Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Finished Fallout 3, finishing Fallout inspired RPG

Finished playing Fallout 3 yesterday. I had four weeks break playing it and only played it for two hours yesterday and got ending credits. What a bummer! It felt like it ended suddenly. That's what I get having a break playing a game. Anyways, wanted to continue so I bought and downloaded Broken Steel. Broken Steel continues two weeks after main game and new level gap is 30. Back to exploring and avoiding main quest for now.

Anyways, playing Fallout 3 inspired me a lot. I wanted to create! So I decided I'd make a roleplaying game inspired by Fallout 3. My first draft was too complicated. It used Fallout 3 rules but there is a difference. Where Fallout 3 is a video game and computer makes all the calculation it was too complicated to use as a pen and paper roleplaying game. So I started over.

Here's an overview of my post-apocalyptic game:

- Focus of the game is to survive. Collecting resources and doing quests in a sandbox world.
- Game is inspired by traditional roleplaying games (OSR d20) but is modified.
- There are six characteristics similar but slightly different to traditional rpg's (some have different names, wisdom is perception).
- It uses skill system. Skills are in range of 1-100 and every tenth skill point gives +1 to task (Attack Bonus for combat, bonus for stealth roll).
- Game uses DC (called Difficulty Value or DV) what you roll against. For example if DV is 15 to sneak past guard you roll d20 + agility modifier + sneak skill modifier (if sneak is 53 you get +5).
- No character classes. You roll your stats, add points to skills and that's it. No restrictions. There will be backgrounds but they don't affect character creation.
- Experience is gained from defeating enemies and completing quests. Loot doesn't qualify as experience as it has its own important function in surviving. Some special items could be rewarded with xp though (lost data etc. but those usually are quest related items or otherwise mentioned to be worth xp).
- Combat damage is included in combat roll. Roll to hit, opponent rolls for defense. Difference is damage dealt. Weapons affect to hit roll instead of rolling separate dice for damage.
- Opponents have morality. They might flee the combat.
- Inventory uses slots instead of book keeping of weights.
- Equipment must be maintained or they break. That's why scavenging is important.
- Characters gain advantages each level gaining special bonuses. These are what make a difference between player character's (heroes) and others.
- Most of the opponents are human, but there are mutants, robots and monsters to be fight also.
- Traps, environmental hazards and radiation are included.

Rules are basically retro style with skill system. Goal is to make rules work smoothly and easily and the focus is in adventuring. I will write this for my own use, but if it's ok enough I'll share it. I am working on understanding OGL and will include it. At the moment rules are 90% written.

2 comments:

Evyn MacDude said...

Hum... Well you are kinda reinventing the wheel here. The original Fallout RPG was GURPs, but when they had a falling out with Steve they wrote the "Special" system in both Computer and TableTop formats.

I believe the RPG is on the Fallout Wiki "The Vault" http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki

There are also a couple of decent conversions of Fallout for Savage Worlds.

Not saying writing your own is a bad thing, just pointing that there has been a lot of work done before. In a variety of systems....

Unknown said...

Yep, re-inventing the wheel. But I started playing Lamentations of the Flame Princess and it's traditional styled rules immediately inspired me for also future styled gaming. I mean, traditional rpg system is about killing and looting with simple rules (in LotFP at least) and that suits the Fallout 3 really well.

It shouldn't be complicated. Roll and see what happens. I have SW Test Drive v6 rules but never got into SW bandwagon that much. Don't know why.

And it is not that much re-inventing the game. It's just converting traditional d20 rules to modern setting. Basically you only need rules for weapons, get rid of magic and change potions into meds and drugs and that's it. Of course I make small additional stuff like repairing and maintaining items but otherwise I see Fallout as a traditional roleplaying game with both wilderness and dungeons adventuring.