Re: [DL] Using ideas from other game systems

[balance@tubas.net]

On Sunday, March 24, 2002, at 08:51  AM, ivan gaming wrote:

> --- Munch Wolf <munchwolf@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Stunts:  Both Feng Shui and Exalted use a system
>> where
>> players get rewarded for doing stunts.  Normally if
>
> The trick is all about what kind of game you want to
> run. Feng Shui and Exalted (which are both great
> games!) are set up to mimic the fast-moving,
> extraordinary stunts found in action movies or anime,
> so they have mechanics to allow those things.
> Deadlands is based heavily on Westerns, so the combat
> mechanics are much, much deadlier than in such
> 'superheroic' systems.

Deadlands takes from this a bit, too, just 'tuned' differently. I'd say 
pulling of near-incredible feats of skill and strength are very fitting 
to Deadlands, and represented well with the chip mechanic.

Now, it's still important to represent fun things in combat. For 
example, I always play with the rule that a cool but not-necessarily 
tactivaly wise maneuver will, completely at the GM's whim, be rewarded, 
In deadlands this takes the form of random fate chip draws, generally.

> That said, if you want to run a 'swashbuckling'
> Deadlands game, you don't need to change many
> mechanics outside the Fate Chip system:
>
> 1) Be freer with chips, and don't limit the number
> that players can hold onto. That will encourage them
> to use the Chips to meet the high TNs being set.

True, although you may need to limit experience trade-in to keep from 
having 'boring' characters that are very skilled, but don't do 
imaginative things.

> 2) Give them chips every time they try a stunt,
> whether it succeeds or not (White for a Failure, Red
> for a Success). That rewards them for being creative,
> and if they succeed, gives them a chip that gives you
> more chips for the bad guys to use.

I wouldn't (personally) go this far, but that's me.

> 3) Have your bad guys do lots of stunts, too. Players
> seem to need a push now and again, and if you show
> them "Hey look, Mao Ling is kicking a package of
> dynamite across the gorge, and he didn't get hurt!"
> then they'll be more likely to try the same kind of
> thing.

Good idea... I think I'll be remembering this when I get my posse to 
Shan Fan.

> I can see a swashbuckling game working very well in
> the Great Maze - pirates, martial artists, etc. I
> don't know that it would work so well in Wyoming, for
> instance.

Well... It could be done. I like to provide contrasts and keep the 
characters on their toes. My posse's back east, so I'm exagerating it a 
bit... They will, with any luck have to deal with both fancy parties 
their group of Kansas gunslingers will have to make their way through, 
and crowded, noisy factories.

> Personally, I like the grittier feel to Deadlands, but
> I tend to get my swashbuckling in with 7th Sea, so
> YMMV. Think of it as the difference between Shanghai
> Noon and Hang 'Em High.

Again, i feel Deadlands is gritty, but still very heroic.

--
Brett

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER 
MAN? (Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett)