OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

I just read the blog post by S.R.Krol on the 4th edition D&D (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/blog.php?b=391) and thought about that the dom3 game might especially attract the Pen & Paper types. The intrest in the Chronicle games seems to support this.

So I think that one could have a fruitful discussion on these games here, considering the (relatively high) maturity of users on these forums.

I'm currently fully enjoying GM'ing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which is a lot better system than it sounds. The writers have really succeeded on bringing the cliche-tastic warhammer world to live and it bears no liking to the other low-quality license stuff (the WoW rpg for example) out there.

I simply fell in love with the system when I read the "monster manual" for it. 90% of it was pure fluff, just thematic writings and backround with 0% of rules (and they keep this up on the rest of books). That was simply awesome! I really hated the D&D monster manuals for just endlessly listing statistics for absolutely ridicilous amounts (& qualities) of monsters. 1 monster with a nice backround is always better than simple 4 stat blocks.

But it seems that current group will eventually dissolve as we go on our separate ways to the numereous Finnish universities, so I might be picking up some new games at sometime in the future. WRFP is awesome, but one of my players will taking all the books with him and I don't have the money to replenish my library. Any recommendations for good Pen & Paper games?

I've also been amusing myself with the idea of Dom3 Pen & Paper system, but I lack the time & test players for that kind of project. Dom3 with somewhat expanded lore could be an absolutely fantastic setting. Something like 3-5 years before the ascension wars would be good. Pantakrator is waning in power, mayhem is in the air and the ancients monsters are awakening, sensing that their time has come.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

I've played about one RPG session. I've tried GMing a bit, but it didn't work out too well. I might try to get people interested in autumn, but since I'd like to play (and see what a good GM would be like) that might not amount to anything. :(

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

i would love to play p&p, even thought about starting with DnD 4th, but i simply dont have the money and no players in my area :(

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I own WFRP core book, have only GM'ed a couple sessions though. It has both great and poor sides, I especially like the class progression where you actually take a trade and advance instead of some concept. On the poor side, all the mechanics really rub it on that you're playing a RP version of a tabletop wargame.

Just came back home from a session where we created new characters for this year's traditional summercampaign, Conan d20 by Mongoose this time. It appears promising, as it's basically DnD 3.5 edition without those damned magic users and ever prevalent magic items. Still gotta wonder whether we all end playing the second fiddle to the party's raging barbarian, but hey, at least it would be thematical this time. I DM'ed a 4th ed DnD campaign last year, it is not for the serious games but has its good sides.

Dunno about recommendations. Paranoia's always good for laughs, and actually that Finnish rpg Stalker seemed pretty interesting. Haven't played it though.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

coobe, you're a student. There are players in your vicinity. With utmost certainty. :p

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lch is alive ? i though you got abducted by alien life forms

im at a redneck university, i dont think there are any players...

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

Usually there are, though at least some university gaming groups are a bit... strange.

At least I didn't join my Uni's group because of the vibes I got from few of the regulars. But they're worth checking out, anyway.

I personally restarted rpgs only after finding like-minded people at work. Has worked fine, thus far.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

even if there are, i still dont have the money :) (and the time besides studying)

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Ive played or actually rather GM'd for the pen and paper Shadowrun rpg which was pretty awesome. Thats been about 15 years ago and I dont know anyone who does those anymore since I lost contact with everyone when I went into the military a while back. I still have about 8 source books for it and they are fun to read just for the hell of it.

A Dominions RPG might would be pretty neat. I have actually started writing a Fantasy Novel that takes heavy inspiration from Dominions (or at least certain parts that I still have planned do). Although Ive hit a bit of a stump and haven't written anything for a while. I was trying to get my cousin to read it for me and give me feedback but like a typical 13 year old he isn't interested in reading books and my adopted brother can barely read so he's of no use. Of course all books about writing novels that I have read say don't let people read your rough draft anyways because they will undoubtedly say bad stuff about it and get you down but Ive never been one to wait for that lol..

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

From what I have read, Dominions had part of its inspiration from pen and paper rpgs, example: vis in the files as the name for gems?

I think Dominions has more overlap with other board games, such as Warhammer (and other stuff I have no experience at_all with).

Dominions would be workable as a setting, for instance, someone tried to create DnD4e races based on Dominions here.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

I've recently started doing roleplaying, and have played one game of White Wolf's Hunter, and one of Exalted. Both are excellent. Exalted is super-excellent in my opinion. Thematically, I think it's probably more than worthwhile getting the book just to read it even if you never expect to play*.

