/tg/, whats the best sci-fi rpg system to play? The subgenre doesn't matter (space opera, apocalypse, cyberpunk, ect.)
5e but in SPESSSSSS.Elves? Space elves.Orcs? Space orcs.Swords? Space swords.Wizards? Space wizards.Your welcome.
>>93161640dude you are hilarious
>>93161589BESM 2nd edition or reskin Ryuutama
>>93161589Spacemaster for rulesParanoia XP for fun
I enjoy Degenesis. The system is very accessible and the world is, to me, fascinating.
>>93161589WEG d6 Star Wars. Accept no substitutes.
>>93161589Still looking. I want the TTRPG for hard science fiction; modern, and completely free of zeerust. If you couldn't play it at space camp without one of the fellow campers finding something wrong with it (other than within the intended degree of simplified resolution), I'm not interested.
>>93164720Hard agree (for Star Wars, anyway). Better than that FFG stuff with their broken dice distribution.
>>93165262>modern, and completely free of zeerustSo GURPS set today, then?
>>93161589Traveller is your only real optionIt is fortunately also your best option
what about Stars without numbers, is it good?
>>93161589I love me some cyberpunk 2020. I haven't played traveller but it also seems like a fun one
GRUPS
>>93165822Yes. It's excellent. It's incredibly simple and has some of the best god damned GM tools ever published in any RPG, hands-the-fuck-down. It's also free.
Stars Without Number is my favorite system for general science-fiction play. It's instantly familiar to anyone who's played any version of D&D, but it also steals many of the good ideas from Traveller.
Mothership is my favorite system for science-fiction play in campaigns where the players characters are probably going to die horrible deaths.
Monolith, hands down. Removes so much bullshit and you can just start messing around immediately.
>>93168131>Traveller D&Dthat sounds almost as gay as Cyberpunk D&D
>>93165262You want Traveler.
>>93161589I'm not sure I'd say it's "the best", but the Expanse RPG is pretty good. It's a space-ified AGE.
>>93164720This. WEG d6 Star Wars was so fucking good, that future script writers turned to the sourcebooks for information.
>>93165429Traveller Black Box will always hold a sacred place in my heart. I used to run games of it when I was 9. <3
>>93168690I just can't get past the fact that Expanse RPG uses levels. I know that is purely an aesthetic choice on my part, but I can't stand levels in a sci-fi game.
>>93161589Traveller.>but what editionWho cares. Pick one.
>>93168683>Traveller>hard sfYou've never looked at it.
>>93161589Star Frontiers. Simple and elegant mechanics that works well even if today some of its tech needs to be viewed as retrofuturism. While the frontiers part invites playing as a space western, you can go military or trader or explorer or basically anything scifi space opera action adventure. Even if they weren't exactly spoilt for scifi choice, people in the 80s liked it enough to buy it for two years before they brought out the space ship rules in the Knight Hawks box. Two years of people playing a scifi game without worrying about space ships too much, that's how good it was and is. It has been supported by fans over recent decades and the Star Frontiersman and Frontier Explorer mags are both worth seeking out as they bring in a lot of good ideas and equipment.
>>93165262>Still looking. I want the TTRPG for hard science fictiondoes hard science fiction even truly exist as a genre? no two nerds can agree as to what it looks like.
>>93161589WEG has some of the least intrusive Scale rules in an RPG, So unless you're limiting yourself to Power Armor & Road Strikers, you can't go wrong with WEG/OpenD6 for syfy.
>>93165822It's D&D but better and in space, D&Disms like classes and levels are there but if you're fine with that it's a good choice.
>>93165284>>modern, and completely free of zeerust>So GURPS set today, then?Not a matter of "set today" as "published recently". Traveller, for instance, is obsolete on a number of fronts. It's fine if you play it as "Space Fantasy", but, even though it's original intent was to be Hard Science Fiction, so many of its assumptions have since been invalidated that it has no real place in that genre anymore.I really want a game system built from the ground up to be Hard Science Fiction, with all the requisite research into modern scientific developments properly done.
>>93168683>>I want the TTRPG for hard science fiction; modern, and completely free of zeerust.>You want Traveler.What part of "completely free of zeerust" do you not understand? Too much of that game is built from obsolete scientific theory that has long since been disproven. The tech in it is also abysmally ancient, and not at all representative of even today's tech, much less the future's.
>>93168690What do they do for orbital mechanics?
>>93173817>>93173858Who gives a shit? It's meant to be a fun game, not a scientific treatise.
>>93171739Only science deniers have difficulty understanding Hard Science Fiction. But, for clarification:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MediaNotes/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardnessI really don't want travel to be anything softer than 4.5 on the scale, and I want orbital mechanics to be mandatory to gameplay. That said, lasers are fun, and I don't mind if they add some "pew pew" on top of an otherwise hard setting.
>>93173898The OP chose to ask us, "What's the best sci-fi rpg system to play?".The following was my response:>93165262If you don't like my answer, it only means you're willing to settle for the same "Space Fantasy" drivel everyone else is. I chose to take the request for actual Science Fiction seriously. And, if that is somehow not what they meant, that's on them for asking their intended question wrong.
>>93173940>and I want orbital mechanics to be mandatory to gameplay.GURPS or the Expanse
>>93173940I almost want to recommend MechWarrior and run a naval campaign, lol.They do have real Newtonian mechanics baked in...
>>93173940How do you expect orbital mechanics to factor into the moment to moment gameplay?
>>93173940Zozer Games Orbital is a take on the Traveller system that does a lot of that.Also, look at T5 for some more crunchy stuff.
>>93173940you linked an article that suggests time travel can be considered "hard" scifi, so I don't think YOU know what it is either.
