Oh they're playable, but not well. The mechanics of 2d20 are solid, its the rules they used to impliment them that are lacking. More importantly the focus they decide to enact when the built those rules, not only do not capture the themes of Fallout, and shift the focus to minutia that is secondary to the game at best. What I'm trying to say, they took a game world that was about Interaction, Exploration and Problem Solving and hand waved those elements, and then created pages and pages of rules about Scavenging, Crafting and Gear. Now those are elements of Fallout games, but they're secondary at best, and if you as a game designer are wasting 10% of your page count just on Crafting rules alone, you've lost plot. Lets face it, a good Game Master can make any set of rules work. But that's because the Game Master is good, not the rules. If you as Game Master are having to constantly ignore, hand wave, alter, or make up basic rules that should have been there to begin with. You're a good game master, and those are bad rules. Unfortunately we aren't reviewing your Game Mastering abilities, they're obviously good. What we were reviewing was this paticular book of rules. Which are bad. Nice layout. Pretty to look at. Even thematic in its design, but as a game... just bad. So I'm glad you were able to work around the deficiencies in the rules, and sorry that you had to. You deserved better. Listen if you have any tips for the kids who trying to make this game work feel free to post them, I'm sure they could use your advice. In any case I got a new video to post. So until next time, good luck and good gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Review of an RPG done by someone who actually played it, rather than soyface excitement after flipping through and looking at the pictures. Awesome, thanks, I almost bought it.
Hey Rafinery! Glad you liked the review. Man I wanted to love this game, but OUCH! There's so much here that could have been geat, but it was all so bad.
And yet all of it is true. Seriously I love me some Fallout... I love 2d20... I do not love they way they implimented Fallout into 2d20. And trying to figure out why, is madening. Because the game looks beautiful, its expertly done, but yet DONE WRONG. Its like some one asked a talented writer to write a short ghost story, and instead they turned in 400 pages of tax forms, and wrote SPOOKY on the cover. This is the equivelent of a student attempting to fake handing in their home work, by sending a MP3 of Gungdamn Style that they renamed to HOMEWORK.PDF, and then forgetting to actually save the file name and just sending in the MP3 instead. There is literally no way to explain the dedicated amount of detail, spent on things that literally have ZERO value to the game, while forgeting basic elemental bits. What I'm trying to say is this game is bad, and I feel dumber for reading it. If I ever met the authors I think I would spend hours alternating between "WTF?" and demanding an appology for the time I wasted trying to play this game. In any case, I have a table top I got to get to. Have a nice night and... Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Thanks Wolfinstedd, I've played Conan, and really enjoyed that, but Conan isn't exactly gear heavy, so once you had your character, we really didn't need to refrence the book that often. But Star Trek... that could be a nightmare. I feel your pain. Thanks for the comment, we appreciate it. My players, hammered me over the weekend so instead of doing a rules fix, they talked me into designing a new game from scratch. So that should be... fun. Or a nightmare... probably a nightmare, either way I intend to have fun. Making your own game is always a blast, mostly because you get see those bits you loved come together. In any case we'll see how that turns out. So if you have any questions or insight let us knew. Until next time Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;> P.S: I love your icon!
I’ve played Modiphius’ Conan and Achtung Cthulhu and for both of those books the rules are all over the place. It’s a shame because I really like the 2d20 system, I just wish the books were easier to use. Makes it hard to convince my players to switch to those systems for a while.
As someone who has GM'd for many years and gm'd Fallout 2D20 for a year now, I disagree with many of your points and if anyone is interested in the assessment of this video's points, just comment and I'll go more into detail. The only thing I'm going to really touch on within my comment is that what makes a tabletop role-playing game. Great is if it's fun and I can say Fallout 2d20 is fun. The rules effectively interact with Fallout lore, making you feel like you are scavenging and surviving within a post-apocalyptic Fallout world. And for me, that's enough. The rules are decent enough that the players can interact in meaningful ways with the world and do things that they feel are creative and impactful.
Hey Game Master, I absolutely agree, FUN is the whole point to play any game. Which is why these rules are so disappointing. I mean the 2d20 system, in its essence is an elegant set of mechanics. Letting you quickly and creatively build your own rolls from simple set of guidelines. They're fast, they're flexible, and they're fun. What but where the game falls down, is the RULES. Which are completey different things. You see mechanics are the machinary the game runs under. The way you roll the dice. How determine success and failure, and how you tabulate results. Rules dictate how those mechanics are used, and why. And thats where the game completely falls apart, because who ever was making this game spent more time try to fit together to noncomplimentary mechanical systems, then actually looking at the themes of the game and trying to make rules that actually emulate the stories of that setting. What I'm talking about is, we have a game setting that revolves around Problem Solving, Exploration, and Roleplaying, but we got rules about the differences between five different types of scopes for a laser rifle. We got, a paragraph and a shrug, telling us that Factions were important with zero rules for using them, but pages and pages of detailed break downs about how to hunt, butcher and cook bloatfly. The game vaguely mentions Reputation as being important, without even attempting a basic rule, but still has long tedius chapters about trivial minutized rules on how to find and break down tin cans down for both paper and aluminim, while still perplexing being incomplete. Do think they that thought complex rules about collecting cans was going to be "FUN"? I mean basic freaking rules that players do ALL THE TIME are MISSING and never even attempted, and stuffed under the already essential "Survival" skill. Turning what was already an important, into an imbalanced Uber skill that covers everything from how quickly you heal to letting you brew magic potions. I mean explain to me why they felt they had to add PILOTING skill to a game world where fuel is rare and roads are impassible, while completely failing to come up for a proper skill to NOTICE A FREAKING AMBUSH. Exactly how often do you think they thought players are going to be using PILOT Predwyn, that it was absolutely mandated as being part of the basic list, while kind of just shrugging