'll be using Fate 3, the engine behind Spirit of the Century.
You can check Spirit out here:
http://www.evilhat.com/?spirit
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It's worth pointing out that while the d20 system is a fine system for doing lots of different types of campaign settings, it is also weak at doing any single setting.
In other words, it's a rules system designed to do certain things and as long as a campaign setting makes use of those things then d20 can handle it just fine. However, some aspects of the game (such as the magic system) are nothing like Dresden magic. The entire concept would have to be reworked in order to make Dresden fit d20.
Just my two cents.
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I think that you could do the Dresden-verse in d20. Preferably with a significant variant, in the way M&M did supers (which, until I looked at that system, I thought d20 couldn't handle).
First, you'd have to create your own magic system. Off the top of my head, I'd do evocation and thaumaturgy with totally different systems. Evocation would be relatively simple. A few relevant feats, and a skill for each element. Make a skill check and spend vitality (I'd use the wound/vitality system from Star Wars and Spycraft) to cast a spell. Spells themselves are very roughly defined, in much the same way regular skill checks are. Alchemy would be its own skill, with a whole subsystem for determining the final potency (and effect) of the potion based on the ingredients added and the skill check. Thaumaturgy, I'd have to research. Despite it being Harry's stronger ability, it's described in much less detail in the books. But, again, I'd probably assign it a suite of skills (e.g., Summoning, Wards, Scrying), and define how each skill works separately. Thaumaturgy probably wouldn't cost vitality, but, rather, would have some other cost, and would have a large time component.
Second, you'd have to account for different creatures. This is probably easiest done with level-adjusted races. So, a fey costs you, say, five levels. Then, you can become a warrior, or a mage, or a priest, etc. Maybe actually make racial classes, so that you can represent fey of different inherent strengths, and so that you do things like gain werewolf after a few levels as a human.
For the basic class/skill structure, I'd probably fall back on d20 Modern. As a devoted Spycraft fanatic, that pains me. But, the Dresden-verse involves far too many people who are very low-powered and common. d20 Modern does that scenario well.
I'd want to define a few other subsystems, like Faith. Things that have a decided effect in the Dresden-verse, but aren't, strictly speaking, magic.
The biggest challenge would be maintaining the feel of the Dresden-verse. d20 is, by its nature, a very tactical game. Even when used for intensely socio-political games, it's very tactical. The Dresden-verse, OTOH, is pretty fast-paced and seat-of-your-pants. Now, there's no reason you can't play in the same universe with very tactical characters (e.g., playing out the Wizard/Vampire War). But, it will be a pretty radically different feel.
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Personally I hate how the D20 systems have taken over. I like HOW the systems are set up, just don't like the D20 itself. Much rather have a %s based system. If anyone has played the old RollMaster system, that was the best. Just don't like how the lowest you can go on a D20 is at a 5% incriment.
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Personally I hate how the D20 systems have taken over. I like HOW the systems are set up, just don't like the D20 itself. Much rather have a %s based system. If anyone has played the old RollMaster system, that was the best. Just don't like how the lowest you can go on a D20 is at a 5% incriment.
You could always do 2d20 to increase precision...
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Personally I hate how the D20 systems have taken over. I like HOW the systems are set up, just don't like the D20 itself. Much rather have a %s based system. If anyone has played the old RollMaster system, that was the best. Just don't like how the lowest you can go on a D20 is at a 5% incriment.
Really? I despised the Rollmaster system. When I was gaming all the time the systems I played were all versions of D&D, Gurps, Hero, Palladium, d6 Star Wars, and occasionally Rollmaster/MERP. I really don't want to roll % on 27 different hit and miss tabels every time I attack an opponent. One round of combat took longer than entire battles in other systems.
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I didn't say I preferred the 2 hour long combat chart system. I just like the 1-100% options vs the 1-20 (5% incriments). Much better.
