Well, for the particulars of this Starcraft game idea, I only have one player at the moment and I don't think I can get him into another PbP game. He and I have a long history with RPoL, and part of his history is abandoning games after posting once or twice. Patience is really not his thing.

Speaking of, he isn't a Warhammer 40K tabletop gamer. He's a Dawn of War player. RTS computer game, like Starcraft. He /was/ asking me to do a W40K RPG after we spent a few days playing Dawn of War until we were almost decent (we are not good RTS players, but we enjoy playing), but I swerved him over to Starcraft because there's so much less lore to muck through.

As to lore, if I'm sticking with the lore of the setting, then I wouldn't be able to go back particularly far and run a Marines vs Zerg game before the CMC armor became a thing, because the two races didn't meet until CMC-300 was already seeing use. It wasn't developed to counter alien threats, but rather to fight other terrans. And I'm not particularly interested in running a meat-grinder TPK engine. My games tend to tell the same kinds of epic stories as are told in the videogames themselves, I just don't like dealing with canon characters directly.

Now, I'm not afraid of totally murdering the characters if they do stupid things like wade face-first into a zerg hive with no backup and no plan. That's a recipe for disaster, and I will let them know as they're writing up their next characters. But in general, my goal is to create a tense atmosphere of danger and desperation, but give them options and allow them to make the kinds of plans that will see them through (maybe with a little luck).

And I've been trying to get better at map creation, but it's still my weakest point. Lately I've taken to just describing the most important and useful features of an area, what's in the areas nearby (in case they want to make a tactical movement), and let that generally be it. When games with Bennies or other plot points are involved, I like leaving things open for players to describe, letting them add useful things for a minor cost.

It seems to me that this would be better for a Showdown scenario than for a full rpg.

Hm. Possibly, yeah. Also I think I've been thinking about it more deeply than the player who requested it. :P He has no ideas for a character, whereas I was planning a few missions, some interspecies politics, the sudden-but-inevitable betrayal, a survival scenario mainly about not alerting a zerg hive to the heroes' presence, and of course some sector-shaking heroics.

Oggy: I fully agree.  I wasn't suggesting the entire RP be based around head-to-head contact.  But you know, with the ebb and flow of possibilities, if they screw up it's always possible when involving a race like the Zerg.  Also, that suggestion would work much better with an IRL group than on forums.

Nintaku: Still, I'd suggest the whole 'older tech' when it comes to armor.  Or you could always go the Ghost squad route.  They'd get smashed in head-to-head, but the players would probably be far less likely to try and incite full on combat if they were playing Ghosts.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:04, Thu 24 Apr 2014.

I really have no reason to use Older Tech. I've tossed together some numbers for a zergling, take a look:



We're assuming that Toughness 18 (12) Marine we've been discussing. So a lone zergling with a Wild Attack (used as default attack mode) would be rolling d6+2 vs Parry 5 or 6 (barely even odds), and damage would be 2d6+2 (9 damage), +1d6 if it somehow gets a raise (13 damage), both vs Toughness 16 (AP 2). Not a threat.

Five zerglings Wild Attacking would be rolling 5d6+6 to hit (Gang Up +4, read individually looking for raises), with five rolls of 2d6+2 (9 damage) and good odds of a raise (13 damage). With a maximum possible of 21, 16 being a success and 20 being a raise, that group of zerglings at least stands a chance against a single Marine. Especially an extra. No need to use lesser weaponry.

Now take a peek at my Hydralisk:



Fighting D8, melee damage d12+d10+3 AP 2 (not counting Wild Attack or a raise), ranged damage 2d8+1 (not counting aiming, and I haven't given them any autofire capability yet) AP 4 and Stun. The spines average 10 damage, max 17, vs 14. They really aren't nice.

Rather than nerfing the marine armor from what it should be, I just beefed up the zerg "natural" weaponry to the ridiculous levels they're supposed to be from the narrative.

I feel sorry for the schmuck that gets hit by multiple hydras.  Were they seriously that big?  I mean, I knew they were big, but small elephant big?  I guess they were quite a bit bigger than the Marines in the game so yeah.  Crap.  Five of those would be a bad day for a squad.

