I just heard of a system in the 1980s by TSR called "Star Frontiers" where everything was on an XP-points buy system after you'd initially rolled up your character.
I'm going to get a copy of this from ebay and see if I can make it work. The idea of spending XP on absolutely everything appeals to me immensely.
Non-D&D Ravenloft systems?
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Dion of the Fraternity
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That depends on what WoD system you're using.HuManBing wrote:How good is the World of Darkness system? I've heard that people have tried to run Ravenloft in it and it's quite suitable.
Does it have classes?
Does it have contested rolls instead of absolute rolls?
How does it handle combat and noncombat situations?
Overall the WoD system of roleplaying doesn't make use of classes; instead it relies on your skills.
The Old system has a Nature/Demeanor system to determine what kind of person you are and how you react to the world, but of course there's also what supernatural template you have, if any (Vampire, Werewolf, Hunter, Gypsy, etc.). Since the default "creature" of the NWoD system is "mortal," there are no classes involved--again skills will have to be relied upon.
The WoD system has a lot of contested rolls (Dexterity + Firearms vs. Wits + Armor for example), but overall combat is minimal and used only when necessary.
Having paged through the various WoD books, and actually bought the Star Frontiers, GURPS, and Amazing Engine, I think I am going to settle for GURPS.
It has the points buy system, not just for chargen but also on a rolling process for char progression. This means that the GM's job of building an NPC is easier. It has an inbuilt system that can be used for a modified Fear/Horror/Madness check mechanic.
I will start a new thread for this, specifically on the issue of porting Ravenloft to GURPS.
Edit: This has been done. I also have started a thread in the Steve Jackson Games forum.
It has the points buy system, not just for chargen but also on a rolling process for char progression. This means that the GM's job of building an NPC is easier. It has an inbuilt system that can be used for a modified Fear/Horror/Madness check mechanic.
I will start a new thread for this, specifically on the issue of porting Ravenloft to GURPS.
Edit: This has been done. I also have started a thread in the Steve Jackson Games forum.
I am dissatisfied w/ a good bit of 3.5 so I've been redesigning combat, equipment, skills, criticals and have adopted ideas from other places such as channeling magic from the Midnight setting, armor as damage reduction from d20srd.org and the 5 saving throw categories from Castles and Crusaders. I've also been reworking some of the monster types.
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Big Bad Jack
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What I am stunned tremndously by here is that no one has thought to suggest Savage Worlds!
Combat that can be remarkably deadly and leave permenant injuries? CHECK!
Built-in horror and fear rules? CHECK!
System designed to make characters balanced and useful at any level of power? CHECK!
System lets even non comabt-oriented characters have a use in a fight? CHECK!
Clean, simple Magic rules that give an edge without being overpowering or needing three rulebooks' worth of new spells? CHECK!
Bloody simple rules to keep things clean and moving? CHECK!
Seriously. www.peginc.com , and download the Test Drive rules. See for yourself. Then buy Deadlands:Reloaded and loot it freely for all the utterly useful parallel rules (Hells, the settings are even not that different, and most of the Deadlands villains, with a bit of a reskin, work just fine for Ravenloft, especially Ravenloft in the near future.
Combat that can be remarkably deadly and leave permenant injuries? CHECK!
Built-in horror and fear rules? CHECK!
System designed to make characters balanced and useful at any level of power? CHECK!
System lets even non comabt-oriented characters have a use in a fight? CHECK!
Clean, simple Magic rules that give an edge without being overpowering or needing three rulebooks' worth of new spells? CHECK!
Bloody simple rules to keep things clean and moving? CHECK!
Seriously. www.peginc.com , and download the Test Drive rules. See for yourself. Then buy Deadlands:Reloaded and loot it freely for all the utterly useful parallel rules (Hells, the settings are even not that different, and most of the Deadlands villains, with a bit of a reskin, work just fine for Ravenloft, especially Ravenloft in the near future.
[i]Formerly [b]The Watcher in the Woods[/b][/i]
"It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built."
-- Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic II
"It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built."
-- Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic II
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Lord Soth
- Evil Genius
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Big Bad Jack wrote:What I am stunned tremndously by here is that no one has thought to suggest Savage Worlds!