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Personally my biggest problem with the straight-probability systems (d20) is that they tend to add way too much variability to a person's actions. The bell curve of probablity you'd expect from, say, shots by a trained gunman are negated, and even the best shot will drop his gun every 20 statistical bullets. That's why I've come to favor the dice-pool/success systems, and up/down systems (like FATE or Fung Shui). It takes away that somewhat ridiculous element of regular critical failures in skills that a character is a theoretical master of.
Honestly, I'm not sure why d20 is so popular. It's far more complex and confusing than a lot of other systems, and the sheer volume of computation and chart-consultation required to play really stifles roleplay. It's great for vey crunchy, combat heavy, hack-and-slash, min-maxy gameplay, but I'm just surprised that that's the only real market for role play games.
/rant
To the point, I'm sure that with a skill-based, relatively loose magic system, a d20 version of Dresden could be made. But the strengths of a d20 system do not lie in the direction of flexibility and cinematic drama, so doing so would be counterproductive. You'd end up fighting your chosen system the whole way, rather than having it enhance the important aspects of the game.
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d20 has a few real strengths, apart from hack and slash.
If you keep the supplements, especially the wacky third-party supplements, to a minimum, it is very well-balanced. Even to the point of, in certain variant rules-sets, allowing for an antagonistic GM (i.e., one who wants to "beat" the players) to take part, without arbitrarily winning (assuming, of course, he follows the rules, and isn't simply a killer GM who gets off on ruining other peoples' fun).
It is extremely extensible and flexible. You can cover just about any genre, and most settings, with a d20 variant. And, at this point, most of the genres are covered by at least one d20 product in print, so your work doesn't have to be huge.
The rules, while arguably complicated, are very black and white. Everything is spelled out as to exactly how it works. The extensive use of standardized terms throughout the rules (e.g., "sickened," "aberration") helps tremendously. And, about 75% of the system is just calculating the modifiers to a straightforward d20 roll.
Social interactions and non-combat skill use can be handled with the same level of abstraction and exactitude as combat. It is possible to build Sherlock Holmes, and have him both accurately reflect the concept, and have that concept have the appropriate mechanical benefits.
As for the bell curve issues, that is a very common and very valid complaint about the system. The most common workaround I've seen is to use 2d10 or 3d6 instead of d20, which recreates the bell curve. (Naturally, you have to redefine where critical successes and failures are encountered.)
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I don't like level-based character advancement. One moment these Orcs are driving me nuts and I'm having problems in a one-on-one fight with them, then the next night I can start bashing them three at a time. Big jumps feel really unrealistic, and advanced characters leave less advanced characters in the dust. A 5th level character and a 15th level character can't run around together on adventures without the 15th level getting bored or the 5th level getting in maybe on or two good hits before having to run and hide. It also makes it impossible to set up circumstances in which a peon can kill a great warrior. A first level anything can figure out a way to completely tie down and immobilize a 20th level fighter, have a knife, and plunge it directly into a critical area after taking several minutes to make sure it's the right spot, and the 20th level character will NOT die 19 times out of 20.
Maybe I'm just jaded because my first experiences roleplaying were with systems like Shadowrun and BattleTech's d6 systems and with Vampire: The Masquerade's d10 system...
The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.
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The other down side to a lot of D20s is that the characters look the same, just about.
Certain classes always have a certain high stat. Certain skills. Etc...
I just hope you guys get some reasonable variety in the world.
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I don't like level-based character advancement. One moment these Orcs are driving me nuts and I'm having problems in a one-on-one fight with them, then the next night I can start bashing them three at a time. Big jumps feel really unrealistic, and advanced characters leave less advanced characters in the dust. A 5th level character and a 15th level character can't run around together on adventures without the 15th level getting bored or the 5th level getting in maybe on or two good hits before having to run and hide. It also makes it impossible to set up circumstances in which a peon can kill a great warrior. A first level anything can figure out a way to completely tie down and immobilize a 20th level fighter, have a knife, and plunge it directly into a critical area after taking several minutes to make sure it's the right spot, and the 20th level character will NOT die 19 times out of 20.
