Fallout: Equestia (Setting and Rules Expansion)

Ramsus wrote:Hmmm, doctor's bags adding bonus healing surges would be a really awesome and elegant solution to that issue. I like it!

Glad to hear it. Wonder if Newbiespud likes the concept, or if he has something else in mind (I'm just throwing out ideas, not trying to horn in on his design)

Ramsus wrote:Wait...why would we NOT want people arguing about which ammo quest to go on first in this setting? That's totally appropriate. Especially for the kind of characters people are bound to make.

So, the arguments aren't a problem then? Well, then that's not an issue with a universal premium ammo system then!

As for worrying about less quest-hooks, I'm pretty sure DMs will have no shortage of cool items for the players to chase (or even just radiation shots) in various crazy towns without us overcomplicating the gameplay.

Now, it's possible as many as 3 types of ammunition could work very well - it's not necessarily a bad idea. But whenever you add complication, it's really good to have a highly-highly compelling reason for it; since it makes everyone's lives slightly harder. DMs have to ration different ammo in loot-rewards to keep people interested, designers need to make more weapons than ever to make the ammo all relevant, DMs or players have to ration the weapon-mixes appropriately, players need to track more variables on their character sheets... Make 10 slightly-more-hassle design decisions like this and a lot of unnecessary complexity can be added to the game.

I just haven't heard a really compelling reason for non-universal premium ammo yet besides basic stuff about flavor (which is supposed to be malleable anyways). But again, I haven't dug really deep into the question yet.

Well, I think arguments over people stealing your share of the ammo are more detrimental to a game than a possibly in character argument about whose supply to go re-stock up on first.

I could live with compromising at just Explosive, Projectile, and Energy ammos (plus the weird types for the odd weapons). I still think it'd be better to separate rockets from grenades and such though.

Oh yeah, and you said something earlier I forgot to comment on. Which was that I don't think it was the intent to have everyone swapping weapons with each other. Just to have them switching between a couple of their weapons. The heavy weapons explosives using guy doesn't have much motivation to switch between his grenade launcher and his rocket launcher besides which attacks would be more useful for a particular fight if they both share the same ammo type. Similarly if machine guns do chew up a bunch of ammo from everything or even just the Projectile category everyone else who uses ammo/that type of ammo is probably a bit annoyed at them every time they do. If however that's their pool of ammo for that kind of category of weapon it's much less of a big deal that they decided to use it all up doing a crazy spray than saving it for their special pistol or shotgun (which they might choose to not even have so they can always just be using up their share of that kind of ammo on machine gun attacks).

Edit: So yeah. I think I've got a clear grasp on this now. I think the big reason to not have just a "special ammo" pool or just three broad pools is so that people aren't always using their favorite one or two weapons every fight. If you run out of plasma ammo, then you can switch to maybe your less favored (but equally good probably) shotgun which uses small projectile ammo (or whatever the term would be) but, just feels totally different as a weapon.

Ramsus wrote:Well, I think arguments over people stealing your share of the ammo are more detrimental to a game than a possibly in character argument about whose supply to go re-stock up on first.

Well, then we're back to the above points.

1) It seems to work just fine for gold and other in-game currencies. Or should we have multiple currencies for multiple classes?

2) If players can switch between various styles of weapons, as Newbiespud has mentioned, then you still get those same arguments you don't want on top of the new ones. So... Yay?

3) Why is one in-character argument better than another? Especially when the one you don't like is usually quickly settled in even distribution while the one you do like means some players are going to be unable to do their cool ammunition things for a while, while the others have an over-abundance. So, in short, that means compromising some players and playstyles over others. And it might go on for quite a while, if these are supposed to be meaningful adventure hooks.

Honestly Ranubis Ramsus, I have no idea where you're going with this.

I'm not really sure why you're comparing ammo to currency. It's only like currency if it's unified. Once it isn't, it stops being like currency. (I suppose you can trade it for currency and then trade that currency for it but, that's true of everything.)

You can but, it's a lot less likely since it's easy enough to have one player just switch over to a type that isn't being used up as much. Also it's a lot easier for people to rationalize hoarding their share of the rockets than it is to hoard their share of the money.

Hmm. Speaking of money.. That's actually a good reason not to have unified special ammo. It becomes indistinguishable from caps. You can in theory trade caps for it and it for caps. So now you have two actual currencies for no real reason. But ammo is currency that you can do something with. Which results in nobody actually using caps as currency. So...you've just killed caps as a currency by having unified special ammo since then entire point of currency is that it's a thing you use to facilitate the equal exchange of often unequal value goods. So yeah, unified special ammo is just caps you can shoot at people. Out of your rocket launcher. (Now I'm just having amusing mental images.)
Edit: That actually makes it better money than money. That's really bad.

Are you seriously asking me why an in character argument is better than an out of character one?