and saying "Oh you're being shot at by hidden robotic turret? I don't know, make a Survival plus Perception check to notice. I guess" Seriously! When your players are stopping the game to say the WTF?! Something is wrong with the "Rules As Writen". Now, yes, we as Game Masters can fix this pig. I mean no set of rules is perfect and half of our job is making game play as seemless as possible, and hand wave when the rules get in the way. But if you have to hand wave 50% basic freaking rules and make the rest up yourself, then why do we even have those rules to begin with? Do you really need a rules to tell how many hours it takes for you to feel "Peckish", but not a single one telling you calculate complex social interactions, in a game setting that literally revolves around roleplaying? Seriously most Game Masters could have improvised more balanced and fun set of rules by just making the players add together two SPECIALs together and rolling under that number on a 1d20, then the over price pile filler we got from Modipheus. Lets face it, as a basic game these rules are bad; as Fallout game they're even worse; and as a rules book its barely functional. Yes, you can fix this game... BUT YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. It was their job to turn in a working product to begin with, and lets face it, they did not do that. Listen I'm glad you like this game and are enjoying it, but lets not pretend that in any way this game is either good, or simulates the themes and stories of the world, because it doesn't. Fallout is about Quests, Roleplaying, Exploration and Problem Solving. These rules are about Crafting, Scavenging, and Snacks. Every part of this game misses the freaking point. Its like someone told some one to go write a "James Bond" game and then spent zero effort writing rules about stunt driving and seducing enemy agents, and instead spent pages and pages of rules of buearacracy mechanics to requestition a missile launcher hidden inside wrist watch, and then forgot to include the basic requistion forms in the game, but still managed to give four charts to determine the color of the watches band straps. What I'm trying to say is this game is BAD, and they should feel BAD for writing it. Listen you don't need to listen to be rant, and I appreciate your effort to try to educate young game masters on how to run this game, but your time would be better spent telling them how to fix it. Because the only way to save this joke is to amputate two thirds of the rules, and add the basics that should have been there to start with. Sorry I diagress Good Game Masters are hard to come by, and your efforts are applaudable. So Gratz to you, but don't defend the indefensible, they don't deserve you're protection. Instead continue enjoy the games you enjoy. Have fun with your friends and... Good Luck and Good Gaming! :=};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I was playing with others in a Fallout setting, and we decided the system we were using wasn't the right one for us. I wasn't the GM, I was one of the other players. We checked what other system we could use, and the book was out, so I checked it. Between the perk system and the weapon modification rules, I immediately made a face, knowing it wasn't what we wanted. That my character was basically a weird science inventor and a number of my teammates were weirder than just supermutants, ghouls, or Mr. Handies, only further confirmed how inappropriate the system was for our purposes.
Sounds like fun, I like your game it sounds like you guys had a great time. We just started a new game ourselves. Current group includes an Ex-soldier whos on the run from the Enclave, a Ghoul Blue Player who's hunting the man who left his family to die during the war, a mad cultists who's vault was overtaken and eventually destroyed by the cult, a kleptomaniac traveling merchant who keeps trying to sell thing people that he stole from them, and a seven foot tall giant lunk who accidentally locked a pipboy to his wrist and is trying to figure out how to unlock the biometerics to get it off. They all got talked into heading into an old military base to collect some lost tech, called a G.E.P. but they're starting to suspect they might have misheard the name of the thing they were actually after and are getting ready to sneak back vault, under the nose of a group of Civil War Reinactors who have taken the war way too seriously.
Loved the book, like you said, looks great, but had only flipped through it. Shocked by your review, and subscribed to see if it can be fixed. (I think I may came across some fan-based Fallout TTRPGs, I saw a "d20 Modern-based version" and "Fallout: PnP v2.0" by Unasoda; not read them, so unsure of the quality, but I have the PDFs, if you're interested)
Hey Svenema, I love the way the book looks and feels to, its just so much of a pain to actually try to use, but that said, don't take my word for it. If you already have a copy check it out for yourself, the things that gave me migrains might be stuff you love. Everyone has different tastes, so never let any one talk you out of good time. Ok, lets see the Fan Games: I haven't played with any of the Fan Games, but just like you I peaked at them at a time or two. Be aware Fan Games are Fan Games, the price is right (FREE), but balance is usually an after thought so don't be surprised if you find gaps in the game or that a player or two finds a major exploit that you might have to patch up. That said, the one based on D20 Modern, might be the most solid choice. Its a usuable system, play tested and reliable. Basically its old fashioned 3E, but Character Classes are basically broken down by Attribute rather then role. AKA: Rather then Fighter and Wizard, you have classes like Tough and Smart, etc... (Not the real names but close enough). D20 Modern isn't a fantastic system, but its not terrible either. To quote 'The Todd', it just works. Ok, lets see top tips on how to make 2D20 Playable THE SKILL GAP Its a Skill plus Attribute Roll under system, nothing wrong there, but the lack of a resolution system for any skills aren't part of the BASIC FALLOUT SYSTEM, will leave you either hand waving or scrambling a lot. There are a few solutions here, the most obvious would be to custom tailor your own skill list, but a fast and easier one would be to create some general purpose derived scores that can be used instead. Lets say... NOTICE: PERCEPTION + (LUCK/2) REASON: INTELLIGENCE + (PER/2) RESISTANCE: ENDURANCE + (LUCK/2) WILLPOWER: INTELLIGENCE + (CHA/2) Etc... All of these are essentially just saving throws, they're in the right general score range. So they should work with out any additional tinkering needing to be done on your part. If do want to tinker with adding skills, and want to keep it balanced, add 1 Starting Skill point for every skill you add to the list. THEMES & FOCUS The game mechanics spend a lot of time focusing on crafting and scavenging. While that's a part of Fallout, its not what Fallout is really about. Simplify those rules, and focus instead on what Fallout is really about QUESTS, REPUTATION & FACTIONS. REPUTATION: Assign the players a REPUTATION score. Make it equal to half their level, rounded up. Now have the player write down three details about his character. "The Best Thing" they are known