Hmm, sounds interesting. Thanks for the link. I'm checking out the test drive rules, now.
Man lives in the sunlit world
Of what he believes to be reality.
But, there is, unseen by most, an underworld,
A place that is just as real,
But not as brightly lit.....
A DARKSIDE.
Of what he believes to be reality.
But, there is, unseen by most, an underworld,
A place that is just as real,
But not as brightly lit.....
A DARKSIDE.
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artemis wands
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- Location: Los Angeles, CA
I recently picked up the rules for Castle Falkenstein, and I think they'd do great. You don't use dice, but two sets of normal playing cards: one for magic, and one for everything else.
There are even alternate rules for using Tarot decks instead of normal cards, and with some modification, that means you could use the Tarroka deck to run your games.
I'm still reviewing the material, but I think it's worth checking out. Character creation is a breeze, combat can be fast and deadly or stately and cermonial, and the magic system is kinda neat (yes, it includes rules on how to do D&D-style casting, but most of the magic is ritualistic and time consuming).
Hm, running Ravenloft using the Tarroka deck. I might try this myself....
There are even alternate rules for using Tarot decks instead of normal cards, and with some modification, that means you could use the Tarroka deck to run your games.
I'm still reviewing the material, but I think it's worth checking out. Character creation is a breeze, combat can be fast and deadly or stately and cermonial, and the magic system is kinda neat (yes, it includes rules on how to do D&D-style casting, but most of the magic is ritualistic and time consuming).
Hm, running Ravenloft using the Tarroka deck. I might try this myself....
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Dion of the Fraternity
- Lurker Maximus
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Besides playing Ravenloft in the Storytelling and Magic: the Gathering systems (haha!), I've recently found it interesting to work Ravenloft around the "Roll & Keep" system used by L5R 3rd edition and the uber-awesome diceless mechanic used by Amber RPG. Be warned, however, that Amber is a bit high-powered.
But back to the New World of Darkness, which I love to death. I found out that the following NWoD products are (for me) ESSENTIAL in creating a great Ravenloft game:
NWoD Core Book
NWoD Antagonists (zombies, cults and strange creatures)
NWoD Second Sight (low magic and psychic powers)
NWoD Asylum (insanity)
NWoD Reliquary (strange supernatural items)
Vampire: Requiem for Rome (adjustments for a pre-Renaissance setting)
But back to the New World of Darkness, which I love to death. I found out that the following NWoD products are (for me) ESSENTIAL in creating a great Ravenloft game:
NWoD Core Book
NWoD Antagonists (zombies, cults and strange creatures)
NWoD Second Sight (low magic and psychic powers)
NWoD Asylum (insanity)
NWoD Reliquary (strange supernatural items)
Vampire: Requiem for Rome (adjustments for a pre-Renaissance setting)
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Tommy Brownell
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For my (probably never to materialize) go at running Ravenloft again, I am TORN between either Savage Worlds (which I have fallen rather in love with) or a slightly more lethal variant of the Cinematic Unisystem (which Eden Studios used to power their Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness and Ghosts of Albion RPGs).Big Bad Jack wrote:What I am stunned tremndously by here is that no one has thought to suggest Savage Worlds!
Combat that can be remarkably deadly and leave permenant injuries? CHECK!
Built-in horror and fear rules? CHECK!
System designed to make characters balanced and useful at any level of power? CHECK!
System lets even non comabt-oriented characters have a use in a fight? CHECK!
Clean, simple Magic rules that give an edge without being overpowering or needing three rulebooks' worth of new spells? CHECK!
Bloody simple rules to keep things clean and moving? CHECK!
Seriously. www.peginc.com , and download the Test Drive rules. See for yourself. Then buy Deadlands:Reloaded and loot it freely for all the utterly useful parallel rules (Hells, the settings are even not that different, and most of the Deadlands villains, with a bit of a reskin, work just fine for Ravenloft, especially Ravenloft in the near future.
I really, REALLY love the Buffy magic system, and think it could fit Ravenloft nicely...I just think that Drama points could make players entirely too bold for Ravenloft.
Savage Worlds similarly feels a TAD too heroic, but that could also be that the one SW game I am running right now is Necessary Evil, in which everyone does have superpowers.