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You should see the books of WFRP's 1st edition then! For myself, I find 2nd ed. somewhat lacking... in spirit, maybe? I just can't put my finger on just what it lacks. In any case, 1st ed. books are worth to look up - and old Black Library novels, too!

If you like Rennaissance setting, 7thSea/Swashbuckling Adventures may be the thing for you, too. Legend of the 5 Rings by the same author deals with popular samurai theme (but I've lost site of their newest timeline - introducing new world-shaking events every few years seems a bit silly. I'd recommend to use setting as it was at start (1st-2nd ed. time) and then play by ear). If you'd like more epic/high fantasy, you should probably look up EarthDawn and/or Talislanta. EarthDawn is especially recommended as many elements from it were used in Dominions (Horrors particularly!). Another game which influenced Dominions was Ars Magica by Atlas Games (I'd recommend 4th edition. There is also an opinion that the 2nd one was the best of all). They also make a more light-hearted hack-and-slash called Rune. Dying Earth is also an interesting system based exclusively on Jack Vance's novels.
Currently, the guy who made 7thSea and Legend started a new project called Houses of the Blooded. It features both strong storytelling element and a smattering of strategy - believe it or not! And it's gothic as ***! I think any of his games are worth at least to look at so you may also want to see those he made in the interim.
Of other genres I can recommend Feng Shui RPG by the above-mentioned Atlas Games. If you don't know, it recreates classical Hong Kong/Chinese action movies - with a smattering of some other bordering genres... Some of White Wolves' World of Darkness products were pretty good. But there are tons of them so may not want to pursue this course without having at least a handful of others to split costs with. Forgotten Futures is a good independent system and it's mostly free iirc. It mainly deals with recreating feelings of old-school scientific romance (whose modern incarnation is steampunk!). Kults was a good game of gothic punk line. I don't remember whether they continue it still. I like FASA's Shadowrun more than Talsorian's Cyberpunk, but they are both good systems and have quite beautiful worlds.
I also like both old WEG Star Wars (d6 version, and if somebody has his hands on the Tank Girl RPG by the same authors, he/she can ask almost anything from me!) and TriTac Bureau 13 despite the systems being somewhat clanky. Of course, these are long out of print now, but if you will stamble on one of them, definitely worth to try.
That's about all I can remember at the moment. Hope it's helpful.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

I've run, ref'd and played thousands of Paper and pencil systems:

Fantasy Hero 2nd edition: (Hard to find). Incredible rules, best fantasy system I have ever found. *Any* spell can be created - including all the Dominions spell.

Gurps. Much more customizable than DND; good spells; good combat.

Midnight: D20 variant. Aweseom flavor - creepier than Dom but it could be Dom gone bad. This game literally had me raving for 2 solid years. And has the *best* module - out of thousands.. that I have ever played.

Dnd 3.5. Lots of players, readily available

Call of Cthulu: Awesome if you are playing Rylleh Dreamlands.

Dnd 4.0 Crap. But plentiful.

Ars Magica. Well I like it. But no one else did.

Honorable mentions: Elfquest. Elric, Paranoia, T&T, Lionheart,
probably a few dozen I'm forgetting.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

I've read loads of RPG system books, but since its just me and my older brother. You can't really have that much play the P&P game.
Cyberpunk was a nice one, as I use to like playing as a Netrunner.
Another would be the Mystara setting for D&D.

And never could find a group online to stick around long enough to play a game session over aim or something. I've just tended to do freeform roleplaying with a couple friends. I think if you can be creative enough and like stories, roleplaying something like that without rules. And with people who will actually let there characters take damage bring out some really also stories.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

I love rpgs, haven't played in a while unfortunately :( it's not so much about what thee game is as the group of players, very difficult to get a really good group together and keep them together! To be honest I've had years of mediocre rpging with small windows of brilliance that were the highlights of my gaming light. They aren't necessarily the best games, but the most fun I've had has been with first ed DnD, Vampire: The Masquerade, d6 Star Wars and Alternity. I've played far mroe dnD that anything else, lots of 3 and 3.5, but I do find the game lacking a bit - or in all likelihood the group wasn't up to scratch

If anyone has a good group going in Perth I'm keen!

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

Hi everyone. Been lurking for ages here, thought I'd post on this subject :)

I've been toying with using the Dominions background for a P&P or PBeM game for a while now. It happened when I realised that Late Age Ulm is very very close to the unnofficial setting that a lot of my old RPG games were set in. Although there was never any official connection between any of my games there were always similarities and common themes running through them, ideas and themes that are prevalent in Late Age Ulm. So I started comparing other games I'd run and idea's I'd had and found they could all fit very nicey into the Dominions world, with a couple adjustments here and there. I think the Dominions setting would make a fantastic basis for campaigning. I really love the mix of fantasy, mythology and history, something a lot of RPing settings don't get right.