for, "The Worse Thing" they are known for, and the "Most Notable" thing they are known for. Whenever they run into someone have the person they run into roll 2d20 vs the characters REPUTATION score. On a success they remember the "Most Notable Thing", on two "The Best Thing", on a Complication "The Worse Thing". Raise or lower the difficulty of the players social tests based on those what is remembered/known about the player. FACTIONS: These are the movers and shakes in your area. Create between 3 and 6, but no more and no less then that. Assign each group allies and enemies, and give them a reputation and a Mission Goal. Assign each player a starting relationship of 0 with each faction. As they help or harm a faction increase or decrease that relationship appropriately, on a rating scale of -6 to 6. CLOTHING The game toses a lot of random buffs around, simply because the Video Games do. Just ignore these. Let the players dress how they want, and don't add any bonuses for clothing, except to increase difficulties if they're wearing inappropriate clothing. Like raising the difficulty to survive a cold winter while wearing an evening dress. CONSUMABLES Once again, VIDEO GAME mechanics that will drive you mad. Remove the buffs from everything that isn't a CHEM or uniquely special, like NUKA COLA, and just treat them as Food or Drink. See below. SCRAP The game breaks down scavenging scrap into multiple categories with all kinds of incomplete loot tables. Don't waste a moments more time on this then you need to, instead just punt. Break down scrap into BASIC SCRAP (Bone, Wood, Leather, Metal, Etc...) and RARE SCRAPE (Nuclear Material, Electronics, Rare Metals, Etc...) . Basic Scrap weights 5 lbs per pt, and rare scrap weights 1 lb. Basic scrap sells for 5 caps, and rare scrap sells for 10 caps. UPKEEP Players in a town, spend about 20 caps a day on basic Food, Water, and Lodging. Additional caps can be spent to increase the quality of the above. At 10 caps, the player is living in the streets, and eating and drinks questionable things. Make a Resistance test every day that they do so, to see if they get sick. SCAVENGING SKILL: Repair ATTRIBUTE: Perception TIME: Minimum 1 HR SUPPLIES: Either 1 Tool Kit, or 1 Scrap. RULES: Player makes a basic skill check. The difficulty is determined by the GM, based on the area they are searching. On a successful roll, divide the players LUCK/2, and roll 1 Effect die per pt. The GM now assigns how to spend the dice, and rolls for effect. Special recovers either RARE materials or something rare as ruled by the GM. Each additional Hr earns 1 additional effect die. If the players Scavenging check exceeds the difficulty, they earn 1 additional effect die determined by the player. Rowan decides to spend an hour scavenging through an old Red Rocket in the middle of nowhere. Its pretty picked over and the GM rules the difficulty is average. Rowan has a Multi-Tool so they use that for their scavenging attempt and score a single success. SUCESS! Checking Rowans LUCK, the GM sees that they have 8 LUCK. Dividing it in half the GM picks up 4 dice, and assigns 3 to Scrap and 1 to Drink. The scrap comes up with 2 successes, and the drink comes up with 1 with a special. The GM rules that after an hour Rowan has collected several pounds of scrap metal, and found 1 Nuka Cola. Popping open their refreshing drink, Rowan heads to town to sell their Scrap. EATING, DRINKING & SLEEPING The survival rules are overly detailed, and end up serving almost no purpose. My best suggestion when it comes to this stuff. First set a basic standard. Every character has to eat 2 units of food and drink 2 units of water a day to stay healthy, but hungry. In cold weather they need an additional 1 unit of food, in hot weather 1 additional unit of water. Next let food and water just be (CLEAN/DIRTY) FOOD and WATER. Don't bother with silliness like crafting Rag Stag Fillets or anything like that. Fallout is about exploring and adventuring, not making Mirelurk Dumplings. Instead, currate the food and drink list and reduce it to between 1 and 3, local dishes that have buffs. Do the same thing with Nukas add basic Nuka, Nuka Quantumn, and because every Fallout has an new Nuka add an additional regional varient of your own, say like "Star Nuka" for Texas, etc.. Clean Food and Water is just that CLEAN. Dirty has 1 Rad, and can be made CLEAN at a 2 to 1 ratio with a Survival or Science check, and by spending 1 Scrap. Any time a player wants to make a Hunting, Foraging, Trapping roll, use the following basic guidlines FIND FOOD SKILLS: "Survival" for Foraging, "Repair" for Trapping, "Small Guns" for Hunting, "Survival" for Fishing ATTRIBUTE: Perception TIME: Minimum 1 HR SUPPLIES: Hunting (1 ammo per Hr), Trapping (1 Scrap Per Hr), Foraging (No Cost), Fishing (1 Scap Per Hr) RULES: Player makes a basic skill check. The difficulty is determined by the GM, based on the area they are searching. On a successful roll, roll 1 effect die of "Food" per Hr spent searching. Specials either recover supplies used, or gain additional scrap (Wood, Leather, Bone, Etc...). Note for hunting a minimum of 1 ammo must be used. FIND WATER SKILL: Foraging ATTRIBUTE: Perception SUPPLIES: 1 Scrap per hr. TIME: Minimum 1 HR RULES: The difficulty is determined by the GM, based on the area they are searched. On a successful roll, roll 1 effect die of "Dirty Water" per Hr spent searching. Specials, recover CLEAN or PURIFIED water. Rather then make a seperate roll to purify or clean water, let players spend one additional scrap to automatically turn 2 "Dirty Water" into clean water, as part of the gathering process. Additional Players making Foraging Tests, can search for water as part of the Foraging Roll. The player must split the effect dice before they are rolled to determine how much of each they find. That might sound complicated but its pretty simple: Bill wants to hunt as spends 2 Hrs hunting in the woods. The GM rules its an easy roll (0 Difficulty), and Bill spends 2 Ammunition and rolls their (Small Guns) check, scoring... 1 success. That's three dice. Bill rolls his effect and score 1 hit and 1 hit with special. GM Rules that he came across a wild dog, and killed it with a single shot, (using 1 special to recover 1 ammo). For his trouble he got 2 FOOD, and only used one bullet. Sanders wants to Forage, and spends all day 8 Hrs Foraging looking for both food and water. The area is HARSH, so Sanders needs to two successes, so he spend a point of AP and rolls barely getting 2 successes. For his 8 hrs of searching he gets 8 dice to split between food and water. The player decides to split them evenly, using 4 effect for water and 4 effect for food. Rolling 4 effect dice for food the player scores 2 FOOD, the GM rules Sanders finds some fresh Mutfruit that he carries back to camp. Rolling for water, Sanders spends 4 scrap to collect and purify water and rolls the other 4 dice. Scoring 5 sucesses with 2 specials! The GM rules that Sanders found a pool of clean water where the Mutefruit was growing, and that Sanders collected 2 clean water and 3 dirty. The player decides to spend an extra scrap turn two of the Dirty water into Clean. Scoring them 3 Clean Water, and 1 Dirty. In one of the harshest areas of the Wasteland he now has Food for 1 day, and Water for two. Etc...