By the time you're level 20, you're a demigod in all but name. A level 20 wizard, for example, has control over time and space, and is able to bend angels and demons to his will with a mere flick of a hand. Why would you expect Joe Blow the farmhand to be able to kill him?
A coup de grace takes only six seconds to deliver. And a knife really isn't the best tool for executions.
The other down side to a lot of D20s is that the characters look the same, just about.
Certain classes always have a certain high stat. Certain skills. Etc...
Honestly, that hasn't been my experience. But YMMV and all that jazz.
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Level 20 fighter...this would be an Arthur or Launcelot or someone like that. Tie him up bare-ass naked in ropes that he cannot move, then give a 12 year old with little experience any weapon you choose -- knife, sword, ax, whatever. He has a 1 in 20 chance of killing this person. In combat? No chance in hell. It's horribly unrealistic. Something like Shadowrun is much better IMO because a 10 year old with a derringer has a chance of killing even the strongest cybertank character with a lucky shot. I just think it works better, especially for something with a more real-world feel like the Dresden series. A d20 Butters could never be able to sneak up behind someone and bash them over the skull to knock them out, for example. The d20 system only works for unrealistic "board game" style adventure games where realism is thrown out the window and the game plays more like a board game...kick in the door, kill the baddies, loot the bodies. If you try to get anything realistic into the game, it falls apart.
The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.
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RE: level advancement. I find this to be a peculiar argument, personally, but maybe it's because I grew up with D&D and other level-based games. I do understand that some people find the discrete jumps in power "unrealistic." Personally, I'm a fan of the way Rolemaster did it, in that you spent your points for the next level when you levelled up. This allowed you to see what your character was working on learning, so that you could really work it into your roleplay. But, I actually find the level-based advancement more satisfying as a player, much easier for bookkeeping, easier to balance, and not significantly more jarring than any other artifact of abstraction in a game system (such as, in WoD, being able to break all of human capability down into six levels, ranging from the complete inability of 0 dots to the Olympic quality of 5 dots).
However, I find the power gap argument to be rather specious. Every game has a power gap. Vampire, Shadowrun, Amber, whatever. If the game allows advancement then, pretty much by definition, experienced characters are better than non-experienced characters. And, most games deliberately allow characters to have a wide range of power levels, to allow the same game to be played several different ways.
The argument about the relative invulnerability of high-level characters is a solid one, especially in core D&D. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to craft a system in which a knight can eventually go toe-to-toe with a dragon or survive a fireball, but a peasant with a dagger is still a credible threat. The vitality/wounds system does that pretty well (the basic idea being that you have a number of wounds equal to your Con score that represent real body damage, and critical hits go directly to those, but vitality soaks up standard hits with luck, minor bruises and scratches, etc.). M&M's damage save concept is interesting, in that there's pretty much always at least a 1-in-20 chance that the hero will go down from any appreciable damage.
I actually find that d20 adds a huge amount of variety to characters. Especially once you open up a few supplements. 2nd Ed AD&D did have a serious problem with characters being mechanically identical. But, with a variety of well-balanced base classes, a solid skill system, the infinite customization of feats, and the wackiness of prestige classes, I could easily make a hundred fighters that were all dramatically different, both mechanically and in personality.
Now, I will definitely admit that one of the weaknesses of d20 is that it assumes that everyone in the party is of the same relative power level. It doesn't deal well with the kind of mixed bag of "experienced operatives" herding "normal people drawn into extraordinary circumstances" that you see in most literature. So, putting Susan (especially Storm Front Susan) and Butters in a party with Harry and Michael wouldn't really work. There are a couple d20 flavors that handle this reasonably well, but they do so by giving journalists and scientists their own mechanical advantages, which isn't really an ideal solution.
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I still really only like d20 for D&D or Call of Cthulu, although invesigators do get too powerful in CoC. If I were going to game a modern game with different kinds of magic like the Dresden files, (and I wasn't using the Fate system that comes with the game) I would go with a skill based system like Gurps. The game is just much more realistic when it come to things like combat and untrained skill use. And since the mechanic is 3d6, you do get a nice bell curve for your skill checks. The only problem with the system is if you have a fight between two skilled opponents a fight can last a long time as you are basically waiting for the first person to roll a crit hit, but there are ways to avoid that with feinting and other manuvers.
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GURPS is a great system. Just wish it had more numerical varience that percents could give it. Maybe more stats with multi stat mods (like rolemaster where a skill bonus off a stat could be str/str/dex as opposed to just one stat, making it more realistic and less singulary stat dependent on certain classes).
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How bout a system where people dont obsess over numbers and percentages and crits all the time. Maybe, a system where you play a role, and do things besides kill things, and possibly use your head. I dunno, one can dream.
Just, please dear God stay away from D20.
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How bout a system where people dont obsess over numbers and percentages and crits all the time. Maybe, a system where you play a role, and do things besides kill things, and possibly use your head. I dunno, one can dream.
Just, please dear God stay away from D20.
We're using Fate (as discussed in the latest Designing Dresden post over on the RPG's site). So no d20. :)
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I really liked the latest Designing Dresden. It seemed to cover almost everything that's been brought up here, and addressed what is to me a very serious issue with a Dresden style game, and one of FATE's biggest benefits: handling imbalance in character strength. I think Rob said it very well, and it's always best to quote official material, is it not?
Posted in Designing Dresden 6 (http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/news/archives/2007/01/so_why_fate.php) by rdonoghue:
In the end, it comes down to the Batman/Superman dilemma.
If you are playing a game that stats up characters in an even faintly logical fashion, Superman has at least an order of magnitude more "points" than Batman. They're incredibly mismatched. On paper, they're Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit. Yet side by side in the comics, they rock.
This issue is pretty important for the Dresden Files. Harry is a lot more powerful than Murphy or Billy, so how do you handle that issue? If the answer is "Harry is higher level" then you've just described a game I don't want to play, because that more or less implies that the lower level characters are mostly there for color, not because they're needed or are meaningful contributors. Ideally, I want something that distributes importance in a manner more akin to a novel or comic book.
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A couple things to comment upon:
1. As far as the linear d20 vs bell 3d6, I find that at extremes both systems tend to break down. I suppose each can have a preference, but at least a d20 is more predictable than 3d6. What I mean is that a +1 is the same no matter where on the d20 you are, but a +1 can mean different things in the 3d6 roll. Far too many gamers and game designers really don’t have a good feel for numbers and haven’t a clue what this means as far as play or game balance goes.
2. In a level-based game, a higher level character is better than a lower level character. In a skill-based game, a more skilled character is better than a less skilled character. If a character has more luck, karma, fate points, fate dice, or whatever, that character will be better than another who is lacking those things. Any imbalance in the game is a function of the GM running the campaign, not a fault of the rules.
3. While not a fan of the d20 system, I am a fan of the original rules on which they are based. Original D&D was built on a level system and allows for progression at a slow or fast rate, depending upon how the GM wants to make it happen. In my campaign, I don’t bother to count experience points but instead award levels as they are deserved. I often start characters out at third level and we slowly advance until eighth or so, then generate new characters and start over. Do characters get better in jumps? Sure, but it’s really more gradual than it sounds because not all characters gain a +1 for everything each time they advance. A skill system does a similar thing, only the players have a bit more control over where their advancement goes. I prefer a class system because it has a nice template and makes it easier to generate NPCs and easier to advance characters.
All of this is academic. Dresden Files will be based on Fate3. Track down a copy of Fate and look at it rather than debating the merits of other game systems which are not really part of these boards anyway.
Just my two cents. 8)