Fallout: Equestia (Setting and Rules Expansion)

MirrorImage wrote:If you make certain actions give too few rads, it makes it seem overly trivial.

A larger scale provides more finesse, yes, but does the game actually *need* that much finesse?

This, I feel, is a crucial and brilliant point. Not only would tracking points smaller than one percent trivialize that radiation gain, but any game that’s pausing to track such small points is going to slow the game down with a lot of painful book-keeping. I think this point sets to rest the argument that being able to track smaller increments is a benefit, as if you are tracking such small increments you’re likely trivializing radiation and/or slowing down the game.

However, the point that a smaller increment – such as 100 – is necessarily easier to manage doesn’t seem to hold water either. You could measure a 100 meter just the same on a 1000 meter by adding a zero. And saying “you all gain 200 rads” might be more dramatic than saying, “you all gain 20 rads”. The capacity of the system to measure small increments might be an advantage in making the increments you do measure more impressive.

So, the first argument I feel you’ve definitely put to rest. The second might still be relevant. Of course, it’s a sweet spot argument (meaning that there has to be a sweet spot, bigger can’t always be better – otherwise we’d be measuring rads in billions or trillions), but it still should be addressed.

MirrorImage wrote:
Reloading - You also forget that since we are talking a physical item, you could reload it outside of combat. Very few weapons would require multiple turns to reload, and it would likely only be the large weapons that require that multi-turn reload.

I mentioned the possibility of encouraging such weapon-swapping by having reloading happen mostly outside of battle earlier. However, if you have to reload in combat as a matter of strategy and spend even one turn doing nothing – while you wait fifteen minutes for everyone else to take their turns – that really puts a damper on the gameplay experience. And we’ll want to avoid that whenever possible, right?

MirrorImage wrote:Besides, I don't see much difference between a Reload attack and some of the "trivial effect" +PiP powers, such as Draw Blood, Psychic Surge, and others that don't really do much but add PiPs. Different system, admitted, but the point is the same.

Absolutely. However, there’s a sharp difference in how the abilities feel. I’ll bring up the classic Magic the Gathering example. If a player plays a creature and the creature immediately gets killed with a Lightning Bolt, the creature goes to the graveyard and the player sides. If that player plays a creature and the creature gets Counterspelled though; the creature goes to the graveyard and the player flinches. Many players hate playing against Counterspells more than anything else and lots of casual playgroups ban them. No one bans Lightning Bolts, despite the fact that the Bolt does the same thing in the above example.

The same thing happened, yet one the player feels like their creature did something – even if it didn’t really. The second feels like they were stopped from doing anything in the first place and their resources were wasted. They feel like they’re not being allowed to play the game.

There’s no functional difference, but there’s a world of difference when it comes to how it feels. And that’s what we have to design for.

That’s why even +3 and +4 powers do something and try to make it either strategically interesting or exciting. Look at Perfect Focus. It’s a +3 pip power in disguise, about half the time it’ll produce 2 pips and half the time it’ll produce 4 pips. Might prevent a little damage. However, lots of players have talked about how much they love it and are even building around it. How different would Perfect Focus feel if it did functionally almost the same thing like this?

[+3] Perfect Focus
You gain resist 3 until the end of your next turn.

If reloading is intended to be something players do in the middle of combat, it should somehow, in some way, be interesting or exciting.

MirrorImage wrote:If the agreement is that for smaller weapons it's more of a hindrance, that's fine for me, but you KNOW there will be someone who stock piles Mini-Nukes (I tend to go through a Fallout 3 game accumulating roughly 15 of them by late game and never use them), and saying that a player could fire one off every turn would negate any challenge of a late game boss.

Here’s what I’d recommend…

1) Make this special ammunition rare, but frequent enough that they see 1 nuke every adventure or two.

2) Make it so that the challenges the player’s face *demand* nukes being used shortly after they’re found in order for the players to overcome them. Otherwise, grim death will follow.

This is an organic way that makes Nukes feel special and players dream of the day they can get ten nukes at once. If they ever do find that pile, they’ll be absolutely thrilled.

MirrorImage wrote:Familiar System
That also implies that we're carrying every mechanic of Fallout over to this system as is. If we wanted to play Fallout, there is a Fallout d20 game, and modifying that to use Ponies would probably be much simpler than adapting Pony Tales with each and every mechanic of that game. Just because a system already exists doesn't make it "Simple," it just makes it convenient. That's why Armor Class and the concept of Missing was done away in Pony Tales as a design decision - they were existing systems that many RPG players were familiar with, but our version is by design simpler. Now this isn't to say that making a Fallout Campaign Setting is a waste of time - rather, it's saying that you should do the least amount of rule-changing/adding as possible to get the desired flavor of the setting (a fact that, I'll admit, I may not have myself held to in my last post), and those rule changes should be as concise and smooth as possible.

These are just great points. Thanks for reminding me what made Pony Tales good to start with. We started, from the ground up, with the idea that nothing was sacred and it was our job to figure out the best, most elegant game system we could come up with for running Pony Adventures. We figured out original ways to dramatize concepts from the show that were built to a RPG's system's strengths.

You're completely right, familiar doesn't equal simpler. I hope that the same things happen with Fallout Equestria too.

MirrorImage wrote:Counting Up vs Counting Down - While that example about the speeding tickets is legit, when we're talking about measurable things and not just abstract concepts, it makes a bit more sense to count it as it is represented. "Losing" health is a bad thing, but so too is "Gaining" Rads - that wouldn't make much sense if you "lose" rads in a radiated area.