The second part to that....the GM is always the one responsible for that kind of stuff when it comes to dolling out items and quests. It really doesn't matter if those items are magic items or bullets. It's their job to figure out how much of what they want to give their players.

Ranubis? Isn't that actually someone else's username? Or am I confusing that with someone else?

Ramsus wrote:I'm not really sure why you're comparing ammo to currency. It's only like currency if it's unified. Once it isn't, it stops being like currency. (I suppose you can trade it for currency and then trade that currency for it but, that's true of everything.)

The reason we're comparing ammo to currency is because you're claiming, "A universal ammo would be so universally desirable it would cause unwelcome arguments amongst the group about who gets how much. Therefore, there should be multiple types of it.". Well, currency is even MORE universally desirable - and since that doesn't cause terrible problems as you're talking about... Your argument doesn't actually hold up when it comes to real, live gameplay. You have to apply such arguments universally.

Ramsus wrote:Hmm. Speaking of money.. That's actually a good reason not to have unified special ammo. It becomes indistinguishable from caps. You can in theory trade caps for it and it for caps.

That would be true with everything, as you mentioned above. If you could also easily trade rockets for caps and then trade those caps for bullets - your ammo distinctions become meaningless.

Ramsus wrote:So now you have two actual currencies for no real reason. But ammo is currency that you can do something with. Which results in nobody actually using caps as currency. So...you've just killed caps as a currency by having unified special ammo since then entire point of currency is that it's a thing you use to facilitate the equal exchange of often unequal value goods. So yeah, unified special ammo is just caps you can shoot at people. Out of your rocket launcher. (Now I'm just having amusing mental images.)
Edit: That actually makes it better money than money. That's really bad.

You've now come to economic questions about the value of fiat currency. Let's leave those discussions for an economics forum. But short answer: Liquidity is the difference.

Ramsus wrote:Are you seriously asking me why an in character argument is better than an out of character one?

Okay, please explain why it makes sense for characters to argue about where they're going to pick up ammunition but the idea of characters arguing about how much loot they all get is somehow preposterous. I can't see why people can't argue about how much loot they all get in character too. It happens in business negotiations in the real world all the time.

So no, I'm not asking that.

Ramsus wrote:The second part to that....the GM is always the one responsible for that kind of stuff when it comes to dolling out items and quests. It really doesn't matter if those items are magic items or bullets. It's their job to figure out how much of what they want to give their players.

The system should go out of its way to make such asks easier for DMs. It should also operate on the assumptions that DMs are not perfect and have a lot of work to do already without tracking extra variables.

Ramsus wrote:Ranubis? Isn't that actually someone else's username? Or am I confusing that with someone else?

*laughs* Yep, I gave the wrong username.


TLDR - Having 3 different types of ammo could be fine. There might well be compelling arguments for it. It's potentially flavorful and helps add variation to the treasure you get. It's not clear whether the benefits would outweigh the costs of increased complexity and designing the system to make sure that everyone can enjoy various ammunition types.

However, the specific arguments you're making seem to kind of contradict one another in places - or else don't actually seem to be a problem when it comes to playtesting. And that's what I'm responding to.


*lol* You know, I should just stop responding to all these comments for a few minutes and figure out a pros/cons of universal ammunition versus multiple varieties; because I'm not sure which I like better yet.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Ramsus wrote:I'm not really sure why you're comparing ammo to currency. It's only like currency if it's unified. Once it isn't, it stops being like currency. (I suppose you can trade it for currency and then trade that currency for it but, that's true of everything.)

The reason we're comparing ammo to currency is because you're claiming, "A universal ammo would be so universally desirable it would cause unwelcome arguments amongst the group about who gets how much. Therefore, there should be multiple types of it.". Well, currency is even MORE universally desirable - and since that doesn't cause terrible problems as you're talking about... Your argument doesn't actually hold up when it comes to real, live gameplay. You have to apply such arguments universally.

This feels like a logical fallacy to me. Standard currency doesn't have the problems Ramsus is talking about because it has no practical purpose beyond trade. Being able to use ammo for trade is completely irrelevant as that same logic could be applied to nearly any item that is not either completely worthless or so valuable as to be unsaleable (which Ramsus pretty much already said). The reason a universal ammo could cause problems is exactly what Ramsus said, if there's just "ammo" then if one person gets less, barring the rare exception of a melee focused character in a Fallout setting, they will feel slighted, either by the PH or the rest of the party, depending on who determined the loot split. This is less likely to be an issue (or at least as much of an issue) if you have multiple ammo types as no one is going to feel slighted if they get less overall ammo, but what they didn't get was useless to them to begin with. When you have multiple ammo types, any problems that might be caused by a lack of ammo are more likely to be due to poor personal choice (you chose to specialize in a weapon that uses ammo that is understandably rare, "I only want to use rocket launchers! 6_9") or a poor PH (if you use a weapon that uses ammo that by all rights should be reasonably common, but it never shows up, that's a problem with the one running the game, or at least how he/she determines loot). Whether any of this ends up as an ACTUAL problem in gameplay, I have no idea, but the potential for problems seems quite a bit greater in a universal ammo system versus a split ammo system.