>>93173977I can tell you think you're really smart and also that you really aren't.
>>93165262Any game will develop zeerust within 2 years of being written as cyberspace and current warfare evolve in unexpected directions.
>"hard sci-fi" nerd comes into the thread and actually has the audacity to voice is dogshit opinion. Lmaoing at you. As for the thread question...I really enjoy running the FFG Starwars system with my group since the narrative dice do open up a lot of room for the players to expand on the situations they find themselves in. As GM i don't have to make up everything myself anymore but instead we just look at the dice results together and come up with something appropriate as a group. >"damn you rolled several threats while succeeding your negotiation skill... what might your character have done that brought up some dangerous new development?" This extends to the genesys system that also has a lot of material for sci-fi stories with twilight imperium books.
>>93169111Check out the Orbital supplement. Literal thrusters and confined within a single solar system.Also the original Traveller has vector-based space combat which is pretty damn hard sci fi and actually works well.The in-system travel is pretty hard too - just look up the "Traveller equation" they use to determine how long it takes to get somewhere when you accelerate half of the journey and decelerate the other half:https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/actual-mathematical-equation-to-determine-distance-travel-at-1g.124148/
>>93179427If dying in character generation isn't hard, I don't know what is...
Oh no. That hard sci-fi obsessed anon who bangs on using TV tropes terms is here again. Quick, post unlikely Xenos to ward them off.
>>93161589Spacemaster for settingTraveller for rules
>>93169081>Who cares. Pick one.Only ONE?
>>93174826>The ExpanseBased on the show, I had high hopes for the TTRPG; but it looks like the authors of that game took the easy way out with that one, in spite of neglecting the fact that Hard Science Fiction is what made that show great. If I recall correctly, there's not a drop of orbital mechanics to be found in the TTRPG's gameplay.
>>93174897In general, I don't. For long trips, I expect it to play out like the logistical planning for a hexcrawl. Orbital insertions, orbital maneuvers, and deorbiting maneuvers are likely to be on a completely different timescale than typical combat stuff, to be sure. Even if the game system has to concoct an entire other mode to support it, I still want it.
>>93162573>Rolemaster in spaceWhen I was maybe 12 my grandparents gave me my uncle's copy of MERP when they were cleaning his junk out of their house and reading that is my only exposure to Rolemaster.Is the game actually good?
>>93174836I haven't given its TTRPG a look. I'm usually more about the mech action games with that setting. Can't hurt to look at it, though.
>>93175670The article I linked put both "Back to the Future" and "Doctor Who" on the Soft Science Fiction end of the scale. They are included for the sake of completeness of the scale, in order to make it a more useful basis of comparison, not because anyone considers them hard.Don't TL:DR an article and then make spurious accusations based on it. It makes it explicitly clear that you are an idiot.
>>93176051>A science enthusiast likes something I don't like, so I'll accuse him of being stupid to look smarter by comparison!Yeah, go ahead. Try it again. See how well that works out for you. :P
>>93178355Yes and no. It's entirely possible to have a setting where cybersecurity is simply a "solved problem", making the specifics of any particular new vulnerability in the modern day irrelevant. Developments in intraplanetary warfare will certainly be potentially relevant, but space warfare is predominantly an unsolved problem in the modern day, and there's no reason to think that necessarily will change in the near future (but there's definitely no telling on that one).I mean, I certainly see what you're getting at, but those aren't particularly good examples.The stuff I'm more concerned with usually involve Traveller's categorically obsolete notions of how a computer works, and modern developments in planetology (especially the limits of habitability) making entire game settings obsolete (Traveller in particular, for instance).Even so, I'd rather have to buy an updated game book in two to five years than have to manually account for what functionally becomes errata.
>>93179243>derides me for favoring Hard Science Fiction while advocating for a game system whose dice distribution is worse than d20Yeah, I don't need to take that from someone who hasn't even done the math on their own game system. Narrative axes are a cheap trick that can be added to any game system as simply as adding dice of a different color and a supporting mechanic or two. It's a good trick, mind you, but a cheap one. As such, there's no point settling for a game system that just plain implemented their dice wrong, and produces a deficient distribution as a result when you can achieve the same effect but better in nearly any other game system.
>>93175373>Zozer Games Orbital is a take on the Traveller system that does a lot of that.I'll look into it, but I'm suspicious, because...>Also, look at T5 for some more crunchy stuff.Yeah, I don't see Traveller abandoning its setting due to obsolete planetology anytime soon. Not to mention the old takes on technology. The people that still bother to play it don't care how polluted with zeerust it is; they're too emotionally attached to it. If Miller felt like making a more modern Hard Science Fiction game, I'd definitely look into that, but he's got a captive audience that he's got plenty of incentive to keep happy.
Do you guys use the "Allies, contacts, enemies, and rivals" you get during chargen in mongoose 2e? It feels like storygame bullshit a la "fate points"
>>93179427He was right the first time. That's just about the worst.For starters, if that solar system bit was a log-polar plot, you could have had the entire solar system in there. Next, the distance part only applies to brachistochrones; if you're operating exclusively with short quick delta-v burns, it's useless. Finally, even with brachistochrones, it never mentions spent fuel.I would have much rather seen a Delta-V map, and something using the Interplanetary Transport Network, which would be useful for staging supplies and fuel.
>>93182694>worse than d20>hasn't even done the math on their own game systemWrong and I'm glad you asked. Unlike a brain-dead uniform distribution like d20 it actually has some thought put into it. Success with drawbacks, success with additional upsides and the reverse are all in the possible roll and someone who understands the system can properly assess his chances.If anything it's a much more potent tool for creating a story on the table than the regular dice resolution. If this is too much for you and you prefer something more akin to a basic coin-flip, then I don't really know what business you have with hard scifi.See the PDF for a in-depth breakdown of the dice.