This is an absolutely legitimate point. However, isn’t ‘health bar’ a pretty abstract concept in itself? Why not the much more concrete, “taking hits”? Why don’t we count up damage from 0 to 30? Isn’t that much more concrete? Should we start counting up damage in this way, if it’s better?

I’m not sure what makes radiation damage so very different than normal damage.

MirrorImage wrote:And if I can change the topic real quick, things seem to have gotten very hostile over the past 2 pages, or they're on the brink of being so. Just making sure everyone is conscious of that before we starting having a Megaspell War in here.

*smiles* I think this might be because everything is so positive and collaborative in most threads that the slightest bit of friction starts to seem out of place. Like my constantly-smiling friend, if she ever stops smiling for a second we worry over what might be wrong.

Hopefully, things will brighten up again. Come on everypony, smile, smile, smile.

Dan, the problem is you're thinking in terms of straight psychology and expecting all players to understand it. You have a legitimate point about counting down, but I think it becomes countered by the confusion of a player when radiation is going down not up, but it's bad for going down. Not only will people who've played Fallout wince at this, but people in general just won't get it. Radiation is seen as a universally bad thing. You get more, that's bad. When you reverse it on them, even if you call it something else, they won't like it, because they don't understand it. Just the reaction your idea has garnered on this thread should show that while your idea is valid, the backlash is and will be too great should it be implemented. I don't think one person has favored it, though I think most of us, myself included, understand its merit.

Lapis-Lazily wrote:Dan, the problem is you're thinking in terms of straight psychology and expecting all players to understand it. You have a legitimate point about counting down, but I think it becomes countered by the confusion of a player when radiation is going down not up, but it's bad for going down. Not only will people who've played Fallout wince at this, but people in general just won't get it. Radiation is seen as a universally bad thing. You get more, that's bad. When you reverse it on them, even if you call it something else, they won't like it, because they don't understand it. Just the reaction your idea has garnered on this thread should show that while your idea is valid, the backlash is and will be too great should it be implemented. I don't think one person has favored it, though I think most of us, myself included, understand its merit.

My main confusion is why people assume that it's "Radiation" that would be going down in this example.

Of course "Radiation" going down with added exposure wouldn't make any sense. Neither would "damage" going down when you take damage.

But taking damage is tracked by reducing your *health* bar.

Radiation Poisoning would be tracked by reducing some *other* health-like bar.

Does that make more sense?

Hmmm. The way I see it, if you want 1-1000 to operate like 1-100 it's very simple to just throw out rads in sets of 10s. On the other hand, some GMs might like to throw around say....13 rads on the 1-1000 scale for doing something. Also, I didn't figure handing out rads would involve a lot of stopping and calculating out rads. Though, it would largely depend on the GM and the playstyle of the group. You might have a GM say "you found a candy bar." a player says "I eat it" and the GM respond "ok, you gained 2 rads" and the player go "hmm, well not too bad I guess." and frequent small stuff like that. On the other hand the GM might just wait till the party rests for the night and say "Hmmm, ok based on what you guys ate and drank you all gained 13 rads today, except for Susan who gain 18. Why did you think drinking from the toilet was a good idea?" As you see it's not a whole percentage point of difference but, still noticeable just from drinking from one water source or the other without it being the major difference on the 1-100 scale that 1 point vs 2 points would be (as that's how those numbers would end up rounded out).


Back to ammo for a brief moment. I'm not saying I necessarily want to drop the special ammo concept and I do understand the reason behind giving basic guns infinite ammo. On the other hand this does seem to curtail the main place that melee weapons could occupy in the system. Once you get up to power fist and mini-chainsaw and such sure, the power difference between guns and melee weapons would be about the same. However it is a bit hard to say that a baseball bat is doing comparable damage to a pistol at base. Mind you this is a rather minor quibble but, it is at least worth considering how things would look if we dropped special ammo and just had ammo for everything that uses ammo. Or possibly had special ammo in addition to that? That would make sort of sense as you might gain better weapons that use better ammo on occasion and at higher levels. Or it could just be better ammo for those weapons and in addition to that there might be better guns. Then you could have the variations of melee weapons, regular weapons with regular ammo, regular weapons with special ammo, special weapons with regular ammo, and special weapons with special ammo. Though that might be a bit more complex that what everyone might want. (Oddly it seems like what I personally care most about is having separate ammo types for separate weapon types so that people are encouraged to change weapons somewhat regularly. Just figured I'd present the idea and see what people thought since we kind of stalemated on the issue before.)

Edit: Gah, ninja'd. In response to that topic... I don't think so Stairc. In the end it's still going to relate to people gaining radioactive particles no matter what. No matter how we rephrase things people are still going to look at it as rad gain. Partially because it's Fallout and partially just because that's how it's discussed irl. (For example you would probably have a similar reaction if this were Chernoble the Pony Tales Adventure. Ok, please, nobody ever make that.)
Edit 2: Lapis, I'm glad you put it that way. I had been trying to make that argument but, you did so quite a bit better than my attempts.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Lapis-Lazily wrote:Dan, the problem is you're thinking in terms of straight psychology and expecting all players to understand it. You have a legitimate point about counting down, but I think it becomes countered by the confusion of a player when radiation is going down not up, but it's bad for going down. Not only will people who've played Fallout wince at this, but people in general just won't get it. Radiation is seen as a universally bad thing. You get more, that's bad. When you reverse it on them, even if you call it something else, they won't like it, because they don't understand it. Just the reaction your idea has garnered on this thread should show that while your idea is valid, the backlash is and will be too great should it be implemented. I don't think one person has favored it, though I think most of us, myself included, understand its merit.