Sorry I ran out of room with my original reply. My bad. My group convinced me to just go ahead and write my own stuff rather then fix some one elses game, but... a lot of people are asking about it, so I'll work on a fix video. Ok one more quickies... HIT LOCATIONS Don't bother rolling for hit location, its just one more thing to slow down combat. Make all hits body hits unless the player calls for a specific location. Then use the rules as writen. Ok, enough for now I have to get to work. Have a great morning. Good Luck & Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
@@Xyphyri Gonna go deep! I was originally just going to fix the game, but... my group asked me not to, and just go ahead and start from scratch. So I'm starting from scratch, and building a game from the roots up to see what it actually takes, and what I got wrong. First up is a "Design Document" breaking down themes, rules, and types of stories we want to tell in Fallout, and figuring out what needs to have focus, in order to create a style of play the reflects the games. An example would be teaching "Emergent Game Play", to tap into the Exploration Element of Fallout. Where the GM starts by creating, some basic elements of their Wasteland, but intentionally leaves much of as a blank taspestry to be filled in as the players explore and advance the story. So that the players literally build world as they discover it. Or a focus on Reputation and Factions, and advancing the character by questing, advancing Factions, building their Reputation, and their relationships the movers and shakers of the Wasteland. Rather then, just rudimentary XP awards. Etc... Its been a busy week, but I get to drop the next first video tomorrow morning. Let me know if I'm on the mark or missed the point entirely. Because I'd rather eat a bit of crow, then get it wrong. In any case, sorry for the delay in responding. Catch you later. Good Luck and Good Gaming ;==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Just a quick comment. As an experienced GM, I am surprised that you, as an experienced GM, had difficulty finding reasonable Attribute+Skill options for the things you listed. I thought of these pretty quickly, and they work for me as a GM: Gambling (depends on game). Dice I'd use Luck + Athletics for rolling the dice. Card games I'd let a player use Luck + Science(knowledge) or perhaps even Barter (for bluffing, counting cards, etc). Poison Save = End + Survival, although I'd accept End + Medicine. Spot Hidden = PER + Sneak. Willpower save depends on the circumstances = Int + Survival probably, but depending on what is causing the save it could use a different skill or even attribute. Military History = Int + Science, although I might accept + Speech if the player makes a good argument for having watched a show or heard something (oral recall) about it instead of reading. One thing to keep in mind is that skills are broader than what the name might suggest. Ex: 'Science' skill entails both practical as well as academic knowledge, all topics, not just on specific 'science' topics. Barter is skill with money and deals/deal-making, not just actual trading/bartering. Athletics is a catch-all for pretty much any physical activity using Strength or Agility (lifting, leaping, balancing, swimming, etc). It really isn't too hard to fit just about anything under one of thses existing Attribute+skill categories. Also keep in mind that while an attribute can potentially be as high as 10, the average will be a 5 or 6 for most attributes. So that maxxed 6 skill will be just as important as that 5/6 attribute. Only in cases where a PC min/maxes one (or possibly two) stats up to 9 or 10 will a skill be less relevent, and in that case it makes their skills more relevant for their attribute tests where their attribute has been dropped to 4. And you don't add attribute points while levelling up. While some of your concerns have some merit, especially for some of the burdensome fiddly bits, I don't think the game is nearly as broken or egregious as your video suggests.
Hey Derek, Man I wish I was an experienced game master, but the truth is I am a very very very experienced (Grognard Level) game master, and have the dice scars to prove it. And lets face it, yeah I could have ignored their complete lack of rules for simple elemental things, and just rolled with it, but then again I could have just flipped coins too. Listen they made game, and they failed. Here's the thing If I buy a car and seats aren't included but they still manage to put spoilers on the car charge me for a custom paint job I didn't order, I'm gonna have a problem with it. Yeah I can probably sit on orange crates, or squat in a paticular position like the photoshoped diagram they stuck in the glove box implied I do... Or.... Here me out... They include the actual seats in the car. I know... its crazy... but you know it might have just worked. Listen it was basic game port, and yes, while a good game master can fix any game.. they shouldn't have to. If I'm ignoring half their rules, and making up the other half, then why am I giving them $60 to begin with. I mean XP to Lvl 3, just dropped his second edition of his fan game of Fallout, and its actually better then this. In fact if you cut all their rules out and just pasted his stuff in its place, the game would get a 8 for art, and 7 for content. I mean its basically the 5e SRD with word Fallout writen on it in black sharpie, but here's the thing, unlike what Modiphius did, its not terrible. He converts the SPECIAL to exponents FINE. He includes all the basics rules without once getting side tracked by detailed rules on how to butcher a bloat fly. He even includes some of his personal game mechanics. Its not pretty, its not amazing, its clearly a fan game, but its also not terrible. And for a game that I paid zero dollars for, I more then got my moneys worth and probably owe him something for it too. I mean Modiphius made game so bad, I wanted my money back! I have never had that experience with an RPG before, and I own a copy of "Lawn Mover Man". I feel zero remorse that I traded my hardcopy into my game store for a used copy of Star Frontiers. This game is detailed where its needs to light, and light were needs to be detailed, and still comes up short. What I'm trying to say is this game is bad, and they should feel bad for making it. Listen I get your trying to save this pig, but let it die. If you like it, great! The whole point of games is to get together and have fun with your friends. Crack some jokes, roll some dice, and eat cold pizza flat soda until 2am. And if your enjoying this game, I'm glad for you. But I won't pretend it was good. Listen you have a great night. Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==[;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I purchased the 2d20 system since it went 50% off thanks to the new TV show. And I've relatively enjoyed the product, but there's definitely some concerns I have for running it myself and with my own group. I played in a 6 month long campaign that used the Dishonored 2d20 system and absolutely loved it, it's rules-light nature made it versatile and fluid in all the right places and gave you all the setting info, resources, and rules needed to run a wide variety of activities in Dunwall. But I was surprised to see a lot of those great and versatile mechanics scraped or altered in the fallout version. I'm gonna run it rules as written at least a few times to finalize my thoughts, but it does seem like the book has too many rules on some things and not enough on others.