>>93161589BRCS from 1eSkinjobs were nerfed hard in 2e
OP here, I tried to get into traveller mongoose 2e and I bounced the fuck out of it. The 2d6 dice distribution is really sucky and the whole character creation aspect was way too confusing to follow it. I fully checked out when all the available species to play are humans and 2 anthro furries, that raised the biggest red flag to me. Also the art looks like shit, it's not a main reason, but it definitely didn't help. I'll start with SWN now and see how it goes.
>>93161589Stars Without Number is fantastic, and is imo the most sandboxy for covering a variety of genres.I really enjoy Traveller, Mothership, and CP2020/Red too.
>>93182479I don't know why anon accused hard sci-fi anons of being stupid either, clearly he just doesn't like them. Fair enough, never met a hard sci-fi anon on this board who didn't come off as an insufferable prick.
>>93162556>RyuutamaFabula Ultima has a Techno Fantasy atlas available and it is built on Ryuutamaas for the thread question, I like Fragged Empire 2E.
>>93168638its not traveler setting with D&D rules, like a reskin of 5e doing naruto or harry potter or whatver, its literally, mechancially, an in between of d&d and traveler. Has a skill table like traveler thats based on 2d6 but combat is rolled with a d20 like d&d.
>>93169111>You've never looked at it.Let me guess you've only looked at mongoose traveler, right?
>>93185715>Fabula Ultima has a Techno Fantasy atlas available and it is built on RyuutamaNeat. Any personal experience?
>>93185820Yes. I have all the materials currently available. The techno fantasy book adds classes for psychics, mutants, and a pilot class that can use craft or mech or a cycle. Classes are meant to be used together and build an archetype you envision.
>>93161589My go to system for scifi is GURPS. I find GURPS, for scifi, works best as either semi-realistic stuff like Battletech or generic space opera like Stellaris. Outside of Transhuman Space and a few Pyramid articles, there's not much support for Diamond Hard Scifi. This is because the people writing GURPS generally only write what they play and no one is playing really hard scifi. As for books, I'd suggest Space (for worldbuilding), Ultra-Tech (for equipment), and Spaceships (the first book is really the only one you need). You might also wants the Powers book as well. The Basic Set covers like 95% of any sort of character you can think of. Powers covers the remaining 5%. If you want to go classic space opera, I'd also recommending checking out Psionic Powers for all the premade stuff it has.
>>93185873Is it actually "Ryuutama, but scifi"?
>>93168070>some of the best god damned GM tools ever published in any RPG, hands-the-fuck-downGimme an elevator pitch and I may go and steal them for my game.
>>93183785>I'm glad you asked.Yeah, but you're not gonna be, because I said "math", and, once again, you didn't do it.I'm not complaining that it uses multiple axes of resolution; again, I already said that it was a good thing, albeit a cheap trick that can be bolted onto literally every other game system very easily.My issue with it is the distribution of its axes being literally worse than D&D's flat d20; because it is.Consider two Ability Dice vs. the one Proficiency Die that replaces them. How much Advantage is lost due to gaining that one Triumph, and is it worth it? For the sake of making you do the math yourself, since you didn't bother, again, no, it absolutely isn't. A Triumph would have to be worth over 10 Advantage, not counting the Success component, to be worth it; and it just plain isn't.So let's examine how that plays out over the life of a character, hmm? A character starts out with a number of Ability Dice, replaces those with Proficiency Dice over time, and then starts gaining Ability Dice again. Over the life of the character, you're gaining less per improvement in the middle of the development of a character. This is literally the opposite of what is supposed to happen! FFG Star Wars was supposed to use a bell curve for the improvement of a character over its lifespan, and instead of stopping at d20's flat distribution awfulness, proceeded to shoot straight past it into an inverted bell curve. It is mathematically worse at representing the development of a person than d20!You accuse d20 of being a brain-dead uniform distribution; and it certainly is; but an inverted bell curve is categorically worse; categorically worse than brain dead. And you only defend it that way because you never did the math. For what it does, which is multiple axes of success and failure, FFG Star Wars and Genesys are bad at it; it's all right there, in the math you're so afraid of looking at.
>>93186860GURPS also has TALES OF THE SOLAR PATROL! where daring space heroes fly their atomic rockets to stop pirates, mad scientists and the evil schemes of the Jovian Overlord. A very fun setting but not something i'd use in GURPS, probably fits better with a light system like Stars Without Number.
>>93161589Just take whatever game you're already playing and cross out every fantasy word and replace it with a sci fi word
>>93184438>Fair enough, never met a hard sci-fi anon on this board who didn't come off as an insufferable prick.I can hardly speak for other Hard Sci-Fi fans on the matter, but if he instead accused me of being an insufferable prick, I'd have to readily cop to that. I imagine that having math crammed in your face when all you want is to play a game that you were told doesn't need it is, in fact, quite insufferable.But, so long as I'm only targeting a game that's supposed to be about Hard Sci-Fi, why the hell should they care? That shit is being an insufferable prick, too.
>>93182640I’ll admit I wasn’t thinking of Traveller at all, much rather the common earthbound cyberpunk sci-fi games or military games set on a single exoplanet. Here, the way autonomous weapons develop is rather unpredictable and has a very large impact.Let me still elaborate on what I meant by the other example:Cybersecurity and its implementation may be one aspect of a game, but it might as well not be. On the other hand, a cyberspace of some sort existing is a defining feature of modern life. What you can and cannot achieve online, what the internet or its equivalent looks like, these things I find hard to gloss over for characters in any situation. And it still changes all the time with e. g. the rise of bots, then generative neural networks, and many other things.