Quick Conclusion about ammo varieties.

Ultimately, It Depends On The Frequency With Which Premium Ammunition Appears
If Premium Ammunition is relatively common, having multiple varieties creates unnecessary book-keeping and will come with other negative effects.

If Premium Ammunition is very infrequent, if you're normally supposed to have only a very few 'bullets' at a time and the weapons that use this special ammunition are similarly rare so that players can only get their hands on one of those items at a time - different varieties make it feel more special and will indeed reduce arguments.

In short, if Premium Ammunition comes in stashes of 20 - it's easier to say, "everyone gets 5". On the other hand, if premium ammunition only comes 1 or 2 at a time... You can't divide that easily. That's when it does help to have some players require different special ammunition. It will indeed reduce in-game arguments, which is a good thing. It could also give players climactic moments to feel special – when they get to activate their cool weapon but others can’t (since they don’t’ have as much ammunition).

Steps would also have to be taken to ensure several factors.

1) Players would have to be encouraged to take items that use different types of ammunition. This means the weapon-swapping works fine for the at-will stuff but your "Big Guns" couldn't have the same variety. I think that's fine; the designer would just need to bear it in mind. If all the groups have a use for rockets, the system becomes needlessly overcomplicated again.

2) ‘Big Guns’ would have to be either one-shot-wonders (a wide variety of skills would encourage hoarding) or else function on ‘clips’. Load up a rocket launcher with a rocket-pack you’ve salvaged – it might give the rocket-launcher 4 ‘charges’… Which you could ration out between multiple [-] abilities.

Basically, need to make a decision between whether pulling out your ‘Big Gun’ is just one cool shot you get to rip off, or whether it means you can play with a much more powerful weapon for several rounds. This could vary by weapon type of course, some could have smaller clip sizes. For example, a rocket-launcher might only have 2 combat talents it lets you use, while a sniper riffle might have 4.

3) The challenges faced by the players should necessitate the use of their ‘Big Guns’. If there’s not a desperation to use the ‘Big Guns’ constantly, then players will simply hoard the precious, rare ammunition. We don’t want them to get to the end of the campaign realizing they have 99x rockets they could have been using to have fun the whole time. The survival-horror dungeon ran well because the players *needed* to use their harshly limited consumables simply to survive. This could add a lot of flavor to the feeling of being on the edge of survival. Your ‘Big Guns’ are the only things that give you a chance against super-mutant if you run into one… So you better not run out.

TLDR: Like I said above, I’m not against multiple ammo varieties. In fact, if the above design decisions are factored in and Premium Ammunition is very rare – they could work excellently for the system. The small quantities would make the extra book-keeping negligible. It’s a delicate balance to stride between, “very, very rare” and, “having a little is essential to survival” but if that balance is struck – the world could feel very dangerous and very cool – with a similar ammunition design helping with that.

Flutterknight wrote:

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Ramsus wrote:I'm not really sure why you're comparing ammo to currency. It's only like currency if it's unified. Once it isn't, it stops being like currency. (I suppose you can trade it for currency and then trade that currency for it but, that's true of everything.)

The reason we're comparing ammo to currency is because you're claiming, "A universal ammo would be so universally desirable it would cause unwelcome arguments amongst the group about who gets how much. Therefore, there should be multiple types of it.". Well, currency is even MORE universally desirable - and since that doesn't cause terrible problems as you're talking about... Your argument doesn't actually hold up when it comes to real, live gameplay. You have to apply such arguments universally.

This feels like a logical fallacy to me. Standard currency doesn't have the problems Ramsus is talking about because it has no practical purpose beyond trade.

I get that it's confusing, but you need to remember the simple truth.

The reason an argument would start in either case is because...

There's stuff everyone wants.

Everyone wants currency, it has a bazillion uses. It can also buy premium ammo, or anything else you can think of. This reason for an argument applies equally to universal ammo as it does to currency. Premium Ammo isn't somehow exempt from the arguments.

Flutterknight wrote:Being able to use ammo for trade is completely irrelevant as that same logic could be applied to nearly any item that is not either completely worthless or so valuable as to be unsaleable (which Ramsus pretty much already said).

No, it's not. Because you can't claim that every item shouldn't factor in its tradability EXCEPT the most tradable of all... Gold. Ramsus earlier claims that having a universal ammunition system would somehow replace currency because it can easily be traded, then for another argument wants to ignore this possibility. Again, these are contradictory arguments.

In my post above, a lot of benefits for varieties of ammo are analyzed. This is not one of them.