My advice for using the setting as a backdrop would be to focus on a small part of the Dominions lore. Rather than throwing in all the nations of the game and flooding players with information just focus on one or two of them, and a couple others that thematically fit your campaign as neighbouring realms.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

Holy crap! This thread just got into epic levels. I never thought that there would be so many replies.


The core rules need..some fine-tuning, I admit. But RPG's are 90% setting and 10% rules. Besides, doing some fine-tuning to the rules is pretty easy. Like you probably saw, the early levels are pretty painful because none of the players can really do anything well. At least the first career serves as a lesson in 'humility' as one of the players is bound to lose a fate point. I circumvented the first career problems it by giving a lot of circumstance bonuses and some extra exp until they hit their second career.

The character generation is pure gold, like you mentioned. At least it was to me as GM when my players rolled their guys. The excitment! The pure multitude of options! My first group was: 1) Dwarf Miner, 2) Elf Outlaw, 3) Human Apprentice Wizard, 4) Human Squire. I was pretty surprised, they rolled quite a good “adventuring” party. My other group was a lot more down-to-earth thought: 1) Halfling Merchant 2) Elf Messenger 3) Human Fisherman, 4) Human Servant (Waitress, to be exact).

Heh, Paranoia is pretty funny. And I've only read the book! Haven't had the chance to play. I'll have to take it up one time with my veteran group sometime. Every time I think of the nuclear hand grenade (you can throw it to only to a maximum 50 meters and it has explosion radius of 200 meters), I simply explode.. to laughter.

Yeah, the 'creeps' can be, well, creepy. Internet is full of horror stories about creepy players, I once spent a day reading a thread dedicated to these players in some RPG forums. The horror.. *shudder*

Luckily I haven't bumped into anything really bad. I've had generally bad players (“backround? Couldn't care less”, powergamers, etc..), worst was this one player with some power gaming tendencies who had the habit of raising a temper whenever his character didn't perform as well as he presumed.

Work seems like a 'safe' place to recruit players, now that you mention it.

I've never really played a 0% rules game. Could be interesting, thought. I probably aren't good enough GM to create something like that and make it work.

The most important part about rules is that they flow well. Every time you need to check something from a book, the rules aren't actually helping, just being a nuisance. One of the reasons why I moved away from D&D was the constant need to check rules. There were just so many of the damned things!

Yeah, getting a good group is hard. Even one disruptive player is enough to spoil the fun for everyone. One thing I have noticed is that the players have to get along well even outside the game. When every player is friends with every other players (no “friends of a friend”) it's very easy to get along. Social meetings with no-RPG:ing are good to bring the group closer.

Yeah, I agree 100%. Besides, figuring out why a C'tissian Lizardman, Caelum birdman, Abyssian and a Ashdod Anakite are travelling together might be tough. Sounds more like a build-up to a joke than a PC party. Besides, most of the dom3 races won't really make good player characters. Caelumian with the ability to fly is tough to make work, but perhaps plausible. But a Jotun PC, for example? No way. If I were to make a campaign on dom3 world, it probably would be mostly about humans trying to simply survive with all this epic stuff going around (of course, the more they try to escape, the more tangled up they get in the epic mess). But that just might be my WRFP experience talking.

“Elemental” based magic of dom3 also could play out well. Characters with supernatural powers work best when their powers are limited in both power and diversity. D&D wizards are basically best at everything with the right selection of spells (“oh, you have put all your skill ranks in Climb. I don't have to do really anything and still I'm better at it than you ever can be.” 'Spider Climb'), another reason why I changed system.

If a mage character started with say Water 1 magic, he'd only be able to cast water spells, which can be quite limited in function. When he levels up it might a tough choice to either diversify in another path (to get spells with a wider range of functions) or just take up another level of water. Note that this Water 1 magic probably wouldn't be the same "power-level" as W1 on dom3 mage, more like 0,5 water.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

Cyberpunk was great at its time but it grew old a bit too fast. It's the year 2020, you can buy NMT cell phones, and with an extra cost even one that actually fits into your pocket! Yay. But guess future prediction isn't easy.

They published an updated version a year or two ago, but I got the feeling editors were lazy updating it. Capoeira for instance is still "obscure martial art" that can fool people who generally have never seen it. Right. Just go into a park on summer... Too bad, it was a fun setting and easy&fast system. Though quite gritty, headshot kills at 4 pt damage and heavy pistol does 4d6. Feeling lucky, punk?