>>93187737Holy fuck, I've seen that exact monologue over a year ago. You've already been debunked and laughed at back then. Haven't you had enough?
>>93187742>probably fits better with a light system like Stars Without Number.How about using the D6 system? or Hollow World Expedition?>>93187750>Just take whatever game you're already playing and cross out every fantasy word and replace it with a sci fi wordNow I'll need to find a good Sci-Fi buzzword generatorAt least converting Spelljammer or Dragonstar would be a fun project
>>93165262The system you're looking for doesn't exist. Trying to combine those things into a playable game is a fool's errand, and if you believe otherwise then you should try to make that game yourself.
>>93187737This is all wrong. >Consider two Ability Dice vs. the one Proficiency Die that replaces them.One skill upgrade with characteristic 2 for example increases two ability die to one ability die and one proficiency die. > you're gaining less per improvement in the middle of the development of a character.Exact oppositeIt is usually with the third or fourth investment in a skill (depending on characteristic either 2 or 3) when the success rate of a roll increases the most. As seen in Pic related. This means that a skill upgrade always improves the roll plus giving a chance on triumph which is pretty potent and worth at least 3 advantage on most tables. Please tell me where I'm wrong because I really don't see where you are coming from with an inverted bell curve.
>>93187882Yeah, but those all seem more like setting questions. For the most part, whether or not Earth's internet and Mars's internet are linked is more of a setting question than a technology one. Just because a setting can have a kind of infrastructure, does that necessarily mean they're going to bother? Maybe they've got other priorities, or the profitability doesn't work out. Those things seem more like game setting questions than game system questions.
>>93187987There's nothing debunked about it. The math is what it is. Failure to comprehend it is someone else's problem.
>>93188165>Trying to combine those things into a playable game is a fool's errand...Based on exactly what?
>>93188452NTAbut that guy you're replying to is a hyperfixated autist and a walking Dunning Kruger effect. All of this has been explained to him a year ago.For some weird reason he still assumes that one proficiency die replaces two ability dice. He also ignores increasing exp cost and likes to mix up mathematical terminology.
>>93188452>>Consider two Ability Dice vs. the one Proficiency Die that replaces them.>One skill upgrade with characteristic 2 for example increases two ability die to one ability die and one proficiency die.Yes; the Ability Die from the Characteristic and the Ability Die from the Skill are both replaced with one Proficiency Die. So what?>It is usually with the third or fourth investment in a skill (depending on characteristic either 2 or 3) when the success rate of a roll increases the most.At no point did I discuss the Success rate. You're entirely off-topic.You have completely misunderstood the crux of my argument and accused me of being wrong without having done anything at all to address the argument I actually made. As such...>Please tell me where I'm wrong because I really don't see where you are coming from with an inverted bell curve.Everywhere. Literally everywhere.
>>93188525>Yes; the Ability Die from the Characteristic and the Ability Die from the Skill are both replaced with one Proficiency Die. So what? Funny how you haven't gotten that right in over a year
>>93188494It will be scientifically obsolete in some minor respect before you finish formatting it then some moron will come call it zeerust as soon as its uploaded.
>>93188510>For some weird reason he still assumes that one proficiency die replaces two ability dice.I assume that because analysis of the game requires that degree of rigor.Assuming a fixed degree of Skill and Characteristic increasing from 1 to maximum, you start out with a bunch of Ability Dice and 1 Proficiency Die, replace all of those Ability Dice with Proficiency Dice, and then start gaining Ability Dice.Assuming a fixed degree of Characteristic and Skill increasing from 0 to maximum, you start with Ability Dice, gradually replace Ability Dice with Proficiency Dice, and then gain Ability Dice.Whenever one stat exceeds the other, regardless of how, you gain Ability Dice. Therefore, it's reasonable to assert that, under the hood, both Characteristic and Skill are adding Ability Dice, and that there's merely a mathematical operation that applies to the region in which they overlap. It's more mathematically rigorous to say things that way, which is why I did.>He also ignores increasing exp cost...Yes, I do. Because exactly how the cost of increasing stats changes isn't relevant to how the distribution changes. It's as simple as that. Nor do I have any complaint about the costs increasing, in general; they should; that's normal. Outside of Hard Realism, which Star Wars exclusively is, exactly how experience costs scale is purely a matter of flavor; I don't find anything particularly "un-Star-Wars-y" about how FFG Star Wars does it, and, quite frankly, am not even sure how I would gauge that. Even if I somehow found an opinion to have about it, it's entirely outside the scope of discussion.>and likes to mix up mathematical terminology.Be specific, or there's nothing to talk about.
>>93188556>It will be scientifically obsolete in some minor respect before you finish formatting it then some moron will come call it zeerust as soon as its uploaded.Exactly what such thing? Scientific peer review is a long process. Just because a "discovery" happens, validating that discovery takes a long time; 5 to 10 years on the short end, usually; completely neglected for decades on the other end. So give me a credible "for instance" or two. What exactly are you talking about?
>>93188547>>Yes; the Ability Die from the Characteristic and the Ability Die from the Skill are both replaced with one Proficiency Die. So what? >Funny how you haven't gotten that right in over a yearThere's nothing wrong with this interpretation. You're just refusing to acknowledge its equivalence for the sake of keeping your fingers in your ears while shouting nonsensically.You want to show that there's something wrong with it? Use math.
>>93188613>going out of your way to deliberately get the rules wrong is "mathematically rigorous"This is a special kind of retarded.