Hey Tricky! Let me know how it works out for you. A couple easy fixes we found, worked pretty well. 1) Add any skills that you feel are missing. [Just add a skill point for every skill you add] 2) If you have to do an attribute check, just add half the attribute to itself. 3) Adding background skills adds variety and interest without changing a lot of rules. 4) Skip random hit location roll, and just use body hits unless the player specifically targets a location. That said, there are groups online who have been working hard to fix this game. In any case I hope you and your group have fun one way or another. Good Luck and Good Gaming! ;==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
No problem Top tip, if you want a serious play through of Fallout, you need civilians and Factions. For civilians create a centeral city or town that is the characters base of operations. Put one to three people in that town that like the characters, and try to help them out. This is a cheat code for getting players to like an NPC. A bartender that gives them drinks on the house, and free advice where to find stuff. An old lady, who mends their clothes and offers them food to take with them into the wasteland. A cute local gunsmith who is a Nuka Cola fanatic and buys Nuka Cola merchendise at twice the price. That sort of thing. Now give each a personal goal and motive, and then give them personal obligations so they can not leave the town. "I could never sell my bar...", "This is where my husband and sons graves are...", "My mother is sick, and I can't move her...", etc... Now create a threat... Like a hoard of mutants, a swamp full of radioactive deathclaws, etc... and use it to threaten the town. Ask the players for help, and if they F' around, let them "Find out" by seriously harming one of their favorite NPCs and ruining whatever they had that was helping out the characters. "The Mutants burned down my bar!", "My son's grave... they took his body!", "My mother... the raiders took her medicine... I can't waste money on Nuka Cola, I have to finish this order so I can buy new medicine from the Doctor.", Etc... They will rush to get revenge. Because if they like that NPC an attack on NPC is an attack on them, and they will be PO'd. Congradulations... you just made them care. Now develop your town and expand it. As they help people, have other people look up to them, and look out for them. Make them the heros of the town. Let them F' around, but not in the town. If your doing it right, the town should come to love them, and visa versa... This is THEIR town, don't "F WITH IT" or they'll make you "FIND OUT" Ok, now lets make it complicated, and add in some Factions. Create a couple for your setting, and put them in competition with each other. Give each a higher motive, and over reach that is their personal sin. Example: Brotherhood Higher Motive: "Wants to protect the wasteland from the scientific horrors that destroyed the world that was." Sin: "Bioggoted against anyone or anthing they see as unclean like Mutants and Ghouls. Reclusive, menophobic, militant and aggressive. Will often take what they want by force." Now have your two competing groups move into your wasteland, and decide to FIX IT in their vision. Start off subtle. Have each group approach the players, and attempt to hire them for different tasks, and reward them well. As they help the factions, have the factions be able to offer them different benefits. Like say the Brotherhood offering weapons, while the Followers of the Appocalypse offer them medical aid. Don't let their sins get in the way at first, just play them off as Quirks. "I'm sorry, its against regulations to let Ghouls in the Citidel... I hope you undestand.", that sort of thing. The more they help the factions, the more powerful the faction should become and them more it should trust them. And... the greater their sins should become apparent. Until dealing with them becomes a series of moral quanderies, and they realised they've created a Frankenstiens monster that they're either going to have to fix, or take down. Yes, the Brotherhood brought protection to the Wasteland. But now they're harrasing the local Ghoul town. They've taken the generators and water purifiers from 'Tin Town' for their own needs, and they've upgraded their armor with Jump Jets, that they developed from the plans the players gave them. Worse yet, one of their doctors think he's discovered a test that can isolate the gene that causes a radiation victim to turn into a Ghoul, and they want to test the population and steralize anyone carrying it, and the players town will be their first test case. Will they joke? YES! Will they mess around? YES! But, because they're fighting to protect someone else, that they as a group care about, they will be deadly dealy serious about that. It won't be Game of Thrones, but it also won't be Monty Python either. AKA: It will be very very Fallout. Ok, sorry to drag on like that, but that's my general method for turning chuckle heads into heros. Until next time, Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Well, knowing the Modiphius guys pretty well, having written for them, and collaborating with Modiphius for Blood and Doom, I can tell you there's no Steve from marketing. These guys are the real deal - they love TTRPGs (and other tabletop games). That being said, I do agree with your assessment that Fallout suffers quite a bit from a lack of more diverse skills and maybe too much of an effort to marry the (great) 2d20 system with the computer game mechanics.
Ahhhh... thanks Dirk Glad to hear it. Between you and me, I love 2d20. Its a great system with a lot of incredible possiblities, Conan is still one of my favorites. I guess that's why its so preplexing to me that they stuck so hard to making imported content work under 2d20, rather then build a Fallout setting from scratch in the system. There's a lot of great mechanics they could have mined, and then made their own to capture the feel of the games. It could have been something incredible. And the fact that they didn't do that, blew my mind because four models I could come up with. were 1) Bad or lazy game design - They had a goal, and just went through motions. "Do what? Please.... I've built a dozen games, I'll just rejigger the rules a bit, and hand it off to Editing. The project manager will catch anything I miss..." 2) Good game designers under crunch - They were building the game. Working through the details, and then some one cut the time line in half. "We need this game out for CHRISTMAS!", or "The investors paid a ton of money for this license, we need to show something NOW.", etc... 3) They lost some one important, and had to scramble to cover their contribution. "Bill has left the company so on top of doing all the Layout, Tony will also be doing Game Design, Editing, Lore Checking, Background Design, and Setting Design until we find someone new... by the way we roll out next week, so everyone sign off on your part of the project by the end of day..." 4) Some one with zero understanding or knowledge of game design, was at the helm and just kept asking for things that just didn't belong. "This is Steve... I was just going over the product notes, and I don't understand this six tiered faction system you guys keep going on about... it seems complicated... Hey what about 'Calibrated Shocks' on Power Armor, I did a random word seach on this spread sheet I downloaded, and I don't see it anywhere in this list... I want to see more of that!" Modipheius is a great game company, and as I said the flavor text, art, layout deisng, etc... are all top notch. But WOW! Someone dropped the %#$@ ball. This is one of the few games systems, where both I and the players all stopped half way through the first session, and just looked at each other and.. said "Maybe we can fix it...", and then by the third session were looking at things like GURPS and Cypher instead. I have honestly never played a game that was so badly implimented, that I was tempted to track down the designers social media just so I could ask "WTF?!" And MAN! I have played some stinkers. BUT WOW! At least they were consistent. This book is all over the place. If I had to fix this game, I would start by ripping the actual rules out, keep everything else, and write a fresh game from scratch. Seriously if they had written a set rules that said, "Pick two SPECIALs add them together and roll a 1d20". The results would have been better. Sorry to rant at the end there Dirk, but honestly its both frustraiting and preplexing. As many great games as they have writen in the past, I'm just stunned that this is what turned out here. In any case, thanks for the feedback friend. Good luck on your future writing projects and have a great week!
ROTFL! Yeah, its not often that I get in a lather about a game, but this one kept punching me in the face every time I tried to make it work. So sorry about all the venom. Good Luck and Good Gaming
I’ve always been rules agnostic, since I never liked leveling HP since the 80s. I’m into the themes, the genre and the opportunity to play in an existing world, buts it’s the opportunity to bring new ideas is what keeps me there. We just need more GMs (or OS) creating small time fan campaigns developing story ideas, new directions and gaming mechanics. More regional sourcebooks making narrative ideas the motivation for play rather than whatever system you use. My rules will be a RQ, CoC, Hardwired, Reign, Fate, Fallout Gurps bible home brew which use modiphus as a foundation. I want it to succeed, because I haven’t finished my DLC yet.