Oh, and speaking of games that got old fast, Twilight 2000 anyone? Already on year 13 of WW3, we are.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

If the setting were to assume Late Age, then a lot of the whole "Wacky fantasy race" stuff wouldn't really be a problem. Even Abyssians are just tough humans with fire resistance by the late age. Also I'd probably go with a D&D 3.5 clerical domain system for the various elements of magic. Maybe each level of magic gives you a spell list that you gain more and more access to as you gain character levels as well as a couple stat perks, like the cleric domains did. So if you were to somehow start out with Water 9, you'd only have access to the first level spells in each spell list of Water Levels 1-9, and as you gained experience, you get more spells on all nine lists. This feels like it might be a little complicated though. Then again, nothing says D&D like tons of lists.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

http://www.bayn.org/wushu/wushu-open.html

Whatever you say your character does, happens just like you said. Then you roll dice, and see how it affects the flow (of battle, or anything else). The more detailed your description, the more dice you get.

Only restrictions are that tough enemies die only done after the dice tell the time ("how" is up to a player), and players/GM can veto action or details that don't fit the style ("no bazookas in wild west, what about TNT?").

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

During my regular play D&D days my group and I (mostly due to the influence of myself and another guy who tended to alternate DMing) drifted away from the idea of having numerous races present in the game worlds, or when there were races other than humans they were far more mysterious or different in some way. I never liked the generic elves and dwarves (and other numerous fantasy staples) running around when each of the human cultures was so different. It's the Startrek mentality, create diversity of peoples by painting them a different colours and adding extensions here and there! I'd rather more detailed human cultures than a mass of barely different racial cultures.

My own personal take on a Dominions conversion would be to use the non-human races/nations as mysterious and enigmatic influences on the culture that is the focus of the game rather than having them prevelant throughout the campaign. To continue my previous idea of using late age Ulm as a basis for a campaign I'd probably use the mythology of Agartha as an enigmatic influence (if I remember rightly Golem era Agartha was started by mages fleeing Ulm), I'd have stories of far away giants in distant lands (the various giant races) and myths of ancient races of supermen (Vans, Aesir, Tuatha, Parthelonians, even Abysians etc) as just that - myths. All the aspects of Dominions would be present but many would by myth, like the real-world myths that inspired them in the first place!

Yeah I hated the D&D magic system. Not only were the spells wrongly balanced but they were too focused on combat and physical abilities. With just a few lvl 1 spells (Change Self, Alter Self, Charm Person and a few others) a wizard could pretty much do anything he wanted in the game world that didn't require throwing 10d6 fireballs at a dragon! In the games I played spells such as Detect Magic and Augury were far more important and useful than Magic Missile or Shocking Grasp. There was way to much focus on combat and almost no interest in the mystery and subtlety of magic. And I always hated that all mages off the bat could do any kind of magic and that specialization was simply the perfecting of one area of magic. It seemed to me that a mage with access to all magic would be like a rainbow in Dominions - very rare and very hard to achieve. Such a mage must surely have studied a LOT to learn all that magic!

The magic paths in Dominions combined with the magic schools make perfect sense to me. A water mage might begin only knowing a few minor water spells but as he studies the path of Alteration he can learn to control and alter more. If he then branches in Evocation and Thaumaturgy his spell repetoir increases and he can cast more varieties of water magic. However a Conjurer mage might focus on increasing the power of his summonings and branching into different elemental paths to gain access to different types of summonings. So you have say a lvl 9 water mage with lvl 1 in all schools of magic or a lvl 9 conjurer with lvl 1 in all paths of magic. And each would be different and likely hard to achieve. In all likelyhood a mage would be limited in both paths and schools and would thus by default be specialized.

I'd recomend using a simple rule system with which you can easily adapt the magic system to your tastes.

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

A favorite roleyplaying game of mine is Exalted.

It's a bit funny, I wouldn't want to translate Exalted into its settign as much as I would want to translate Exalted into Dominions 3.
Perhaps it will become a pet project for me, but I get :sick: just thinking of how much work it would be

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

Exalted is really very good indeed. I am very impressed by it. People should read it! As with most White Wolf books, they are pretty good to read even if you never play (that is why I have about 50 white wolf books and never expected to play, although I did start recently when a role-playing friend moved nearby).

Re: OT: The might of Pen & Paper
 

One thing about RPG adaptation of Dominions. There should be a number of non-combat spells which weren't included in the game. What was mentioned ingame are enchantments which allow Vans and illusionists to pass in enemy lands unnoticed and those which allow Nature mages to produce supplies. I remind about them because there are systems which sorely lack non-combat applications of magic. On the other hand, a "magical umbrella" in Warhammer RPG can make non-mages green with envy!