Flutterknight wrote:The reason a universal ammo could cause problems is exactly what Ramsus said, if there's just "ammo" then if one person gets less, barring the rare exception of a melee focused character in a Fallout setting, they will feel slighted, either by the PH or the rest of the party, depending on who determined the loot split.

Do you still think this can't be applied to currency? Let's try it.

The reason a universal [currency] could cause problems is exactly what Ramsus said, if there's just [caps] then if one person gets less they will feel slighted, either by the PH or the rest of the party, depending on who determined the loot split.

See what I mean?

Flutterknight wrote:This is less likely to be an issue (or at least as much of an issue) if you have multiple ammo types as no one is going to feel slighted if they get less overall ammo, but what they didn't get was useless to them to begin with. When you have multiple ammo types, any problems that might be caused by a lack of ammo are more likely to be due to poor personal choice (you chose to specialize in a weapon that uses ammo that is understandably rare, "I only want to use rocket launchers! 6_9") or a poor PH (if you use a weapon that uses ammo that by all rights should be reasonably common, but it never shows up, that's a problem with the one running the game, or at least how he/she determines loot). Whether any of this ends up as an ACTUAL problem in gameplay, I have no idea, but the potential for problems seems quite a bit greater in a universal ammo system versus a split ammo system.

These are fine objections if premium ammo is not easily divisible - the way loot is. A DM can easily solve such problems by making sure that premium ammo comes up in easily divisible multiples or just has people draw straws for it - as long as we're talking about DM intervention.

However, I do like the multiple varieties of ammo - as talked about above for differing gameplay reasons (and assuming additional factors). I just don't think all the reasons Ramsus has brought up are valid or consistent; and it's important to point that out. Design needs to be done as consciously about what actual gameplay elements we're trying to solve as possible. Going with the right concept for the wrong reasons can often lead to problems in implementation, and I really want to see this great, great idea executed perfectly.

I don't know about rocket clips. That seems weird. Or like it would be a feature of that rocket launcher. It would be weird for most rocket launchers to be trying to act like machine guns.

Um...about the currency thing. 1) Money is not a "special" resource. People already view it as a thing to be split up then spent or chosen to be spent by group decision. 2) Unified Special Ammo if common enough would replace money for PCs. Because you can't say any one would refuse to trade it for something else (because since it's rockets, grenades, and plasma weapon ammo everyone with any weapons at all would want it). If you have multiple varieties of ammo you can have people not want to trade for it or value it lower or higher but, it's much harder to justify that someone just has poor exchange rates for all ammo who isn't just hiking up their prices on everything since you can just go "oh, you don't want rockets, luckily all our special ammo happens to be that thing you DO want' and the GM is going to have a hard time saying that your PCs can't say that because the system already took that control out of his hands and the players would have every right to call foul on them for saying that only half their ammo is rockets when trading but, not when using it.

So yes, you can say my argument applies to chairs just as easily as ammo except, not all chairs are interchangeable things everyone could always use more of and are the specific kind that person wants them to be when they want them.

About amount, well I have no idea how much other people were thinking of. I figured the rarity would depend on the ammo types. The most common would be decently common. Moderately valuable but, not really a lot of trouble to find or buy. You might find a small amount at least in the hands of half the traders you run across or something. For the rarest (which would probably be rockets?) I was thinking somewhere between finding single digit amounts on average in just about every town and every fifth roaming trader you encountered with moderate caches (a dozen to a couple dozen) you could find occasionally.

I don't think you'd really get a feel for worrying about your ammo amounts if the party was constantly in the state of "we don't have any" or "we have three left". It would end up relegated to the way people feel about finding the occasional exploding arrow or heal potion in a D&D game. It wouldn't really be a resource to be managed and worry about, it'd be a small collection of one off power boosts you get every now and then. Also this would result in not a lot of weapon switching since most of the time people wouldn't have/want to use it and would just use their main weapon almost all the time.

Ramsus wrote:
Um...about the currency thing. 1) Money is not a "special" resource. People already view it as a thing to be split up then spent or chosen to be spent by group decision.

*laughs*

Ramsus, that's completely irrelevant to your own argument. The point is both things are stuff that everyone would want. Also, money *can* buy special ammo right? So you'd have to treat money as even more desirable than special ammo.

Ramsus wrote: 2) Unified Special Ammo if common enough would replace money for PCs.

1) That's a huge 'if'

2) Why don't special magic weapons replace money for PCs in other systems?

3) Wait... So now you're claiming special ammo could behave identical to currency - so much so that it can replace currency? And yet, you keep trying to reject the idea of applying your own arguments about how special ammo would behave to currency.

Ramsus wrote:Because you can't say any one would refuse to trade it for something else (because since it's rockets, grenades, and plasma weapon ammo everyone with any weapons at all would want it).

*laughs* So wait... Now, according to you, you can't even say someone would refuse to trade for special ammo? So it *is* exactly equivalent to currency. Why do you keep complaining that your arguments shouldn't apply to currency then?

