Early happy new years /tg/A few friends of mine have asked me to run a Sonic themed campaign for them. They're big briends but I'm not terribly well versed in the setting.Are there any good resources or does anyone have some good advice for running something in the setting? What kinds of skill checks or combat encounters should I prioritize for them? Is there a better format than 5e? Maybe GUPRS instead?Any and all advice is appreciated, want to do right by them and make something they're going to enjoy.Persobal experience with the setting is playing the first stages on an old Sega, watching friends in HS play adventure 2, and then having seen the live action movies. (I'm sure the movies are bad reference points but being honest.)
>>94699031Big fans*
>>94699031"The setting" can mean a few different things. Personally I like the comic setting the most; I recommend reading the first few issues of the IDW run, and set your campaign during that time.https://grabber.zone/comics/sonic-idw/sonic-the-hedgehog-01/Short breakdown: - Sonic and the Resistance have defeated Dr. Eggman (or Robotnik, if you prefer that name), and freed Mobius from the Eggman Empire. Eggman himself has vanished. - Without Eggman around to control them, the badniks of the Eggman Empire are wild. Most of them are just following their last orders to the letter. Some of the more intelligent ones might be organizing them and becoming warlords - Most of the planet's townships have militias that can fend off low-level badniks, but heroes are needed for higher-power stuff. - Many characters will probably have a history during the era of fighting the Eggman Empire (which controlled like 90% of Mobius at its height). - Sonic is active in fighting the Badniks but even with his speed he can only be in so many places at once, and we are talking about an entire planet. - Hero characters are [Name] the [Animal], and their powers are usually derived from exaggerated versions of things their real-life animals can do. An armadillo who can become invincible while curled up, for example. Powers can come from magic (innate or exposure to Chaos energy, for example), mutations (like Tails' twin tails), or cybernetic enhancements (possibly courtesy of Dr. Eggman or one of his lieutenants). However they can also just have whatever power the players like (it's not like hedgehogs are noted for speed or foxes are known for flying, after all).
The following PBTA might be what you want: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TDkVMF1_xTo5VLSnpI3KFhojwdIsByCM6g8cnFHEiOQ/edit?tab=t.0Sonic's really fast and cinematic. I don't think the post-SA vibe could be recreated in a crunchier game like GURPS or 5e unless you're looking at Sonic Chronicles. Regardless of choice, you want something where your players can easily kill enemies to emulate the chain-zoning attack gameplay of the games.
>>94699031Something important out of the gate is determining what they like about Sonic. Are you trying to emulate the tone of SA2, where it's incredibly shounen, and a good chunk wacky? The older games where its just a romp of good hearted rodents tackling evil industrializiation? Frontiers where its weirdly somber despite being little furries? I also agree you should not be using a crunch heavy system for this since a lot of characters really wouldn't fit plainly in a GURPS or class-based fantasy system. Maybe one of the superhero systems instead like Mutants and Masterminds?
>>94699031Id run it in OVA and enforce that any level 4 traits need a level 2 weakness to balance them, with any fives needing a three. Let abilities stack, but never above 5Ova is confusingly written so it'll take a week to learn and then another week to design all your own monsters, but it meshes all the tech superpowers and magic you want and can be intuited very quickly
>>94699031You're better off using something like FATE or PbtA to match the more fluid feel on Sonic. If you want something crunchier, Mutants and Masterminds should work but I'm not super well versed in capeshit games and someone can probably recommend something better than M&M
>>94699031Run Gaslands, replace gas with chili dogs, disregard all other suggestions.