Hey Wizard, Good attitutude. For us, we tried to make these rules work for about three months, before we threw in the towel and went with another system. In the end we ended up just using Cypher, in fact one of our players if currently hosting the game himself, and second one wants to alternate with him. As for using this and other books in the future as a refrence guide, brother I support you fully. Lets hope they do some good stuff for you, and expand they setting. Personally I do this all the time, with GURPs books, and its a massive reasource for me. I don't play GURPS anymore, but you can not go wrong with their source books. They will cover every detail, and fawcet. Give the full historical over view. And have dozens of side bars, with important facts, details, or just background info. As for things you can mine for use with other systems. The weapon and armor info is strong and can probably easily be canniblized. Consumables like drugs or unique iconic things like Nuka Cola and Quantum, will easily fit into most games. I would steer clear of the more shall we say, 'VIDEO GAME' consumables like individual food buffs, and if you decide to introduce any of them, introduce only the most iconic or the ones that fit regionally, for instance 'Death Claw Omlettes'. They have pages and pages of loot tables, without actual tables on how to distribute the loot, so if you need random tables to determine what kind of armor they find in a box, those could work for you. Background on the Commonwealth is a bit lite, but its a start. Those are the basic off the top of my head, but you probably already have your own list of things your looking to use. So good luck on those. As for more source books, I haven't read any of them, but they do appear to be rolling stuff out. I suspect that they're going to drop some material for the L.A. TV show soon, as they're already releasing the minitures. So lets see what happens with that... Ok, enough for now I got to get ready for work. So until next time.... Good Luck and Good Gaming :===};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Hey Luke, Yeah, I saw his game drop a couple of days ago, and to say I was interested is an understatement. I've always enjoyed Xp and Skylers content in the past, so this might be right up my alley. I'll have to make to time to give this a go. Thanks! Good Luck & Good Gaming ;==];;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
If you have Fate dice, just paint in one of the "-" signs in on each die, so that you have a 1 the (-) minus sign, "2" with a different color (-) minus sign, 2 "+" for the special symbols and 2 blanks, so they will match the challenge dice exactly. And you can still use them as Fate dice.
Maloquinn That definately would work, and if I was playing at a kitchen table half the time that would have been a fine replacement, but my main test group was on a VRTT, so effect dice were not available for them. I appreciate the idea thought Thanks!
@@GameMastersWorkshop Its just a good trick for anyone who wants to play 2D20 games, but doesn't want to pay the outrageous prices for their custom dice. Fate dice are pretty cheap and can be acquired from multiple vendors. I just though anyone watch your video might like to know about it. Thanks.
Enjoying the views? Looking forward to your rewrite/home rew thoughts. Since it's been a. Month I hope all is well. I was popping in to see if there was an update on your journey yet.
dude, please use examples of what you consider poorly written important rules and vague or minutia rules, you don't have to copy the text exactly but this was just an opinion piece that could have been written by anyone who didn't actually read the rules and just wanted to slag it. I'm sure you did read it, but I sure as heck can't tell that you did from this review.
Hey Hawk I mean could have done that, but I already savaged them pretty hard without, tearing them apart peice by peice. To nitpick every single bad design element wouldn't have been just over kill, it would have been petty. Essentialy dude, the video was already long, and they were already dead. I mean this game was just bad. The few reviews I could find of this game, were clearly from people who had never actually tried to play it. Everything about the game design was done by someone who clearly did not understand the world of Fallout and spent zero time trying to make the game either ballanced or playable. Instead they just took rules and mechanics directly from the video games, and just tried to hamfist them into the 2d20 system. Here's the thing, that doesn't work. Why? Because video game mechanics and roleplaying game mechanics are essentially completely different things. So lets start with the so called RULES from the video gam. Here's thing you have to understand about those rules. They don't actually work. They're not supposed to. They're a fiction meant to look RPG like, but not actually meant to be playable. They're missing basic elemental things, like knowledge checks, surprise checks, or even basic resistance rolls. Because all of that is either part of the plot, the player actions or complex mechanics behind the scenes. So no easily importable rules exist for things like that. Now there are three easy solutions for this, were either 1) Make a few extra skills to cover these basic game checks 2) Create some derived attributes to do the same thing. 3) Weight Skills and Attributes equally so you can make combined attribute checks instead. Those are all tested methods and would have worked fine, but they did none of them. Instead they just hand waved the whole affair and just said, make a Survival check, and if that doesn't work just wing it! Seriously this is a basic element of game design, and they completely flubbed it. Instead they just stuck to their vision of the SPECIALS running 1 to 10, and using "The Official Fallout Skill List", and never considered variying from that postion in the slightest. Because of this we have wide gaps in the basic framework of the game. That could have been fixed easily, but instead zero effort was made. This is the equivolent of painting yourself into a corner and rather then finding a way out, just walking through paint and tracking it all over the rest of the house. Its all just lazy, and bad. Whoever did this either hates their job, or doesn't know what they're doing. Ok, Hawk. That was just one element. Now page up and see how long that took to explain and realise there are pages and pages of this nonsense that they commited against their players. If I tore every single element apart, it wouldn't be just beating a dead horse. It would be running over with a bulldozer. Then back up and doing again, and again, and again.... until nothing was left. I mean I have a hard time describing how bad these rules are without getting angry at these guys, but man that would have been just petty. But if you want more examples just ask away, they are hundreds of pages of nonsense in here, and that was just the skill list. TLDR: This game is bad, and they should feel bad for writing it.
To add to your point about Modiphius hamfisting the 2D20 system in: Often what I really hate about novelty franchise systems is the habit of the publishers to just make an arbitrary rule set. Beyond Fallout, look at some of the bigger names in the RPG scene. What made West End Games use D6 for Star Wars? What made Fantasy Flight Games decide to instead use the Genesys system for Star Wars? What was it about LoTR that made Free League decide on a D12 system? Is there something about the Lovecraft mythos that made Chaosium settle for D100? I feel like when I want to play a setting, I want rules that help me imagine that setting, immerse into it, and feel part of it. I feel like often these publishers/designers just pick a different system to stand out, like it's a marketing thing. "Play our game because it ain't D20!", rather than think about skills that evoke the setting, perks that evoke the setting, or attributes that evoke the setting. It's basically what Modiphius did, but I suspect most publishers are just the same. I'm at the stage where I want to just homebrew everything. It ain't perfect but I like the D20 system. I know it the best and I'd rather adapt those rules to a setting than learn a whole new ruleset for one particular game.