My main confusion is why people assume that it's "Radiation" that would be going down in this example.

Of course "Radiation" going down with added exposure wouldn't make any sense. Neither would "damage" going down when you take damage.

But taking damage is tracked by reducing your *health* bar.

Radiation Poisoning would be tracked by reducing some *other* health-like bar.

Does that make more sense?

I got that. I'm just saying that things related to radiation, people just want it to go up. While yes, you're idea works, people don't like it. They'll also probably be as confused by the idea and what it actually means as we were. Even if it's not RADs going down, people know it has to do with RADs, and will link thee two, causing confusion. Also, Radiation resistance doesn't sound right to me as a replacement for gaining RADs. As a Fallout Fan, I realize we have to make new stuff and am fine with reworking the radmeter, but counting up feels natural for RADs, and people just don't want a replacement stat that counts down. The other problem being that your idea would be much more accepted by non-fallout fans, but it's being implemented in a game expansion that will almost exclusively be played by Fallout fans. People hate change.

Edit: I was kind of all over the place there, sorry about that, I'm a little tired. My main point is simply that there are certain things people expect, adn when you mess with them, people get mad. It's an unwelcome change, a deviation from what they're used to. While they may accept it eventually, it leaves a bad first impression.

Lapis-Lazily wrote:
I got that. I'm just saying that things related to radiation, people just want it to go up. While yes, you're idea works, people don't like it. They'll also probably be as confused by the idea and what it actually means as we were. Even if it's not RADs going down, people know it has to do with RADs, and will link thee two, causing confusion. Also, Radiation resistance doesn't sound right to me as a replacement for gaining RADs. As a Fallout Fan, I realize we have to make new stuff and am fine with reworking the radmeter, but counting up feels natural for RADs, and people just don't want a replacement stat that counts down. The other problem being that your idea would be much more accepted by non-fallout fans, but it's being implemented in a game expansion that will almost exclusively be played by Fallout fans. People hate change.

I'm definitely not sure the change is a good idea at all, but I'm not convinced it should be abandoned. It's one of those things that we know works well one way (loss aversion is great to use in game systems) and works well another way (losing a meter due to radiation is less in line with the Fallout franchise, while gaining RADs fits the system like a glove). Whenever you have two such conflicting elements, either one will result in good design. If you can find a way to combine the benefits of both though, that tends to be where really great design comes in. I'm not yet convinced we can't figure out a solution.

Stepping backwards from the question for a moment though, here's an even bigger one.

Should Radiation be a separate variable?

In the video games, Radiation is tracked automatically by the game - doing all the math for you. Your RAD level causes specific negative effects that dig into your stats at various thresholds. Doing this in an RPG means extra book-keeping.

Could we track the damage from radiation poisoning more simply? Like losing maximum HP? What if you took Radiation Damage in the most intuitive way possible - your new max health was lower.

For example, a character at 30 maximum health is fine. But a character with 5 radiation damage has a new maximum of 25 health. A character that's suffered 10 radiation damage has a maximum of 20 health. A character that's suffered 30 radiation damage has a maximum of 0 health (unconscious until radiation removal is undergone).

That... Actually fits on a lot of levels. It lets Rads go up like everyone wants but it also triggers a tangible, simple penalty of losing another key meter - your health. Gaining Rads and triggering loss aversion at the same time.

I've been spending the past hour editing over this post, so this was mostly written before your most recent one Ramsus. If you want to tl;dr this, though, the basic gist of it is that the 1000 Rad system works well for a game that encounters mostly trivial sources of radiation, and perhaps accounts for them as a single bulk at the end of a day, whereas the 100Rad system works well for more significant amounts of Radiation that needs to be actively tracked. If players will mostly encounter Rads because of food, drink, or very small sources of radiation like a sewer, then the 1000Rad system works well to merely track it ("After spending most of the day in the Sewers, you each feel somewhat exhausted - more so than normal. You each gained 250 Rads for the entire day, meaning you each have minor rad sickness"). If they're going to be exploring weapons factories or bomb craters, a narrower scale that ignores trivial sources is easier to track live. ("As you walk into the crater, you feel the radiation sapping your breath. A glance at your Geiger counter shows 3 Rads/Minute." From here, the players can recognize they have about a half hour to perform their task and get out). We need to flesh out what these "levels" are actually going to be though before we can say universally whether one is better than the other. Look at my comments below your edits below.


Stairc - trying to combine too many things into one number is just going to bring about more confusion in my opinion. If effects come out that increase or decrease maximum HP other than radiation, you have to start tracking them all separately anyways. If we're going to mess with HP, why not just have radiation cause vulnerability? That way you're not actually making two stats dependent on each other, you're simply having one stat apply a status condition (minor radiation sickness - Vulnerability 3).

Ramsus wrote:Um...what? That pop quiz makes no sense. The GM isn't going to ask you how much you've gained. He's just going to tell you. And you skipped all my other points about the flaws of the 1-100 system. Which were really way more important than the one you chose to address.

That wasn't supposed to be an in-game question, that was more directed at you. I'll get back to that in a moment.