>>93185758I've looked at Classic, Mongoose, and Cepheus. None of them are hard sci-fi, none of them were hard sci-fi when published, and none of them claim to be hard sci-fi. Traveller is mostly based on things like Dumarest and Space Viking. With the psionics rules it's not much of a stretch to get to Star Wars.
>>93188613Dude you're applying numbers magic not maths. Kinda hard to argue against it when you're just pulling stuff out of your ass.What you're whining about neither has any relevance to success rates nor character advancement. You're isolating a single mechanic of dicepool assembly from the context of the game and complain that it triggers your autistic hyper fixation.You yourself stated that it is neither about success rates nor how characters advance by spending exp. So it's not about the game, but yourself getting mad over colourfull little rocks. Fits with your attitude regarding hard sci-fi.
>>93188525>>93187737>Consider two Ability Dice vs. the one Proficiency Die that replaces them.>Yes; the Ability Die from the Characteristic and the Ability Die from the Skill are both replaced with one Proficiency Die. So what?Let's make an example:1) Jonny Rebel has an agility characteristic of 2 and no skill in wielding a small firearm. He shoots a stormtrooper anyways and rolls 2 green die, 2 purple ones. Not the best chances but whatever. 2) Later Jonny Rebel gets some basic weapon training and gains 1 Skill level in small firearms. This upgrades one of the ability dice to a proficiency dice.Shooting a stormtrooper again makes his roll: 1 green 1 yellow , 2 purple. This is better than the first one because it has a higher chance of providing success and advantage and triumph on top. Meaning his spent xp improves his chances. The second one is better in every way. One yellow die is strictly better than one green die. Getting skills means upgrading one green into one yellow. You lose nothing. Why do you think upgrading makes rolls worse? Please provide me with an actual example and numbers instead of just saying I did my math wrong. >>93188510I think I remember that thread yes.
>>93185749>d&d and traveler. Has a skill table like traveler thats based on 2d6 but combat is rolled with a d20 like d&d.>Traveller D&Dyeh, that sounds almost as gay as Cyberpunk D&D
>>93188891psionic is side content, And traveler does scale between different levels of hardness depending on what kind of world you are going for. I think you can do hardness to just beyond real real world practibility if you want to, and softness up to star wars.
>>93188836There is no mathematical difference between what I said and the actual rules. However, what I said is easier to do math on than assuming some increments of a single number are different than other increments of a single number simply because there's another number somewhere that magically changes the interpretation of the one we're incrementing. It's more useful to assume both numbers contribute the same value, and interpret the overlap differently, than to try to interpret each number as a 2d mathematical function of the other number before they are combined. Because that is what would be retarded.
>>93190365Yo, pal >>93184798I'm sure they'd love to hear about whatever you're trying to say over there, unless plan on continuing you're hard sci-fi autismo shtik.
>>93189134>Let's make an example:1) Jonny Rebel has an agility characteristic of 2 and no skill in wielding a small firearm. He shoots a stormtrooper anyways and rolls 2 green die, 2 purple ones. Not the best chances but whatever.2) Later Jonny Rebel gets some basic weapon training and gains 1 Skill level in small firearms. This upgrades one of the ability dice to a proficiency dice.I already covered this comprehensively here:>Assuming a fixed degree of Characteristic and Skill increasing from 0 to maximum, you start with Ability Dice, gradually replace Ability Dice with Proficiency Dice, and then gain Ability Dice.The problem isn't that I don't know how the game works. The problem is that I know how the game works more than you do.>This is better than the first one because it has a higher chance of providing success and advantage and triumph on top. Meaning his spent xp improves his chances. The second one is better in every way. One yellow die is strictly better than one green die.I didn't say it wasn't better. I said it wasn't better enough to justify trading two Ability to gain one Proficiency. Which is what you do when you would normally gain an Ability Die by raising a stat, but, because the other stat is higher, you trade an Ability Die you already have for a Proficiency Die. You lose the Ability Die you traded and the Ability Die you would have gained to instead gain a Proficiency Die. Which, categorically, is so much worse on the Advantage axis that it is not justified by the addition of a Triumph.This is the math you're getting wrong. You are:1. Not properly accounting for the differences in what you would gain in some circumstances compared to other circumstances when only changing one variable2. Not doing the resulting comparison3. Not evaluating what that means over the developmental lifetime of a characterI'll cover the math in the continuing response, just to make sure I don't go over-long.Continues ...
>>93190481You can take your continued thread derailment and shove it up your ass.
>>93187690You can really quickly roll up an entire sector of space. Tables for planets biomes, tech levels and stuff plus a really fun d100 table of tags to just add a bit of spice to them, a dooms day cult here, a prison planet there, that sort of thing. Easy to spend an afternoon and end up with a hex map of space perfect for adventuring.
>>93190039Oh, is cyberpunk D&D a mix of the mechanics of cyberpunk and D&D? I thought it was just another hackjob of D&D into a setting.
>>93190039What's wrong with adding the Traveler skill system to the excellent core system of B/X?
>>93190481I must assume you are either baiting or just retarded enough to make sense of these wrong statements. In both cases I'll have to put this to rest because this thread isn't about the FFG system in particular and I don't want others to suffer this fruitless exercise. See you in a year or so when this exact same topic comes up again or whatever. >I'll cover the math in the continuing responselol lmao even.
>>93188525>Yes; the Ability Die from the Characteristic and the Ability Die from the Skill are both replaced with one Proficiency Die. So what?What?You have 2 agility. You roll two green dice. You level up, now you have a point in firearms. You now roll a single green dice, and a yellow die. There is no "ability die from the skill."