>>94699140Solid. Can probably focus on making worlds or stages; however they want to play it. This is more up my speed, I usually run One Piece campaigns so having seven different antags with different themes and goals is great. Will also be able to probably make some good art for these assuming I can get some good art reference for the seven.I'm imagining that the best way to run encounters (especially boss ones) is to have a bunch of minions that are all one hit kills; and then for the bosses likely have whatever the gimmick they have (missiles etc) take 3 hits to break and then probably what, a brief opening to hit their main weakness; three hits to actually put the bosses out. Give more or varied gimmicks as we go on.Then probably will need to figure out the final antagonist. But I'll hold off on that till we finish the first Warlord / stage. Better to see how everyone vibes before worrying about the bigger picture. That and foreshadowing + info doesn't usually start being drip fed until the second stage anyway no?>>94699149I'll give this a read too. But I like what you're saying about keeping it cinematic. I mentioned 5e cause that's what we've played before but it doesn't really work with Sonic's pace like you were mentioning.>>94699312Yeah going to call the two people most into Sonic. One of the players wanted to do some heavy writing for the world / lore + I'm guessing some campaign hooks. They just don't want to do the DMing themselves I suppose.>>94700364I laughed but my players would unironically love this idea. That or I guess rings would be a good fit? I'll take a peak at the rules for that system.
>>94700061Not familiar with OVA but I'll check it out. Give and take is probably going to make it less stressful on me to DM. Going to need to find the right sweet spot for there to be enough enemies to fight / combat to feel like it's not being wrapped in two rounds with no effect to the players (but also taking an hour IRL to get through the rounds)>>94700348I couldn't remember the name for FATE but that also felt like it could have been a good system to run. Not familiar with PbtA though I'll give that a look too. I'm assuming Capeshit has some good info for playing with or DMing around absurdly powerful speedsters; brainiac tech wizards; super durable party tanks; uber thieves; and then the tech focused minion heavy villains. I'm just assuming given the kinds of heros and villains those systems would want to be able to build.Thanks for the suggestions so far guys!!
>>94699031So Shadow of the Demon Lord is a way more interesting easily approachable d20 skills-lite system than 5e, and I think its vast array of classes and its pure melee styles stacking up better compared to casters makes it more suitable for a Sonic campaign (it even has technomancers for gadgeteer wannabes). Races are pretty easy to retune and reflavor (see pic) and at a level 3 start you are established in your novice class and just dabbling into the expert tier so they can mix and match up to two styles to fit their OC the Donut Steel concept, and after some introductionary crawling you can level them up to 4, give them advanced racial skills themed around platforming travel (temporary bursts of flight for kitsunes, crawling/glide-falling for echidnas, speed boost including wall travel for hedgehogs, etc.). Considering how max level is 10 here, you could be cheeky and have it so they level with each chaos emerald they find, making locating those across the various zones the crux of your plot (and giving you a funny scenario where you could have whatever Eggman allegory, possibly the man himself, steal their power and drop them back to how they started for a bit).I can give you some links for the system's supplements and a chart of most of the classes and what they do if you want but I won't go full shill on it unprompted.
>>94701657>sweet spot for there to be enough enemies to fight / combat to feel like it's not being wrapped in two rounds with no effect to the playersWatch out for attack skill and strength because they multiply. Same for armour and dodge iirc. An optimized combat build even within those limits can be nearly untouchable. Granted the weaknesses they need to take to make it work are all but crippling outside of a deathmatch, but still
>>94699031You should totally go for broke and make it a Sonic Riders game.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dYgTNOjsI8&ab_channel=ShiroParadox...But that would also require an adequate system that accounts for skating tricks like you see in a Tony Hawk games.(Or you could use the setting of the webcomic "Exterminatus Now" if you really want to turn your game into something insane and hilariously edgy like Sonic mixed with 40K.)Alternatively an actual in setting system I know of but never tried is "Sonic Tag-Team Heroes" which I guess has a simpler system than 5e:https://www.sonictth.com/
>>94699031Sonic Tag-Team Heroes
>>94699031https://www.sonictth.com/Sonic Tag-Team Heroes.It is self-described as a TTRPG with grid-based combat mixed with the resolution mechanic of FFG Star Wars/Genesys.
>>94702242Ew
>>94710100>>94711161>>94711652That's pretty conclusive. And here I was thinking of making a Sonic thread to ask about this system.
>>94711652Oh hey, there's an even newer update.
Meet my Sonic OC - Jeffry the Shark.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw8Mp8pYqzQ
>>94712036Something vaguely like this, I guess.