As for Medicine...what. What on earth did you think the Heal skill would do? Shoe repair?

Eh, forgot about that.

If you can reload it outside of combat it doesn't need to be part of combat consideration. I see plenty of difference in reloading and minor effects. They have effects. They gain pips. You still accomplish something. They distinguish your low damage/effect choices between everyone else's. What is more fun? Everyone reloading half the time or half the time you healing some damage, your friend granting one of your party a save, and the enemy inflicting a low ongoing damage till save on someone? If you can't see the difference....phew. Well I just don't know how to communicate to you the difference between having choice to do something even if it's minor and having no choice to do nothing.

I'm just going to walk away from the reload issue at this point, but when we're talking weapons with 5-to-10 round clips and a reload time of 1 round, I don't see where you're getting "half the time."

As for the stockpiling 15 nukes. There's two really simple solutions and many other more clever ones. Solution 1) They saved up all their uber weapons instead of blowing them all away. They shouldn't be punished for that choice. They win an awesome victory based on their choice. Solution 2) The big bad or whatever bother doing any recon on the party and knows they have a stockpile of nukes they're just waiting to use on him. He prepares for this.
(There's also Solution 3) Some of them turn out to be duds. But, it's kind of a dick move.)

Of course there are plenty of solutions to it, especially when you're talking about a human run game. I was just bringing up the potential scenario.

I never said the Fallout rad system was simple because it exists. It just is simple and already exists.

Fair enough then.

The fact is that it's just a better way of handling it.

Debatable, but we're going to argue over that point anyways.

Oh right. To answer your maths question.... it took me about the same time to do both since I just used a calculator because I'm not actually great at math.

BINGO. And there is my point.

Having to stop and bring out a calculator derails the immersiveness of the game. Those two situations are perfectly reasonable scenarios that a player might find themselves in (and they're roughly equivalent - the first is the 1000Rad scale, and the second is the 100Rad scale). However, 2 times 15 is MUCH easier to calculate off the top of your head than 15 times 15, and adding 12 to a small number should be just as much easier than adding 60 to a relatively large number. The point is that by keeping the numbers small, it's much easier for the DM to decide quickly how many Rads the players have accumulated and it's much easier for the players to stop and think about how much longer they can afford to float around. 15 Rads/Minute comes out to 900 Rads/Hour, but since 15 x 60 isn't a very intuitive math problem, the players have to stop and think about how dangerous the area is for how long (they can last for just over an hour). 2 Rads/Minute is a little bit more intuitive and works out to 120 Rads/Hour, which means the players can quickly analyze and decide that they have under an hour of time to work with. Moving on, though, see my next point.

[Edit: Just to be fair I did them again without a calculator or any writing or typing (which players of any kind would have access to). It took me a couple seconds longer to do the first because I didn't know what 15X15 was offhand. Are you really saying we need to have a system that works poorer to save people a couple of seconds?
Edit 2: Though I just noticed you actually said calculate mentally faster. Which is like me asking how you plan to outrun the train on your way to school. You're not actually going to be doing that at all. The GM either has a computer or some paper in front of him (and if he doesn't have some sort of calculator on hand what the heck is he thinking?). Same goes for the players. So mental calculations are really only going to come up if that's just faster for you than doing math other ways. That only actually applies to the people who would already do that anyway and has nothing to do with how anyone should design a rpg system.

I think we need to set the scale of radiation aside as well until the level of radiation is decided, in truth. Radiation could be measured in rough levels like I've been using ("mild," "moderately," etc). The first step should be to decide how long a player would survive inside each of these zones, regardless of the radiation scale. For example, if we assume that "extreme" is the highest category of radiation in an environment, does a pony survive for 1 hour in such an environment? Five hours? A Day? Does Mild radiation kill you outside of a week? Lets move back out to broad questions before we try to answer the narrow ones.

Stepping back and looking at it, though, the 1000Rad and 100Rad systems work better for two different styles of gameplay. The 1000Rad system works best for a game that expects Rads to simply "be there." If the most radiation exposure a player is going to get is going to be from a casual stroll along the shore of an irradiated lake, then simply being able to document the 1 Rad/Minute (out of 1000) he generates while down there is fine - 1000Rads works well to account for numerous small sources of Radiations. The 100Rad system works better for a more involved experience with Radiation by simplifying out overly trivial sources. On the 1000Rad scale, food and drink generating 2 Rads is fine, but if my players are going to be exploring areas where they're generating 5-10 Rads/Minute (1000 scale) anyways makes those 2 rads pointless by comparison. The 100Rad system simplifies this by essentially ignoring overly trivial sources of Rads in favor of tracking only the Rads that are going to affect the players.

This is hostile? I'm mostly just confused with you guys. Then again Stairc and I have gotten into quite a few disagreements recently so, to me this just feel like "meh, warmer than room temperature?" (Heck, the earlier ammo one in this same thread was certainly worse than this.)

I was just making sure that all of us in this conversation noticed it - I'm looking over my posts and realizing I'm not entirely innocent on the fact either. We're here to have fun, and arguing over the details certainly doesn't advance that goal.

I didn't make a pro/con list to try to "win" an argument. I actually expected people to make their own or comment on the things I listed or add pros or cons to the list. I figured with our opinions split so many ways that would actually be the best way to solve the problem as it's about as objective as we're gonna get apparently.

A Pro/Con list gives me a great way to see where your view point is though and how you're thinking. It points out what you perceive as flaws and lets me react to them appropriately, while also allowing me to look at yours and do the same.