I just brought up currency as an analogy that a resource everyone wants can work fine. It wasn't supposed to be an identical example, the point alone was sufficient, but now it almost seems you're going out of your way to equate the two exactly. Right after you try to claim that they aren't similar because money isn't a "special" resource. Oh sure, it can buy those "special" resources and those "special" resources can be traded for it... But they're still kind of different so...

*lol* Ramsus, I honestly can't tell if you're messing with me or not.

Ramsus wrote:If you have multiple varieties of ammo you can have people not want to trade for it or value it lower or higher but, it's much harder to justify that someone just has poor exchange rates for all ammo who isn't just hiking up their prices on everything since you can just go "oh, you don't want rockets, luckily all our special ammo happens to be that thing you DO want' and the GM is going to have a hard time saying that your PCs can't say that because the system already took that control out of his hands and the players would have every right to call foul on them for saying that only half their ammo is rockets when trading but, not when using it.

And yet, in the real world, people understand that money is liquid and that shops don't buy things at the prices they sell them. Perhaps you'd like to try the same argument above at your local Walmart, about how they should buy something from you at the same price they sell it to the public. If it's realistic enough for the real world, I think it's not unreasonable to ask players to accept it too.

Ramsus wrote:So yes, you can say my argument applies to chairs just as easily as ammo

No, it doesn't and I didn't. Because... Oh, I'll let you say it yourself.

Ramsus wrote: except, not all chairs are interchangeable things everyone could always use more of and are the specific kind that person wants them to be when they want them.

Exactly! That's the whole point!

You made the argument, "It would be bad to make Ammo universally desirable to all players, because they'd argue over it if it was universally desirable. Thus, we should make different kinds so people won't argue over it as much."

However, as money is also a form of loot that is universally desirable - your argument applies to that too. You can't rip out the whole, "universally desirable" part like the above and claim that's what I'm saying.

Ramsus wrote:I don't think you'd really get a feel for worrying about your ammo amounts if the party was constantly in the state of "we don't have any" or "we have three left". It would end up relegated to the way people feel about finding the occasional exploding arrow or heal potion in a D&D game. It wouldn't really be a resource to be managed and worry about, it'd be a small collection of one off power boosts you get every now and then. Also this would result in not a lot of weapon switching since most of the time people wouldn't have/want to use it and would just use their main weapon almost all the time.

Ramsus... Do you realize the two assumptions you just made in that statement?

Here's a short list.

1) Special weapons, if limited like this, won't actually be much use - just about as useful as the odd healing potion or fire arrow.

2) Players won't have multiple normal weapons.

Neither of these is necessarily true in any way. In fact, the first runs directly counter to what I was talking about and the second runs directly counter to what Newbiespud was talking about.

I'm officially perplexed.

I'm not really going to respond to most of that because, it's not really worth it. (Also, dang you're a rude guy to have disagreements with. Is that your strategy for all arguments? Make people too disgusted at your attitude to feel like bothering anymore? Sooooooo dang sorry that I make observations that don't easily conform to a unified one answer reason for why I feel a way about something. Since when was I obligated not to point out things that conflict with my own initial viewpoint on something? Just because you may be of the opinion that someone should state something and never review the implications doesn't mean I have to act that way. I was having a discussion, replying to things you guys said, and making new observations, not trying to win an argument. Not everything I say is by definition not going to conflict. So yeah, shove your laughing at me for being more concerned with thinking about things than winning an argument on the internet.)

The last part though. I did not make the assumption that ammo would be exactly equally in value or strength to those things. Only that it would have the same feel to the players as those things. Which is specifically not the sort of feel Newbiespud suggested to begin with for the concept.

Ramsus wrote:I'm not really going to respond to most of that because, it's not really worth it. (Also, dang you're a rude guy to have disagreements with. Is that your strategy for all arguments? Make people too disgusted at your attitude to feel like bothering anymore? Sooooooo dang sorry that I make observations that don't easily conform to a unified one answer reason for why I feel a way about something. Since when was I obligated not to point out things that conflict with my own initial viewpoint on something? Just because you may be of the opinion that someone should state something and never review the implications doesn't mean I have to act that way. I was having a discussion, replying to things you guys said, and making new observations, not trying to win an argument. Not everything I say is by definition not going to conflict. So yeah, shove your laughing at me for being more concerned with thinking about things than winning an argument on the internet.)

*sighs*

Ramsus, I'm not laughing at you. I apologize if you feel insulted - it's not my intention. However, your positions do seem to contradict themselves - and that's relevant. Because both can't be true. It has nothing to do with winning an argument, it has to do with reality. If you make two separate arguments about why the system should be designed a certain way... And one is based on the idea that ammo shouldn't be treated the same as money while the other is based on the idea that ammo would be nearly identical to money - then logically, at least one has to be false.