I was freaked out too. The thread that was linked talking about them (thanks again for that, I've been looking for it again for a while now) had some talk about their sizes at the end. I went and looked it up. Here's one of my favorite things:

http://lexinator117.deviantart...6?offset=20#comments

I'm not entirely sure how accurate this chart is (a chocobo is between an elephant and King Kong?), but I've also got http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Hydralisk which lists the average size as 5.4 meters long (17.7 feet). That's big. Three times the size of a man. Just one should be a problem to a marine.

Basically, anytime you come across anything tougher than a zergling, it should either become a high octane action scene or some seriously tense stealth action. Break out the cardboard boxes, Snake. Don't get seen, they will eat you.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:25, Thu 24 Apr 2014.

That's absolutely in keeping with the games and lore. Most of the Terran units are big vehicles and the zerg outside of the zerglings look comparably sized. In the cutscenes in SCII zerglings look as big as very large dogs, Hydralisks dwarf a man in power armor, and ultralisks have truly gigantic proportions.

Sounds like 3:16 Carnage Amongst The Stars to me but, playing it like Necropolis 2350 should work.
=

Yeah, I was considering 3:16 for a while (and then Cripple X suggested it to me elsewhere :P), but I've got ideas for heroes playing "not-marines". Citizens of a town abandoned by the Dominion during the events of Wings of Liberty, people living in a different sector who happen to have Zerg and Protoss neighbors, some things that wouldn't fit well in 3:16. Great game, just not what I'm after here.

What is this 3:16?  I must go find it now.  I would say "stop mentioning new things!" but I kind of like finding new stuff.  Just so happens there's apparently quite a bit I didn't know about until stumbling onto this thread.

Not sure how much the boss wants us talking about non-Savage Worlds games, so I'll just drop a link: http://gregorhutton.com/boxninja/threesixteen/

Looks pretty neat.  I think Savage is simple enough for my tastes, but that might not be a bad 'party game' which is what it seems to be marketed for.  Speaking of SW, does anyone out there play Raiders and Ruins?  It's kind of like a Fallout-lite, Savage Worlds edition.  I was wondering 'cause I had to get a new laptop and I lost my PDF.  It's open source and free to share, and yet I can't find it anywhere on the web for some reason.
This message was undeleted by the player at 00:30, Sun 27 Apr 2014.

In reply to Dark Devine (msg # 884):

It's here https://docs.google.com/file/d...TnM/preview?pli=1one person tried to run a R&R here, didn't work out.

Thank you!  That's exactly what I was looking for.

 I'm the guy that tried to run Raiders & Ruins. R&R is a fine setting and mechanically sound system I just suck at GMing and explaining how to play to new players. R&R uses a slots system to equip weapons like in the video games Fallout where you can switch between two weapons that are equipped as a free action. Also, they used a different inventory then SW: Deluxe. New players seemed to get confused by the contradicting rules which lead to my game not working out.

anyone not own reloaded?

https://www.peginc.com/store/t...nds-reloaded-bundle/

If I dropped that much in one sitting on RPG stuff, my wife wouldn't speak to me for weeks.

yeah, but it would take weeks to read it all...

Months in my case. I have kids, a busy job and a lot of RPOL games :-)

In reply to shady joker (msg # 887):

Not suck. I think the rules were somewhat vague. I took the create a weapon as an option not a requirement. We had a small amount of money for equipment and as I, and apparently others, interpreted the rules you could just purchase weapons from the book and they were cheaper.

You seemed to have let that piece of confusion rub the wrong way and it influenced your tone in dealing with the players.

It happens. Shrug.

YMMV

I agree with IrishMarshal, I took them as an alternative way of handling things that can be used or discarded by the GM and players' choice.  I tend to run R&R kind of 'homebrew' myself, in that I stick with the main SW rules unless situation dictates.  If someone says "Hey, I've got a bunch of junk parts here.  Can I make something with them?"  then I add the information required (usually straight from the pdf itself) into the 'house rules' section for them.  I really loved the chase mechanics from Raiders though.  Especially for my Mad Max RP...  that eventually failed horribly when the whole party crashed and burned due to those rules and quit soon after..
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 03:05, Mon 05 May 2014.

Forgive the off-topic post, but I've created a discussion group for the FATE system modeled on this very group. I'm hoping it'll do for the FATE community here on RPOL what this group did for the Savage Worlds community. If you're a fan of Fate please drop by.

link to another game

Just picked up the new Super Power Companion and though I haven't read it after a flick through it looks good.

What exactly did they change for the second edition?