For some reason my initial reaction to that was "No no no. Panic. No. Bad. No!"

Hmmm. Ok me. Why did you react that way?

Well, ok me. You really liked the Fallout feel of the rad meter, using it to determine when mutations occurred, and the temporary stat penalties.

But, that's not really it is it? No, you've seen this before. Can't remember where but, you do remember it going horribly. Hmm. Probably something to do with it being a bad idea to have non-combat stuff be crippling your combat abilities. Or it could have been something else that had to do with lowering max hp as opposed to just taking damage.

One thought that I can actually explain as a good logical reason to not to that is because then we're mixing our combat and non-combat. And so far we've been pretty solid on that's a big no no for the Pony Tales system.

Oh. Armor. Right. The interactions between armor giving HP and rads making you lose it would, in the end, feel like the dumbest thing ever. Because you'd be countering high levels of radiation by donning a big metal suit and somehow coming out about even. Yeah, that actually forehead slappingly dumb.

So, yeah, I'm going to have to vote No on that. It was a nice try to come up with a way to couple the conflicting ideas but, I don't think it'd end well.

Edit: Don't want to double post but, this is totally a response to Mirror so basically a separate post effectively.

I think really, the small vs larger percentages is not the main issue. The main issue for me about using 1-1000 over 1-100 is when you gain mutations. In 1-100 your earlier proposed 20, 40, 60, 80 certainly makes more sense to the every 10 which is what you'd get from just scaling down 1-1000. The problem with this is that 20 is still way to easy to reach because realistically people aren't going to get numbers like 5 rads for stepping into an extreme radiation zone for half an hour. The GM is still going to want it to leave an impression and they'd get something like 15 all in one go (equivalent to 150 all at once in 1-1000 which is clearly way too much when you're using that scale). If they'd accumulated even just 5 rads up to that point they'd suddenly be on their first mutation, which makes it impossible for a careful players who didn't want them to avoid them. So then you're skipping 20 as well. So that's 1 mutation less on top of already 5 mutations less for a total of only 3, which is too few to really be bothering to make a whole neat roll table for. (And I'm pretty sure we all want to do that because making that will probably be one of the most fun and least debate involved part of this whole creative process.)

Uh...ok so that was kinda two issues not one. Issue 1, huge drop in number of mutations players get. Issue 2, huge reduction of player control over their own characters.

I'm looking at this thread and finding it's becoming a jumbled mess... Can we create new topics for the individual mechanics being discussed? The three major categories I see off hand are:

Weapons
Armor
Radiation

You ninja'd me while I was editing a reply in to you because I didn't want to double post. Figures.

I don't think we should make new threads for each topic. In quite a lot of our posts (especially in these last couple pages) we've made comments on several topics at once. Splitting the thread would basically just involve busywork for us just to have a discussion. (Also we'd end up with like 10 threads at least just for one custom setting. Bit excessive I'd think.)

MirrorImage wrote:Stairc - trying to combine too many things into one number is just going to bring about more confusion in my opinion. If effects come out that increase or decrease maximum HP other than radiation, you have to start tracking them all separately anyways.

I don’t think this is the case here. I’ve experimented with ‘loss of maximum hp’ a lot in various game sessions and the players tend to have no trouble keeping track of it. It’s a lot easier and more intuitive to keep track of than the versatile and useful Temporary Hitpoints.

I’ve even applied similar effects in my D&D Summer Camps with kids as young as 9 years old (and commonly around 12) and they tend to understand it without a problem. It feels like a deep wound, damage you can’t fully repair. Really flavorful and much simpler than keeping radiation as a separate meter with its own effects.

MirrorImage wrote:If we're going to mess with HP, why not just have radiation cause vulnerability? That way you're not actually making two stats dependent on each other, you're simply having one stat apply a status condition (minor radiation sickness - Vulnerability 3)

This could work really well too. It could cause more gameplay problems than simple reduction of max HP (even vulnerability 3 can quickly tear a character apart if enemies have multi-attacks), but it’s certainly a possibility.

[quote]

Ramsus wrote: The interactions between armor giving HP and rads making you lose it would, in the end, feel like the dumbest thing ever.

Considering that armor is not guaranteed to work that way yet (and might well work better as simple damage resistance, which is very intuitive and makes a lot of sense)… And that it also makes sense for a frail person to be able to protect themselves with armor… I don’t agree with your hyperbole.

Actually, all the discussion of it and reference to the times I’ve seen identical effects work great in my home games has made me like the idea a lot. I’ll write a post examining the concept.

Yes, new threads are good ideas.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

MirrorImage wrote:If we're going to mess with HP, why not just have radiation cause vulnerability? That way you're not actually making two stats dependent on each other, you're simply having one stat apply a status condition (minor radiation sickness - Vulnerability 3)

This could work really well too. It could cause more gameplay problems than simple reduction of max HP (even vulnerability 3 can quickly tear a character apart if enemies have multi-attacks), but it’s certainly a possibility.

Maybe first stage radiation sickness would start at Vuln. 1 then and progress from there. Lord knows I've ignored minor radiation sickness in FO:NV enough times.


EDIT: Well then it's 3:30am, so if new threads are going to be made, I'll work to consolidate my ideas in them later.

Ramsus - the separate threads would also help prevent me from making a similar mistake like I did with the Heal skill earlier since I won't be skimming for specific topics in a sea of words (though admittedly, I simply forgot the exact skill list at the time and completely forgot about Heal anyways).