The reason I'm bringing up these contradictions is because I actually care about what you think. I'm trying to listen to everything you're saying, and when things you say seem to contradict with themselves - I have two options. I can either ignore you entirely or I can bring up these contradictions and try to reconcile them - so we can get some productive ideas out.

If you want to help develop the system and make statements about how you think things should be, and why you think they should be that way, you're going to have to accept that we might care about what you have to say. And that if you don't seem to like something, we might want to know why. And that, if the reason you provide doesn't seem to make sense - we're probably going to want to clarify that. After all, we care about your opinion.

Ramsus wrote:The last part though. I did not make the assumption that ammo would be exactly equally in value or strength to those things. Only that it would have the same feel to the players as those things. Which is specifically not the sort of feel Newbiespud suggested to begin with for the concept.

Why it would it feel the same? The play players feel about an item is based on how the item works. Players feel different about a rod of wonder than a fire arrow.

If the ammunition is only minorly stronger, like a fire arrow, players will feel the same way. If it's obviously super-strong, players will feel very different about it.

I mean, I've even mentioned multiple games where I've seen players focus all their attention on such consumables in this very thread.

But, either way, this conversation about this stuff has gotten way too long. We've gone over all the angles and the close examination helps a lot. Like I've said, I'm not even opposed to multiple types of ammunition.

Let's move on to something else. Does anyone have any ideas for mutant-options in this game?

I just skimmed the above realy, but i came up with an idea for ammo that might be worth considering. You have x number of types of ammo (small guns, big guns, energy, universal, potato, teddy bears, whatever) and it comes in clips (or other appropriate word). One clip provides enough ammo for ONE combat, and once the combat is over (either because you won, lost or fled or whatever) you strike off one clip of the appropriate ammo type. Simarly, weapons remain fuctional for X combats, and reparing (using mechanics) increases the number of combats left befor it breaks.

Just an idea i had whilst trying to fall asleep.

Moving on...

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Does anyone have any ideas for mutant-options in this game?

Mutant-options as in mutant creatures or as in mutations for characters? If its the later then maybe you could run a radiation table, like an xp table, and when you hit X radiation pts total (as opposed to current, which will kill you if you get to high- although the book keeping might get a bit cumbersome with that) you get to choose a mutation like you would choose a new whatsit for leveling up.

Prof. Charles Hoofington wrote:I just skimmed the above realy, but i came up with an idea for ammo that might be worth considering. You have x number of types of ammo (small guns, big guns, energy, universal, potato, teddy bears, whatever) and it comes in clips (or other appropriate word). One clip provides enough ammo for ONE combat, and once the combat is over (either because you won, lost or fled or whatever) you strike off one clip of the appropriate ammo type. Simarly, weapons remain fuctional for X combats, and reparing (using mechanics) increases the number of combats left befor it breaks.

Just an idea i had whilst trying to fall asleep.

Some sort of clip system could definitely be interesting. I'd be interested to see that side of things developed.

Prof. Charles Hoofington wrote:Mutant-options as in mutant creatures or as in mutations for characters? If its the later then maybe you could run a radiation table, like an xp table, and when you hit X radiation pts total (as opposed to current, which will kill you if you get to high- although the book keeping might get a bit cumbersome with that) you get to choose a mutation like you would choose a new whatsit for leveling up.

That could be really cool. Yes, definitely cumbersome, but could certainly be a nifty element. I wonder if we could make it elegant... Anyone have any ideas?

Okay, rather than doing the sensible thing and going to sleep (it is 2 in the morning here) i have come up with a rough draft of how my idea for ammo may work. Because being sensible is for well rested chumps.

As stated above, you have differeant weapon types, lets say we use gun, energy and explosive for the moment (nice and simple). You collect clips of ammo, each one lasting exactly one battle. You can not run out durring a battle, nor can it be carried over to the next. To embrace the spirit of fallout, for every ~3 combats you go through you want to loot 1 clip from combat, scavenge 1 clip from ruins and trade for 1 clip of whichever weapon type you use, however PH are alowed to change this to make things easier/harder. Idealy, ph will want to make sure that every one has the right types and number of clips, but only if they work for them. no need to break out the silver platter here. A large part of fallout for me is finding yourself in the middle of mutie terrortiory with 6 shotgun shells and no other ammo.

In combat each weapon type will have a differant stlye. Guns should be able to deal damage every round for instace, whilst energy weapons ever other round, but deal more damage (so it balances out, but you still have rounds of no damage being dealt- i am sure that can be important somehow), maybe with a series of non damaging + moves that make the next attack hit harder. Explosive weapons like rocket launchers should only have one large damaging move (virtualy a combat ender) with a significant PiP cost, to represent the fact that one clip of rockets = 1 or 2 rockets, but can have plenty of support moves/melee moves to raise those PiPs.

Should weapons be switched durring combat? Considering that you get to choose which one you use before hand, i would say no as you shouldnt need that tactical flexability. unless you annoyed the PH.