I've been playing a homebrew sci-fi campaign (Pearl of the Ebon Orb) in GURPS for the past year or so, to get acclimatized to the rule mechanics. Much of it is difficult precisely because there is so many optional tweaks that a GM can make. Sometimes it's hard to know what to use and what to throw out to make things better!
I'm hoping to get familiar enough to work on Ravenloft over the coming summer. (Now that I'm done with law school and will be done with the bar exam at the end of the month.) Obviously this will be subject to change depending on the workload but I am hopeful I can at least outline some GM baseline rules for Ravenloft. (Mostly 4E GURPS, but as I understand the changes between 3E and 4E are not so drastic that you'd be lost between them.)
The current sci-fi campaign, in case anybody is interested, is actually a little Ravenloftian. It's set centuries after a nuclear war has killed most civilizations and the Earth's tropical areas are shrouded in darkness. Low-orbit debris from space weapons and colony satellites ruined during the war block most of the sunlight from the surface, leading to a vast change in flora and fauna. Most of the former Sahara is now a swampland, owing to the decrease in temperatures and increase in rainfall, and the primary predators are an evolved breed of boars. The PCs had a terrifying run-in when a band of boars started stalking them, and they shot a few of them with AK-47s. It didn't take long before the boars had figured out - by trial and error - the maximum accurate firing range of the AK-47s, and they kept well out of range, waiting until true night fell...
The action takes place in a large bunker underground near the ruins of Libreville (capital of the country that used to be known as Gabon) which is a corpus of humanity. Most of the people in the bunker crash landed from low orbit at various times, and the first half of the campaign focussed on the usual ethnic tensions and rivalries and the struggle for survival.
We're about to start on the second half, which is where the players will find a surviving evolved human civilization in the Ngorongoro Impact Crater several thousand km to the east, in what used to be called Tanzania. The "evolved" humans are all genetically female, functionally neuter, and each inherits the thoughts of her ancestors through an organic process by which the fetus consumes and adopts neural pathways of the ancestor's brain structure. Should be interesting!
I'm hoping to get familiar enough to work on Ravenloft over the coming summer. (Now that I'm done with law school and will be done with the bar exam at the end of the month.) Obviously this will be subject to change depending on the workload but I am hopeful I can at least outline some GM baseline rules for Ravenloft. (Mostly 4E GURPS, but as I understand the changes between 3E and 4E are not so drastic that you'd be lost between them.)
The current sci-fi campaign, in case anybody is interested, is actually a little Ravenloftian. It's set centuries after a nuclear war has killed most civilizations and the Earth's tropical areas are shrouded in darkness. Low-orbit debris from space weapons and colony satellites ruined during the war block most of the sunlight from the surface, leading to a vast change in flora and fauna. Most of the former Sahara is now a swampland, owing to the decrease in temperatures and increase in rainfall, and the primary predators are an evolved breed of boars. The PCs had a terrifying run-in when a band of boars started stalking them, and they shot a few of them with AK-47s. It didn't take long before the boars had figured out - by trial and error - the maximum accurate firing range of the AK-47s, and they kept well out of range, waiting until true night fell...
The action takes place in a large bunker underground near the ruins of Libreville (capital of the country that used to be known as Gabon) which is a corpus of humanity. Most of the people in the bunker crash landed from low orbit at various times, and the first half of the campaign focussed on the usual ethnic tensions and rivalries and the struggle for survival.
We're about to start on the second half, which is where the players will find a surviving evolved human civilization in the Ngorongoro Impact Crater several thousand km to the east, in what used to be called Tanzania. The "evolved" humans are all genetically female, functionally neuter, and each inherits the thoughts of her ancestors through an organic process by which the fetus consumes and adopts neural pathways of the ancestor's brain structure. Should be interesting!
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Loki Laufeyjarson
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Jester of the FoS
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A less well-known one is Cortex, a newer addition created by Margaret Weis Press. The original rules were for the Firefly/Serenity RPG and, after it's popularity, they also released Battlestar Galactica and Demon Hunter RPGs and a stand-alone Cortex book.
It's a softer system (ala World of Darkness/Storyteller) but fun. And it doesn't use a d20.
It's a softer system (ala World of Darkness/Storyteller) but fun. And it doesn't use a d20.