*shrug* Well, I think my best point was that why ruin a good thing now and start mixing out of combat and in combat stuff?

Admittedly rads can probably be gained in combat but, really the causes are way less frequent than the out of combat ones. Having the out of combat stuff not effect in combat stuff is one of the best things about the Pony Tales system.

I still don't understand what it is you guys don't like about 1-1000, gain mutations at 100s (first time only), temporarily stat penalties for certain levels of radiation (probably also on the 100s really). It's simple. It fits the concept. It fits what we need out of the concept. It's true to the lore and feel of Fallout.

So far you guys haven't given any reasons why we want something other than that. I've seen a lot of proposed alternatives but not a single reason why we need one so badly.

(And seriously. Even if right now I can't put it into words I think reducing max HP or giving vulnerability like that are terrible terrible ideas. I dislike it so strongly that I would most likely refuse to play in any game using that mechanic. Again, as I mentioned, I've seen a similar mechanic before and it didn't go well.)

I've made a thread for the radiation system discussion. Sweet idea too MirrorImage.

I'm pretty sure we can get a system that works great, smoothly, simply and feels flavorful.

So, now that radiation is no longer a topic here, was there a decision made on things like Weapon Health? - the concept that, through use, your weapons and armor take damage and eventually become unusable.


Also, I would think that certain utility traits should be either removed, modified, or marked as "with DM approval," given the nature of the setting. The most notable examples I can think of is Create Crazy Contraption and Instant Party. For CCC, it would be reasonable to say that the materials necessary to create such a contraption would be scarce or non-existent in the Equestrian Wasteland at large due to the scavenging nature of the environment, and Instant Party's reason should be obvious. Create Crazy Contraption could have it's effect narrowed or shifted ("Create Convenient Campsite" to maintain the alliterative, perhaps?) to avoid removing it outright.

Well, I am going to try to make a Ghoul template.

So You Want To Be A Necrotic Post-Equine?: Before you apply this template, think about what caused your charecter to end up like this. If he was a officeworker when everything suddenly blew up, did any of your co-workers survive? Most pre-war ghouls where normal, for a lack of a better term, before the bombs dropped, so how did you get to this point in time alive? How did you pick up your ability to fight? If you are a more recent ghouly, what did your community think about your recent ghoulification? Do you even have a tribe to go back to? Have you met another ghoul before? If you decide that your pony becomes a ghoul in-game,please ask your DM for permission (Presumably, this might be a option after a player survives long-term radiation poisoning while not dieing).


NOTE 1:Simon Pretrokov Syndrome, AKA Insanity is only Funny When You Don't Know The Details: Ghouls often have a bad rep for going insane, or "Feral". In the game, Ghouls have no more predisposition to go nut's than any other creature, but a combanation of long-term isolation, a inability to accept the new world, and ponies shooting at them on sight generally leave a mark on any sanity meter anyone would be using. If you wish, ask your DM if he mind's if your ghoul starts out with a few more notch's up the chart than normal. Remember, if you do so, role-play it. It's funny when the local ghoul is out of touch, perhaps, but it is not nice for him to think that a fellow party member is his dead little sister. Remember, role-play is god here.

NOTE 2: Dead Or Alive?:In a magical world like Equestria, a ghoul might actualy be undead. While it's best for your DM do decide beforehand if Ghouls are actualy creatures reanimated by the magic of the bombs or if they are more in line with typical Fallout ghouls.

The Meat: Ghouls do not heal normally. There bodies are (mostly) dead, and do not patch up wounds after a day's rest. Magical healing works, however, the main form a ghoul would probably heal would be in the form of sweet, sweet Rad's. Ghouls do not mutate because of Radiation, Taint, or any other sort of horrible compound, and are not subject to most magical effects or poisons (A Ghoul could look a cockatrice in the eye and can skip merrily into a Killing Joke patch). Ghouls feel pain duller than most creatures, and while they do take damage from temperature they have a +10 bonus to checks to ignore its effects (A ghoul would take damage from wandering around in a freezing cold area for a extended period of time, but could keep on walking around until there hooves literally freeze off). Ghouls do not actually need to sleep or breathe, but old habits die hard. They do, however, need to eat, but there undead bodies greedily take in the RAD's as much as it does the food proper.

Hey look, my liver grew back! Huzzuh!: In extremly high-rad areas, the DM is encuraged to increase the Ghouls healing rate, even to the point where it occures in while fighting. This powerful assistance should probably only occure when the ghoul is being hit with a lot (+20) of rads at once.

Child of Atom:Radiation bonus chart. Ghouls lose radiation points at half the rate of living creatures.
0+ Your not getting anything out of this. Your fine, really, but you should probably see, like, if there is any Sparkle Cola RAD’s around. You are kind of craving them, for whatever reason.

50+You are “normal” and heal like normal creatures now unless otherwise stated. Bask in that irradiated pit.

200+ Yippee, you feel great! If regular radiation reduces max health in your game, you’re goes up by +2 for the time being.

400+ Your positively glowing, you look so good. Well, not literally, but now outside combat, every hour your health is healed by +1. Creatures traveling with you also take 1 rad per minute.

600+ You faintly glow now. You have a fetid sort of energy in your step, which can be seen in another +2 bonus to your max health and a bump to your healing rate: You now gain +2 health every hour. Your teammate’s, however, gain 3 rad per minute when they travel with you.

800+ Your what most call a “glowing one” now. Granted, you feel fantastic, but say that to your friends. While you now heal +4 every hour, your companions gain +5 rads per minute being near you.

1000+What did you do, find a Balefire snack cake?! Nerveless, your deadly to be around, with creature’s near you taking more 10+ rads per minute. However, your healing factor increases to +5 per hour. You really, really, need a detox. Actually, you needed a detox when other ponies could use you as a candle. Players are not recommended to ever go this high because of there natural danger they pose to others.

The chart is basicly a placeholder until radiaton is more set in stone. Until then, please tear this thing apart.

Pokonic wrote:Well, I am going to try to make a Ghoul template.

So You Want To Be A Post-Necromantic Pony?: Before you apply this template, think about what caused your charecter to end up like this. If he was a officeworker when everything suddenly blew up, did any of your co-workers survive? Most pre-war ghouls where normal, for a lack of a better term, before the bombs dropped, so how did you get to this point in time (un)alive? How did you pick up your ability to fight? If you are a more recent ghouly, what did your community think about your recent ghoulification? Do you even have a tribe to go back to? If you decide that your pony becomes a ghoul in-game,please ask your DM fo permission.

NOTE:Simon Pretrokov Syndrome, AKA Insanity is only Funny When You Don't Know The Details: Ghouls often have a bad rep for going insane, or "Feral". In the game, Ghouls have no more predisposition to go nut's than any other creature, but a combanation of long-term isolation, a inability to accept the new world, and ponies shooting at them on sight generally leave a mark on any sanity meter anyone would be using. If you wish, ask your DM if he mind's if your ghoul starts out with a few more notch's up the chart than normal. Remember, if you do so, role-play it. It's funny when the local ghoul is out of touch, perhaps, but it is not nice for him to think that a fellow party member is his dead little sister. Remember, role-play is god here.

The Meat: Ghouls do not heal normally. There bodies are wholly dead, and dead things do not patch up wounds after a day's rest. Magical healing works, however, the main form a ghoul would probably heal would be in the form of sweet, sweet Rad's. Ghouls do not mutate because of Radiation, Taint, or any other sort of horrible compound, and are not subject to most magical effects or poisons (A Ghoul could look a cockatrice in the eye and can skip merrily into a Killing Joke patch). Ghouls feel pain duller than most creatures, and while they do take damage from temperature they have a +10 bonus to checks to ignore its effects (A ghoul would take damage from wandering around in a freezing cold area for a extended period of time, but could keep on walking around until there hooves literally freeze off). Ghouls do not actually need to sleep or breathe, but old habits die hard. They do, however, need to eat, but there undead bodies greedily take in the RAD's as much as it does the food proper.

Child of Atom:Radiation bonus chart. Ghouls lose radiation points at half the rate of living creatures.
0+ Your not getting anything out of this. Your fine, really, but you should probably see, like, if there is any Sparkle Cola RAD’s around. You are kind of craving them, for whatever reason.

50+You are “normal” and heal like normal creatures now unless otherwise stated. Bask in that irradiated pit.

200+ Yippee, you feel great! If regular radiation reduces max health in your game, you’re goes up by +2 for the time being.

400+ Your positively glowing, you look so good. Well, not literally, but now outside combat, every hour your health is healed by +1. Creatures traveling with you also take 1 rad per minute.

600+ You faintly glow now. You have a fetid sort of energy in your step, which can be seen in another +2 bonus to your max health and a bump to your healing rate: You now gain +2 health every hour. Your teammate’s, however, gain 3 rad per minute when they travel with you.

800+ Your what most call a “glowing one” now. Granted, you feel fantastic, but say that to your friends. While you now heal +4 every hour, your companions gain +5 rads per minute being near you.

1000+What did you do, find a Balefire snack cake?! Nerveless, your deadly to be around, with creature’s near you taking more 10+ rads per minute. However, your healing factor increases to +5 per hour. You really, really, need a detox. Actually, you needed a detox when other ponies could use you as a candle. Players are not recommended to ever go this high because of there natural danger they pose to others.

The chart is basicly a placeholder until radiaton is more set in stone. Until then, please tear this thing apart.

My only problem with this, and I could be entirely wrong since it's been a while since I've played anything Fallout, is that I'm fairly certain Ghouls are not in any manner "undead" in Fallout. They're called ghouls because they *appear* ghoulish due to severe mutation, not because they are actual, D&D style, raised from the dead ghouls. I'm not sure how much actual effect this would have (it could certainly be entirely a problem of "flavor") but it's something to think about.

Flutterknight wrote:

Pokonic wrote:Well, I am going to try to make a Ghoul template.

So You Want To Be A Post-Necromantic Pony?: Before you apply this template, think about what caused your charecter to end up like this. If he was a officeworker when everything suddenly blew up, did any of your co-workers survive? Most pre-war ghouls where normal, for a lack of a better term, before the bombs dropped, so how did you get to this point in time (un)alive? How did you pick up your ability to fight? If you are a more recent ghouly, what did your community think about your recent ghoulification? Do you even have a tribe to go back to? If you decide that your pony becomes a ghoul in-game,please ask your DM fo permission.