>>93192721That anon is aware of that but he operates and argues under the premise that the system should always add ability dice. He writes for example:>Which is what you do when you would normally gain an Ability Die by raising a stat>normally This implies that the rules as they are written up by FFG are not correct but instead the correct solution would be to add green dice on top of the already existing pool instead of upgrading. That is where the phantom dice come from that are being lost. Or:> it's reasonable to assert that, under the hood, both Characteristic and Skill are adding Ability DiceIf you read his posts as "I don't LIKE the way ability dice are upgraded.... and progression SHOULD be this and that" then things make a lot more sense. It's not a question of math being right or wrong but rather just a question of personal subjective preference. Where this idea of right and normal gain comes from I don't know.
>>93186903It uses the Ryuutama system, not the premise. There is a book in the works that does reintroduce pastoral fantasy to this version of the system, but it doesn't have an English release, yet.
>>93190481... ContinuedThe issues at hand are:>How much worse is a Proficiency Die than two Ability Dice?>Is a Triumph good enough to make up for it?>How realistic is character development it if we're adding Ability Dice in the beginning, trading two Ability Dice for a Proficiency Die in the middle, and adding Ability Dice in the end?>Is that kind of character development more or less realistic in comparison to mechanics using a flat d20 distribution?For starters, we need the expected values of Successes and Advantage for a Proficiency Die and two Ability Dice; Triumphs won't be counted at all:>1 Ability Die, Expected Value of Successes: 0.625>1 Ability Die, Expected Value of Advantage: 0.625>2 Ability Dice, Expected Value of Successes: 1.25>2 Ability Dice, Expected Value of Advantage: 1.25>1 Proficiency Die, Expected Value of Successes: 0.75>1 Proficiency Die, Expected Value of Advantage: 0.66...So, obviously, in terms of Successes or Advantage, a Proficiency Die isn't worth nearly as much as two Ability Dice. Surprisingly, the case for Advantage is barely better off at all than two Ability Dice; it only improves by 1/24th. So, how many Successes and Advantage is our Proficiency Die missing, and is the Triumph worth that much?>Missing Successes: (1.25 * 12) - 9 = 6>Missing Advantage: (1.25 * 12) - 8 = 7Is a Triumph worth 6 whole Successes and 7 whole Advantage? It's certainly worth more than 1 Success, but not really worth two... and additionally, it's sometimes equivalent to 3 Advantage for certain things, but certainly not 7. Even adding an additional Triumph isn't enough to fix a Proficiency Die; you'd still be 4 Successes and an Advantage short.Continues...
>>93193159... ContinuedAs with a normal distribution, the middle of a character's development should be where the most rapid growth is, since every step should mean more than in the beginning or the end of a character's development. But, with Proficiency being so weaksauce, the opposite is true; character development over time is functionally the opposite of what it should be! This makes it even worse than d20 games, with their flat distributions!So yeah. The dice are broken. Face reality, and get used to it. Then, work out how to get custom dice made, so you can keep playing the game with a distribution that better fits the existing rules.
>>93190266For the edition I'm familiar with (MgT 2E), the parts of Traveller that scale easily to different degrees of hardnesses can be written on a post-it note. Basically just the core roll system, attributes (except social), and most of the skill list. Everything else needs an editing pass at a minimum (e.g. chargen careers), or needs to be completely gutted and redesigned from scratch (e.g. all the equipment, vehicle and ship rules). Even the most basic rules around personal combat are incompatible with both ends of the hardness scale because of inconsequential physical injury plus armor that no-sells hits from sub-par weapons with no concept of weak points i.e. it lacks both the "shits fucked in war" theme integral to most hard sci-fi, and the heroic underdog beating the odds theme of soft sci-fi. The rules are just far too built around the Chartered Space setting to comfortably be used for anything else that isn't a palette swap, and stripping out that zeerusty space opera smell leaves you with basically nothing of value unless you for some reason really love 2d6 rolls.
>>93192947>This implies that the rules as they are written up by FFG are not correct but instead the correct solution would be to add green dice on top of the already existing pool instead of upgrading.This is not at all my point. My point is that, under the hood, the additional Ability Die is added, and then both it and the preexisting Ability Die are replaced by a Proficiency Die. The only reason it's not written in the actual Rules is because the step is redundant when playing at the table, even though it's a necessary step in analysis of the game. Trying to argue that +1P-1A isn't equivalent to +1A-2A+1P is inherently nonsensical. But it doesn't matter which stat you upgrade more than the other; either way, you get an additional Ability Die, so each number must represent Ability Dice, under the hood somewhere.>If you read his posts as "I don't LIKE the way ability dice are upgraded.... and progression SHOULD be this and that" then things make a lot more sense. It's not a question of math being right or wrong but rather just a question of personal subjective preference.This is not at all my position. If it was, I'd have no trouble at all saying so.>Where this idea of right and normal gain comes from I don't know.Where it comes from is the question of, "What happens when there's no overlap between the two stats?"; that is what I'm considering to be "normal". And, what happens there is, you get an Ability Die. That's how I'm defining normal; what happens when you isolate the two variables from one another.
>>93190365>assumingThere's nothing to assume. The rules explicitly tell you how it works and instead you're making shit up and blaming the game for a problem that doesn't exist for anybody else because you invented it. You're terminally retarded and I'm done talking to you, go fag up some other thread.
>>93193245>My point is that, under the hood, the additional Ability Die is addedThere is no under the hood. This assumption is simply wrong and only in your head. With skill points the ability dice are upgraded and if the skill points exceed the characteristic score, ability dice are added again. There is no hood. Skills and Characteristic can't be isolated from each other. It's the interconnected mechanics that makes them. You can't make a gun check without taking agility into account. There is no under the hood and there is no assumed phantom dice. Don't reply to me.