>>94711715I still think they should have made it three types: Speed, Strength and techniques with flying being an ability since even Knuckles can do it and he's the textbook example of a strength type!Not that it seem to matter overmuch except for a broad generalization in team dynamics which by itself is a bit of a letdown.>>94712036In the video he's shown fighting Bark the polar bear so he's already canon!>>94712071Now stat him out!
>>94712573I can understand the Speed/Fly/Power split, since that's what all the Sonic fan are already familiar with thanks to Heroes. It was only very recently that the system introduced the Technique type to cover pretty much everything else, be it an intellectual, a face, or an all-rounder to permit more niche builds or to fill any gap in a team.
>>94712651I know about the reason why they chose to do that is because those three were the three types from a game and they added the fourth to be comprehensive of those who don't fit, but I still retain the opinion that folding fly into technique would have been neater overall.
>>94712873That would make sense in its own way, but I can see where the developer was coming from.
>>94712873>Exterminatus NowYou got me messed up with a throwback like that.
>>94717101The internet was a wilder place once, so very long ago...(But the worst shit was always, unerringly, between Sonic and mlp.)
>>94711715So if I have this right, the game uses d6s and d10s (read 0-9) in a dice pool, using core stats and skill ranks to put together a skill check against a flat difficulty/opposed check. Any die that rolls 5 or higher counts as a hit for the purpose of successes. There's also Tricks and Slips, similar to advantage and threat from FFG Star Wars. Assuming I have it in a way that makes sense, since the book's wording is weird on this:>If you roll double 5 or double 6 on the d6s, it's a Trick.>If you roll 7+ on a d10, it's a Trick.>If you roll triple 5 or triple 6 on the d6s, it's a Critical Success (Super Trick, basically).>If you roll doubles on the d10s that count as hits (double 5, double 6, etc.), it's a Critical Success.>If you roll double 1 or double 2 on the d6s, it's a Slip.>If you roll a 0 on the d10, it's a Slip.>If you roll double 0 on the d10s, it's a Critical Failure (Super Slip, basically).>If you roll triple 1 or triple 2 across any dice, it's a Critical Failure.I think that's how it goes. It's not a bad way to try and replicate the multidimensional results of FFG Star Wars/Genesys.
>>94718863Also, when a check talks about Advantage or Disadvantage, it means altering the difficulty of the check. +1 Advantage reduces the difficulty of the check by 1, while +1 Disadvantage increases the difficulty by 1.
This one calls himself Ramsey the Wolf.
>>94718863>If you roll triple 5 or triple 6 on the d6s, it's a Critical Success (Super Trick, basically).It's possible this could include the d10s as well in that check. The book says it's supposed to be easier to score tricks with the Trick dice (the d10s), so maybe it's that alongside the 7+.>If you roll double 1 or double 2 on the d6s, it's a Slip.Same here. Maybe the d10s can also be included for the purpose of the Slip check, not just the Crit Failure check. I blame this on what sounds like vestigial writing in the book, maybe from the time when Trick dice were also d6s or something. Considering this is a core component of the game's central resolution mechanic, this is probably the worst place to have poor writing.
>>94724332Maybe not. I'll just stick with >>94718863 for now.
Remember that mechanically the setting has lots of metrics that you would need to take into account, such as a custom method of measuring distance (important for speedster). Google sonic feet for more info.
>>94729047>Setting has lots of metrics>Google Sonic feetYou tried.
>>94729047Do NOT
>>94699031>Persobal experience with the setting is playing the first stages on an old Sega, watching friends in HS play adventure 2, and then having seen the live action movies. (I'm sure the movies are bad reference points but being honest.)Fortunately, the stories of most Sonic games are pretty straightforward, so if there's any material you want to reference, you can just look it up and figure out what you need more often than not. You can create an entirely new region with new locations and plots, or you can explore details left behind from a previous game and see things from a different angle.Posted: the sample adventure for Sonic Tag-Team Heroes. It takes place on the same island as the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, but well into the future after Eggman abandoned the place.
>>94699031>>94745120
Some sort of snow leopard.