However, an alternitive option that you may wish to consider is that you can switch, but you lose a clip from both weapons, your PiPs are reset (to prevent using a gun to raise you pips then pulling out a fat-man and firering it 3 turns early) and you pass your turn. A heavy cost, i know, but you can not change your moves normaly, so why should it change now. An alternative is that each weapon has 2 moves, and you choose a primary and secondary weapon for combat, plus a basic melee/support move taken from the normal list. You only lose clips if you used moves from that weapon (or weapon type, so 1 gun clip could provide for 2 gun weapons), but then we have the problem of ramping up your pips/losing all your pips for no good reason.

Personaly, i would say you can use one weapon per combat, take it or leave it. Its nice, clean and simple.

Mutant-options as in mutant creatures or as in mutations for characters? If its the later then maybe you could run a radiation table, like an xp table, and when you hit X radiation pts total (as opposed to current, which will kill you if you get to high- although the book keeping might get a bit cumbersome with that) you get to choose a mutation like you would choose a new whatsit for leveling up.

That might be an interesting additional type of leveling, but what stops the players from parking outside Vault 87 and getting hundreds of thousands of rads? Personally, I like the idea of mutations being somewhat random: some of them positive, some of them negative, and some are both, and you don't know what'll happen until you've hit the next radiation point threshold.

Videocrazy wrote:

Mutant-options as in mutant creatures or as in mutations for characters? If its the later then maybe you could run a radiation table, like an xp table, and when you hit X radiation pts total (as opposed to current, which will kill you if you get to high- although the book keeping might get a bit cumbersome with that) you get to choose a mutation like you would choose a new whatsit for leveling up.

That might be an interesting additional type of leveling, but what stops the players from parking outside Vault 87 and getting hundreds of thousands of rads? Personally, I like the idea of mutations being somewhat random: some of them positive, some of them negative, and some are both, and you don't know what'll happen until you've hit the next radiation point threshold.

Random mutations sound very cool and fun, plus a nice way to add a sense of exposure to the land. Could be a great supplementary system. I like the random nature of them as you mention VC more than a leveling up version - like a rod of wonder constantly pointed at your character.

One possible way would be to have two tables. One bad mutation effects, one good. When you hit the radiation threshold you'd roll on both. Then you could use the heal skill to try and suppress the bad effects for a limited amount of time (probably measured in days?). You'd probably get/have to re-roll any time you gained the same mutation again unless it reasonably stacked (extra arm twice, sure, regeneration...probably not). You'd probably have a separate roll for each negative one you wanted to suppress but, the DC would increase for each one you were trying to surpass at once (success or failure not mattering for the purposes of the DC). This means it's probably be relatively easy with a decent heal skill to suppress one or two but if you have six mutations you're probably almost always dealing with at least one or two of the negative effects. Also would give another thing you'd want doctor's bags for I suppose, which is probably never bad.

Edit: The reason I suggest this as opposed to just leaving it at "rod of wonder style works" is because people like me would probably almost never voluntarily risk mutations otherwise.

Ramsus wrote:One possible way would be to have two tables. One bad mutation effects, one good.

That could be interesting. Would certainly help insure both the randomness elements and keep the players balanced against one another at the same time.

Ramsus wrote:Edit: The reason I suggest this as opposed to just leaving it at "rod of wonder style works" is because people like me would probably almost never voluntarily risk mutations otherwise.

I actually thought risking radiation exposure that could cause mutations would probably be something you kind of *want* to avoid, really.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Ramsus wrote:Edit: The reason I suggest this as opposed to just leaving it at "rod of wonder style works" is because people like me would probably almost never voluntarily risk mutations otherwise.

I actually thought risking radiation exposure that could cause mutations would probably be something you kind of *want* to avoid, really.

That's why I like the random nature. A risk-taker might chase a ghoul through an area with a fair amount of radiation, and hope things turn out well, while a more cautious player might let an enemy go in the same situation. If you've got a mix of the two, you can use it get the party to split itself or to force one of the two types to make concession. If you have all of the latter, you could use it as a very effective obstacle. If you have all of the former, I'm sure a creative DM can have loads of fun with it.

I like random mutations, it sounds fun. I do, however believe there needs to be a certain radiation threshold at which you become a ghoul. I know people were probably already thinking it, but I just have to be the one to put it out there. Once you hit ghoul, the mutating stops and radiation ceases to effect you, even heals you, but you would have all sorts of negative effects on you, not to mention the hatred and fear of most of the wasteland pointed your way. And you'd be ugly of course. The ugly part would be the biggest deterrent to hitting ghoul for me, cause I'm just vain like that. MY PONY DESERVES TO LOOK GOOD! That's final.

Jokes aside, Ghoul would have to be more of a template than a race option, as any race could get doused with enough radiation to become one.

*shrug* I'm really just throwing the idea out there to see what people thought as it was just a random thought that came into my head.