>>93182253>not a drop of orbital mechanics to be found Then how is movement between planets modeled? Simply "It takes 20 days to go from Earth to Mars"?How about combat? Does it play like FTL, and positioning is not taken into account at all?
>>93193370That doesn't really work for the system tough.
>>93193159>Ignores the fact that one characteristic improves several skills>Ignores incrementing skill costs>Ignores talents>Fucking 2 Ability dice = One Proficiency die>Thinks pic related is an inverted Bell curve>Hurr durr it's not about X (it's obviously about X)
>>93193170>As with a normal distribution, the middle of a character's development should be where the most rapid growth is, since every step should mean more than in the beginning or the end of a character's development. Not a thing in game design. Honestly nobody gives a fuck about this. Most systems use a logarithmic or lineat function for increase in ability.The step where skill exceeds characteristic is the only one where exp expenditure per increase in chance of success doesn't follow a logarithmic curve in FFG:SW/Genesys, because you have a higher return. If compared to the exp expenditure per increase of chance of success, this often is barely noticeable.
>>93193628Oh and I forgot the most important point>Refuses to use the correct thread
>>93193628>>Ignores the fact that one characteristic improves several skillsIt's not relevant to the question at hand. I'm not ignoring it out of neglect, I'm ignoring it because it doesn't change the math.>Ignores incrementing skill costsThis doesn't really matter either. Every game system with a lick of sense increases the costs to raise things; it's a default assumption. The only way that costs could matter is if a reduced cost compensated for the inadequacy of upgrading to a Proficiency Die; but that doesn't apply, since any increase could get you either an Ability Die or an upgrade to a Proficiency Die, depending on circumstance, making the two equivalent.>Ignores talentsTalents don't change the faces on the Dice. They aren't relevant to the question of whether the Dice themselves are wrongly constructed in the context of the game system they are meant to work for.>Fucking 2 Ability dice = One Proficiency dieThat's how it works. You're just in denial about it. What's more, you haven't shown any proof whatsoever that this interpretation isn't entirely equivalent.>Thinks pic related is an inverted Bell curveYou see that sudden jump between 3 and 4? How there's a dip between the first and the last value? That's where it is. It's not a straight flat line, like it would be for d20. It's worse than that. Further, a normal distribution on this graph would look like an s curve, because you've got entirely the wrong graph. You should be plotting the increase in expected value from the Die gained at each Skill Rank -0: 0.625 Success, 0.625 Advantage1: 0.125 Success, 0.0316... Advantage2: 0.125 Success, 0.0316... Advantage3: 0.125 Success, 0.0316... Advantage4: 0.625 Success, 0.625 AdvantageAnd so on; just like the following:https://anydice.com/program/1b28The fact that you can't even see that your graph has nothing to do with these ones, which was always the basis for comparison, makes clear that you never understood the argument to begin with.
>>93193850You're funny, my friend.
>>93193737>Not a thing in game design.It absolutely is. See GURPS.>Most systems use a logarithmic or lineat function for increase in ability.Yeah, and most systems are bad. That doesn't mean we shouldn't expect better than them, instead of tolerating worse.>The step where skill exceeds characteristic is the only one where exp expenditure per increase in chance of success doesn't follow a logarithmic curve in FFG:SW/Genesys, because you have a higher return.It's not logarithmic there. It's linear. And then you step up to a different linear function.>If compared to the exp expenditure per increase of chance of success, this often is barely noticeable.The experience cost is irrelevant. It would only matter if it compensated for the poor performance of the Proficiency Die, but it not only doesn't, it can't. Just about every game on the market has increased experience costs when raising a stat as compared to the previous level; all the ones made with any sense, anyway. The fact that FFG Star Wars does also doesn't matter here. It doesn't make any difference to the number of symbols that should be on the faces of the Dice, which is the entire point.
>>93193850>That's how it works. You're just in denial about it. What's more, you haven't shown any proof whatsoever that this interpretation isn't entirely equivalent.Your interpretation would be true if charachter progression would be like>g = ability die>y = proficiency die>g>gg>ggg>ygg>yyg>yyy>yyyg>yyyggInstead you start at "ggg" a step that has to be viewed in context of the rest of the system.>>93193850>>Ignores incrementing skill costs>This doesn't really matter either.Yes it does. Those dice that cause you so much frustration don't appear out of thin air.
>>93193931>It's not logarithmic there. It's linear. And then you step up to a different linear function.It is logarithmic, see >>93188452 which goes to show that>>93188510>likes to mix up mathematical terminology
>>93193944>Your interpretation would be true if charachter progression would be like...And that is the very model of a character's lifespan the game presents, yes. What's more, it's not as though no one would ever want to play a Padowan (my personal thoughts on the prequel trilogy notwithstanding). Either way, considering how the game system reflects the entire life of the character is an important consideration.>>>Ignores incrementing skill costs>>This doesn't really matter either.>Yes it does. Those dice that cause you so much frustration don't appear out of thin air.I'm not saying that it doesn't matter outside the context under discussion; I'm saying it doesn't matter within the context under discussion. It changes literally nothing about how the dice represent how characters develop over time. So long as the costs increase as the stats increase, which they do, there's nothing unreasonable about the costs; which I've already said. Until you can identify some sort of cost difference exclusive to Proficiency upgrades, the costs aren't relevant to exactly this discussion.
>>93194241>And that is the very model of a character's lifespan the game presentsNo it's not. It's literally not possible to play it that way vanilla.In essence you made up a bunch of bullshit outside the context of the game and now you're angry it doesn't work out the way you like it to.
>>93193954Those weren't the axes under discussion. Saying something is logarithmic in axes that were never being discussed to begin with is entirely besides the point. At no time was I discussing the issue of beating a target number in either the Success or Advantage axis. I was exclusively addressing how the Expected Values of the different Dice effectively invert the most plausible model of development of the character over its lifespan. How many Successes or Advantage the Dice themselves generate is a completely different mathematical function than the likelihood of beating a target number. Choosing to use that chart as "evidence" is either ignorance on your part, or shifting the goalposts.
>>93194304>>And that is the very model of a character's lifespan the game presents>No it's not. It's literally not possible to play it that way vanilla.It being impossible to play that way is besides the point on two fronts. Firstly, just because it's impossible to play that way, that doesn't mean it isn't the model this game system represents such characters with. A GM that has to roll up a child NPC is going to do things that way, if they know what they're doing. Secondly, the fact that such characters can't be played is an indictment of the system on its own.>In essence you made up a bunch of bullshit outside the context of the game and now you're angry it doesn't work out the way you like it to.Everything I've said is exclusive to the design of the game. None of it is an outside assumption. The game works the way it does, and that way is badly. It would work much better with different dice.
>>93194368>Creates a Genesys based home brew. Get's angry because it's shit. His home brew is shit therefore the system it's based upon is shit. Fucking kek.
>>93194368>A GM that has to roll up a child NPC is going to do things that wayNo. NPCs don't go through the PC creation process and use a literally different subset of rules.>>93194368>Secondly, the fact that such characters can't be played is an indictment of the system on its own.Your first valid point so far. Altough the GM could simply create an archetype accordingly. Then it's void again.
>>93194388>>Creates a Genesys based home brew. Get's angry because it's shit. His home brew is shit therefore the system it's based upon is shit. >Fucking kek.It's not that the problem isn't fixable; it entirely is. It just requires crafting custom dice. If this was solely a matter of me making a homebrew, I'd have some custom dice laser-engraved at a local hackerspace, and have no reason to comment on it. But, instead, it's about some jackasses that can't do basic math promoting a game system whose dice are fundamentally broken, and the most they have to show for it is a cheap trick that can be grafted onto literally any other game system, sometimes without even adding any additional dice.
>>93194406>>A GM that has to roll up a child NPC is going to do things that way>No. NPCs don't go through the PC creation process and use a literally different subset of rules.That would just be another indictment, then. A game system that needs custom rules just to make an NPC clearly has no internal consistency.Nevertheless, it remains the model, if only for PCs, over their lifespan.
>>93194435>and the most they have to show for it is a cheap trick that can be grafted onto literally any other game systemYeah like playing it, by the rules
>>93194435I bet Reddit has a board for Genesys. You should show this to them, I'm sure they'd get a kick out of it.
>>93194446>Nevertheless, it remains the model, if only for PCs, over their lifespan.You do know, that rules of a ttrpg usually differ from the internal workings of a setting and never provide a superset of reality?But heck, you also complained about BattleTech for not describing working prototypes for Myomer.
>>93161589Setting: The Traveller Second ImperiumSystem: FU
>>93193245>My point is that, under the hood, the additional Ability Die is added, and then both it and the preexisting Ability Die are replaced by a Proficiency Die. The only reason it's not written in the actual Rules is because the step is redundant when playing at the table, even though it's a necessary step in analysis of the game.This is such an insane fucking sentence, it's nearly art.>No, no, you're wrong, the rules written in the book aren't the actual rules, the actual rules are these other, bad rules that I have somehow ascertained from the ether.It's the confidence of pure madness. It's "making up a problem to be mad about," on such a arbitrary and trivial level.
>>93173817It's going to be boring. There used to be a project on the internet called "Traveller Done Right". It was about respecting known limits of science and engineering. Thusly, in-system travel times of months or years. There is no trace left of it on the web because it was boooooooring.
>>93198016That's probably based on current propulsion methods. Once you get a meaningful amount of constant thrust going travel times shrink drastically. At 1G you're pretty much everywhere in the solar system in days.
>>93188478I can see your point. I do agree that I can’t think of a system that bothers chaining its mechanics to the exact way people in the setting (can) use the internet, although I wish they did. Similar things apply to warfare, where you would call any system ‘not hard scifi’ just because the ‘meta solution’ for strong characters doesn’t mirror modern militaries if you were that strict.
Bound to None
>>93184002if you think cat people are a red flag in scifi then you haven't consumed enough scifi.
>>93184002I haven't checked out the SWN shipbuilding material, but hope they can do ships like the classic Chris Foss designs.That was my major disappointment with T4, that their ships weren't done well.
>>93188891A Dumarest campaign would be nice to do in Traveller, and the complete novel series is actually in the Traveller trove
>>93198141Of course TDR was based on methods of the day. Hard SF means no artificial gravity, no jump drives, no M-drives. You still have to spew reaction mass for delta-vee. The jury is still out on fusion reactors; I'd say a game set in the year 2300 expects them in about twenty years, give or take. But no time travel to fetch the tech from the future either...
>>93199611sci fi has led me to believe I should have my perfect AI catgirl maid bot soon, and I refuse to consider any other future that doesn't include this
>>93201636>i can't just imagine the ship i likedoes nu/tg really do this?
>>93203277Have you ever seen the deckplans in T4?
>>93203455somebody tried to get me to look at a deckplan once but i was too busy crushing pussy and eating hot chips
>>93185715Having broadly similar mechanics to Ryuutama does not make FabUlt a ryuutama clone.