Hey Oddworld! I absolutely agree. Every game world and setting has its own feel and themes, and embracing those themes is what game design is about, not just reworking the material to fit in a prepublished rules set. Early games were all different, not because they were trying to be different, but because they were experimenting with different thing and trying to capture different feelings. Old school "Top Secret" couldn't farther removed from old school "D&D" if it tried, but they were trying to do two different things. D&D was about exploring Dungeons and Ruins, Top Secret was about knowing enough French to fake out Russian boarder guard into believing that you were Belgium Chef. Meanwhile Gamma World was essentially D&D in an Atomic Wasteland, so it basically plays like D&D they just add some rules for Mutations and Radiation poisoning. Meanwhile adapting a system you know well and can tweak is a valuable and useful tool. The best example of this I can think of is the old "Torg" rpg. Which was a game about different realities invading Earth. The thing about Torg was while all the a basic mechanics were the same, each Realm had special rules that only applied to itself and the people from that Realm. So take "Initimidation" in the normal game world it was about scaring people into back down. If you went to Neotokyo, "Intimidation" became a tool of subtle threats and intencity, with people being cowd and doing whatever you said once you managed to stare them down. Meanwhile if technohorror realm of Tharkhold, if you intimidated people you ran screaming from area, and you had a chance of increasing the horror level of the zone. Its all the same skill, used the same rolls, but in different locals it worked completely differently. So if you got a game system that you're comfortable with and enjoy. Adapt it for you own use and make it feel that like that world. In any case I'm off to work, have a great day. Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
@@Xyphyri It did, but they used the same narrative dice. Fantasy Flight just can't have called it Genesys yet, but it's the same thing. Personally I prefer the old West End Games D6 version, that feels the most Star Wars to me. I have pretty much all the PDFs for both, I borrow some of the setting material and ideas from FFG but use the rules for WEG.
Great video! Thanks for sharing your views on the system. Do you have any alternative suggestions for someone who wants to play in the fallout universe with possibly an already set up system that works well with the universe?
Great question. When my friends and I ran into the same problem we looked at a few games and then adapted a generic system, because we were comfortable enough with it we could easily make rules up as we needed and adapt on the fly. When it comes down to it, it will depend on your play style and comfort level as a group. Twillight 2000, might appeal to the simulationist out there "Hard Core Radiation, and Firearms Rules", but like all simulation games can be a bit complicated and tedious, and you would have to add high tech elements likes lasers and robots. Gamma World, has all the trappings (High Technology, Secret Societies, Radiation, Biohazards, Etc..), and can easily be adapted, but it has a high focus on Mutations, and cutting them out or back would be the highest priority. Plus there are like seven editions of the game and each plays distinctly different, and all of them are essentially variations on different editions of D&D. Paladium, has dozens of apocalyptic titles that can be adapted, and would appeal to the GAMER style of player looking to combine power sets and the like. Plus it has a lot of cross over material. But Kevins rules are always all over the place. They're class based, and have zero game balance. And don't go near any title that uses MDC (those rules are really for GIANT ROBOTS and KAIJU), I would personally only use any of his titles if you crew already has a bunch of books sitting on the shelves and have a high comfort level with his games. The other post apocalyptic games didn't come remotely close. For example "Powered by Apocalypse" is closer to a 'Mad Max' setting, and has weird relationship mechanics, that would only work out if half of your games were about who was sleeping with who. So we decided to adapt a generic system instead. In our case we went with Cypher, as it covered a lot of different character types, and the players were already familiar with it, so we could easily adapt. We just replaced the CYPHER mechanic with a reroll system, which worked for the guys, but its not perfect and I'm in the middle of doing a rules rewrite for them. The thing to remember about Generic Systems is that they are Generic. You either have to fly by the seat of your pants, and make stuff up on the fly half the time or spend a lot of time adapting the setting to the system in advance. For example: GURPS, has a lot of options that can easily be adapted, but to me the rules always feel generic. The combat can be anywhere from awkward to down tedious depending on whats you've decided to use. So with GURPS its not about finding rules that cover what you want to do, its more about knowing what rules to cut. The Hero System, is designed to be adapted, but always plays like Champions. Also, power gaming is a major problem in that one. If you have a player that knows how to manipulate the rules, things easily get out of control. System like FATE or TRI-TAC are super generic, but easily workable if your familiar with them. In the end, as I said in the end it really depends on the games that you're familiar with and your style of play. If you want a prepublished game with all the major elements covered maybe try adapting one of the Gamma World editions. If your going with Generic, use the system your group is most familiar with, but don't spend a lot of time, money or effort on it if you can avoid it. Go with a generic you already have rules for or know well enough. Otherwise, you can use the 2d20 rules, but... Ignore most of the survival rules, they aren't well done and don't serve much purpose. Add skills that you think you'll need, things like "Notice", (Add one skill point to the players starting skills for each skill you add to the list.) Cut most of the buffs out of the gear, and leave the buffs to things like consumables like JET, or NUKA COLA, but don't use most of the rules for things like (Mutt Chops), etc... And just avoid the loot rules entirely. You're better off just using your own judgement, that spending any amount of time with those tables. They literally left half the rules out, and the rules they did include will have you rolling for random "Hats", bottles of "Dirty Water", and high tech pieces of Power Armor all in the same box. Finally it sounds like they've tried to fix the rules with dozens of expanions, but holy $@#$@ it sounds like they've also made it extremly more complicated. AKA: Cards, even more proprietary dice, and complete rules rewrite designed around selling add on products. If you went that route, I fear you might spend a lot money for something with not of lot of improvement. So use your own judgement. Ok, that was a lot of writing for a pretty generic answer, but I hope it helps. In any case, I got to open the shop this morning and I got to shower up and get ready for work. Have a Great Day, and Good Gaming! :==}';;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Subscribed after this video! Interesting reviews and I'm really curious how you will develop your hack, hope to see it! In the meantime I will probably try to go with mythras + legend for my version of Fallout since are the generic system I know most 🤞
Nice! Let me know how it works out. Never tried Mythras. But I'm always looking to add new ideas and learn new skills. So I'll give it a peak. Thanks for the tip. I appreciate it.