It is still rolling for random results, it's not like people get to choose what they're getting. It's just less bad for the guy with horrible luck and less good for the guy with great luck. Some people really aren't going to want to risk their character growing a third arm (or I guess first one for ponies) good or bad. Beneficial effects or not you're still going to get freaked out reactions by npc from the more obvious mutations. And it still always would have the downside of requiring time and possibly resources spent suppressing the negative stuff or having to deal with whatever penalties that entails.

Of course, it's not like the ideas are really mutually exclusive. We could easily design the two tables and for those GMs who prefer rod of wonder style the solution is just to throw all of the options into one table instead of two and you just get one result when you roll. (I thought about saying you could optionally let the players choose which method they each want and I suppose that is possible but, it'd be a bit weird. Then again...it's random mutation, why should it follow the same rules for everyone?)

Edit: Ninja'd. As for becoming a Ghoul. That's probably a luck roll or some sort after hitting the threshold for enough radiation to kill you. Because that is how Ghouls are supposed to work afterall. I'm pretty sure most people just die and the "lucky" ones become Ghouls. (Up to interpretation but, you could consider becoming a Ghoul extremely luck considering they're technically immortal. Assuming you don't go feral. Or get killed. Or crippled and mutated in such a way where you're living out a "I have no mouth but I must scream" deal. Or end up stranded on the moon.)

Maybe it could be that once you aquire X mutations you die/undergo ghoulification if your "lucky", but this will mean that most mutations will have to be benifical (although with obvious roleplay disadvantages, although a straight split could be intersting) to balance out the risk. It would certainly seperate the risk takers like myself who will dose themselves in rads on purpose for the extra ablity with the more cautious players who will keep their mutation level down, and gives the sadistic PH a new toy to play with.

I got this idea from the warhammer 40k rpg, where if you gain 100 mutation or insanity points you die instantly as you either become a quivering mass of inside-out tenticles or you lose your mind compleatly.

As for mutation tables, i like the idea of rolloing on two then randomly reciveing either the negative or positive result.

Also runing along side this would be your radiation level, which has the usual negatives of the fallout world and can be healed by rad away, so if you dont drink enough rad away you may die of radiation poisioning before you die of mutations.

Uh....I don't think that's necessary since a core part of Fallout has always just been a radiation meter. I figured we'd all been talking about gaining mutations when you hit certain points on that meter (probably only the first time you hit that point, because otherwise it'd be kinda abuseable) and there are just items like Rad-Away that reduce your level of radiation. I figure just as a certain extreme level on that meter the radiation kills you like it does in the game. Just in this case there's a chance you get up and become a ghoul instead of having to re-roll and entirely new character. I can't remember off-hand how far up the meter goes in the games but, 1000 sounds like a reasonable number and then you'd gain mutations at every 100. (No, you probably don't get one at 1000 right before you die because that "mutation" is lethal cancer/ghouldom.)

Edit: I just had a thought. We should probably have Utilities that you can take to gain specific beneficial mutations of your choosing. Possibly things that aren't on the list at all. With the prerequisite that you have to have at least one mutation.

As for mutation tables, i like the idea of rolloing on two then randomly reciveing either the negative or positive result.

Personally, if I was determining if I'd received a positive mutation or not, I'd prefer to know that I failed on a d100 than on a coin flip. Yeah, if the d100 has half positive and half negative it's the same chance, percent-wise, but I at least wouldn't feel as frustrated in that situation.

Ramsus wrote:Uh....I don't think that's necessary since a core part of Fallout has always just been a radiation meter. I figured we'd all been talking about gaining mutations when you hit certain points on that meter (probably only the first time you hit that point, because otherwise it'd be kinda abuseable) and there are just items like Rad-Away that reduce your level of radiation. I figure just as a certain extreme level on that meter the radiation kills you like it does in the game. Just in this case there's a chance you get up and become a ghoul instead of having to re-roll and entirely new character. I can't remember off-hand how far up the meter goes in the games but, 1000 sounds like a reasonable number and then you'd gain mutations at every 100. (No, you probably don't get one at 1000 right before you die because that "mutation" is lethal cancer/ghouldom.)

The idea i had was that there were two meters, rads and mutations, both increased by radiation, but only rads could be cured, whilst mutations just got higher and higher. Because otherwise you end up with situations where you have 100 rads and a mutation. You take some rad away and go down to 50. Do you lose your mutation? Even if it is physical, like an extra leg? What if you regain that 50? do you gain a second one? Can you keep doing this to gain a gazzilion mutations without accumulating leathal numbers of rads?

One solution to this would be too have lv 1 mutations avalible at 100 rads, lv 2 avalible at 200 ect, with only one mutation per lv. Thats actualy a lot neater as it reduces the number of ever changing meters you have to keep track of, and encourages the risk takers to try and reach the higher levels for the better (and worse) mutations.