NOTE:Simon Pretrokov Syndrome, AKA Insanity is only Funny When You Don't Know The Details: Ghouls often have a bad rep for going insane, or "Feral". In the game, Ghouls have no more predisposition to go nut's than any other creature, but a combanation of long-term isolation, a inability to accept the new world, and ponies shooting at them on sight generally leave a mark on any sanity meter anyone would be using. If you wish, ask your DM if he mind's if your ghoul starts out with a few more notch's up the chart than normal. Remember, if you do so, role-play it. It's funny when the local ghoul is out of touch, perhaps, but it is not nice for him to think that a fellow party member is his dead little sister. Remember, role-play is god here.

The Meat: Ghouls do not heal normally. There bodies are wholly dead, and dead things do not patch up wounds after a day's rest. Magical healing works, however, the main form a ghoul would probably heal would be in the form of sweet, sweet Rad's. Ghouls do not mutate because of Radiation, Taint, or any other sort of horrible compound, and are not subject to most magical effects or poisons (A Ghoul could look a cockatrice in the eye and can skip merrily into a Killing Joke patch). Ghouls feel pain duller than most creatures, and while they do take damage from temperature they have a +10 bonus to checks to ignore its effects (A ghoul would take damage from wandering around in a freezing cold area for a extended period of time, but could keep on walking around until there hooves literally freeze off). Ghouls do not actually need to sleep or breathe, but old habits die hard. They do, however, need to eat, but there undead bodies greedily take in the RAD's as much as it does the food proper.

Child of Atom:Radiation bonus chart. Ghouls lose radiation points at half the rate of living creatures.
0+ Your not getting anything out of this. Your fine, really, but you should probably see, like, if there is any Sparkle Cola RAD’s around. You are kind of craving them, for whatever reason.

50+You are “normal” and heal like normal creatures now unless otherwise stated. Bask in that irradiated pit.

200+ Yippee, you feel great! If regular radiation reduces max health in your game, you’re goes up by +2 for the time being.

400+ Your positively glowing, you look so good. Well, not literally, but now outside combat, every hour your health is healed by +1. Creatures traveling with you also take 1 rad per minute.

600+ You faintly glow now. You have a fetid sort of energy in your step, which can be seen in another +2 bonus to your max health and a bump to your healing rate: You now gain +2 health every hour. Your teammate’s, however, gain 3 rad per minute when they travel with you.

800+ Your what most call a “glowing one” now. Granted, you feel fantastic, but say that to your friends. While you now heal +4 every hour, your companions gain +5 rads per minute being near you.

1000+What did you do, find a Balefire snack cake?! Nerveless, your deadly to be around, with creature’s near you taking more 10+ rads per minute. However, your healing factor increases to +5 per hour. You really, really, need a detox. Actually, you needed a detox when other ponies could use you as a candle. Players are not recommended to ever go this high because of there natural danger they pose to others.

The chart is basicly a placeholder until radiaton is more set in stone. Until then, please tear this thing apart.

My only problem with this, and I could be entirely wrong since it's been a while since I've played anything Fallout, is that I'm fairly certain Ghouls are not in any manner "undead" in Fallout. They're called ghouls because they *appear* ghoulish due to severe mutation, not because they are actual, D&D style, raised from the dead ghouls. I'm not sure how much actual effect this would have (it could certainly be entirely a problem of "flavor") but it's something to think about.

In F:E, the Bomb's in question where in fact radioactive with a nice dose of Necromancy for taste. If it were a true Fallout conversion, it would be changed, but in this case it's perfectly viable. Also, it makes ghouls actual dead ponies, which helps on some reguards when it comes to the question of durability.

I have to agree with Flutterknight. The entire idea of Ghouls is that they aren't *actually* dead - the radiation actually has helped them cheat it. Their bodies don't live on oxygen anymore, it lives on radiation. And while it's true that certain organs probably don't work (the heart, for example, considering Patchwork from Fallout 3), several other organs must still be working on principle (the lungs, for example, since they can still talk). It should probably be avoided calling them "dead" or "undead," as neither term really applies - they are quite obviously "not dead" since they're up and about talking, and "undead" implies they were never alive to begin with.

Of course, that being said, there is a hefty amount of discrimination against Ghouls in many areas, and those people might refer to those terms anyways.

Also, I'd be slightly more fond of a sort of "Cost/Spell" system for Ghoul powers, rather than passive benefits. Alicorns, for example, more or less use Rads as the power source for spells, and it's already been clearly determined that any ghoul can create small, controlled bursts of Rads with enough practice and buildup. Maybe tone down the passive effects and add some new ones to make up for it. Could even incorporate them into regular combat, with the understanding that these effects are slightly more generous on PiPs due to the Rad Cost. For example:

[+3][-100 Rads] Radburst: Inflicts 1d8 damage and +30 Rads to all combatants, except yourself.
[-X][-25 Rads per X] Rad Healing: Regain 8 hit points per X. You cannot heal more points than you have lost.

This concept is so epic and Worthy that it needs its own subforum.

I agree, would even help for anypony that just wants to make a more darker Equestria to play around in.

This thread is dying because most people don't even click on the Game Mechanics subforum, they just go straight to the subsubforums.


Because of this I say this should be moved to a more visible place.

Possibly. However, I'm not sure what progress remains for the system. Alex K (Newbiespud) was heading up the project - but he hasn't posted in a while.

And other than the radiation meter, it seems the pony tales sytem could easily just run thins in fallout equestria as is. Especially with the upcoming item expansion.

I guess. It really would only take a few major and minor tweaks to make it work (radiation, combat talents almost totally dependant on weapons, and ammo.)