So, I watched this all the way through. I’m going to try and keep my thoughts concise and prevent this from getting too long: I feel like this isn’t a fair review. There were some things I agreed with, such as not all the rules being present in the book I.e. scavenging. Scavenging is in the game master’s kit. Which is disappointing and feels a little like a cash grab. However, because I like to see what is IN GM kits released by developers, and compare them, I had them anyway. But most of everything else, I disagree with you. I have played 3 different campaigns with friends with THESE rules, and it worked just fine. There are multiple things glossed over in this review. Survival rules for eating, drinking, sleeping? Optional. Want your game nitty gritty? Here you go. You don’t want your game nitty gritty? Ignore. Then for other complaints, not only did you hardly give examples, mostly saying a video game and TTRPG are different, which yes they are, but you hardly game any actual examples of things outside of talking about the stars and skills. You constantly said it’s bad, not a good TTRPG. Ok, what’s a GOOD TTRPG? Compare it to ANOTHER game. Which should be easy with 40 years of TTRPG experience. Look, I’m not saying this system is perfect, it isn’t. But it’s a perfectly fine system. And you can run a game fine with it. Just actually give it a chance. Last two notes: 1) there’s a side bar in the area discussing how to do a skill check. You can un-mate skills and specials to give you a more niche roll. Example: you mentioned “how to find someone that’s hidden?” I would have my player roll perception and sneak. Use your OWN knowledge of sneaking, with your personal capabilities to perceive. 2) proprietary dice? Give me a break. It’s just the d6’s. You don’t need to buy their dice. It’s easy to memorize. This is off the cuff: on a normal d6 1 and 2 is that much damage respectively. A result of 3 and 4 is a blank face. 5 and 6 is the vault boy effect face. It’s not hard, and that is the ONLY die that is really pRoPrIeTaRy.
Thanks for watching and giving you review a shake. Just so you know, I'm fairly famliar with this paticular territory and know when you review something, your being critical of something that many people love. So you're always going to be disagreeing with some one. So before I go farther no harm no foul assumed on either side. So lets start with with something we both absolutely agree with... the Scavenging tables. That was... just a bridge too far. In your case, you didn't mind you were already looking to purchase the product that had them, for me I was already done with the game when I hit this snag, and it was the straw that broke the camels back. But that's neither here nor there. We're both in agreement, that was outright MISS. Next survival rules and video game mechanics... Interesting enough we're technically on the same page on this, as I said the rules they included were unnesciary and tedious, and unless they're incredibly important to your story, your going to end up hand waving and ignoring them. Which is what you did too... Before we move on, I want to throw role playing game truism at you, "If its important, TRACK IT! If its not... DONT". Ok, got that. Geat! Because we're about to cover that as we move on Survival Mechanics and video game mechanics. Here's the thing, survival rules as we both know are incredibly important and something simply has to be included in a Fallout game, but these ones failed hard... why? Because they are just imports from the video game. You see video games have a neat built in feature... they're run on a computer. The computer automatically tracks EVERYTHING in minutia. So when your playing Fallout in Survival Mode, the game knows what you last ate, how long ago you ate it, how full it made you feel, and when you need to eat again, DOWN TO THE SECOND. More importantly it divides those details up into discreate units. Are you Full, Sated, Peckish, Hungry, Starving? Those are video game units, that the computer uses to push you to stop killing super mutants and start eating. The game tracks each of those because for it, each has descreat effects, that it will automatically roll out, when you cross a threshold. Meanwhile roleplaying games... even when we track those things we don't track them down to how many hours ago you ate. Those things are story elements or judgement calls. We might have a Hungry condition if you haven't in a day, or starving if you haven't had food for a couple of days and were in danger of dying, but we wouldn't track things like Sated, or Peckish because you skipped your snack. Remember what I said above about only tracking important things in roleplaying games, this is an example. GMs dont need to calculate things like that to make you stop killing mutants and remind you to eat, because we're the ones who put the mutants there to begin with, and even if you hadn't eaten all day, we wouldn't be penalizing you for it while we hammering you with mutants. Video games track this kind of stuff because they can, and need to. Roleplaying games ignore it, because its not important. That's a basic example of video games vs RPGs. But we can look at a few others Food giving healing? Video game mechanic, to encourage you to eat, when the game isn't in survival mode. Consumables giving random buffs? Extension of video game potion system. Yes I said potions. Chems are essentially potions, that's how they are used in the video games engine. You use a chem/potion you get a special effect. Which makes sense... Need to think clearly Mentats! Need to move a heavy log, Buffout! Need to mess up a raider you got in an argument with in a bar, Psycho! But they extend the same logic to things like Beer and Alcohol, or food products. Listen, Nuka Cola Quantum, and Beer having different effects on a character. Makes sense, they're different products and different kinds of drinks. But Beer, Whiskey, Burbon, and Vodka all having different effects... is just wrong. Whiskey is just Beer that's been distilled. Burbon is Whiskey, its justed aged in an chared caske so it tastes different. Vodka and Whiskey are the same thing, one is just made from potatoes one is made from Wheat. If these all gave a uniform bonus say like CHA+1, STR+1, I would understand. But they don't instead one buffs Charisma, one buffs Strength, one has no effect at all, and one buffs Endurance... Now before you tell me that's no big deal, take a second and without looking tell me which does which? Because... its not clear. Because there's no reason for it. They only reason different effects hit with these different (but effectively the same) drinks, is because they used the video game designers put it in there. Because they did it with chems, why not do it with alcohol, after all it doesn't mater the computer is just going to track anyways. And the list goes on and on from there, different kinds of food. Different mixed drinks. Different recipes are all treated like potions, because that's what the video game does. Not because its part of the setting or theme. Same thing goes for clothing, and it effecting your rolls. You see, they don't use roleplaying game mechanics, they back fill with video game mechanics. Let me give you an example, in roleplaying games there are a few places that clothing might affect you for instance warm clothing if its freezing out, or a fancy suit of clothes when your trying to impress the royals. But those kinds of effects are situational, and under the judgement call of the GM. As the same set of heavy clothing would keep you alive in the artic would kill you if you tried to wear it in the desert during the day. As the same suit fancy clothes that might impress the royals, would get your butt kicked at the "Kill Shot" Bar in the red light district. Now lets take how Video Games treat clothing, with boosters. Wear a lab coat you get a Science boost. Fancy hat, Speech. Why? Because they want to encourage you to dress the part. If your playing a scientists, they want you to wear a lab coat. If you playing con man, they want you to wear a shifty hat. As I said, video game mechanics and roleplaying game mechanics are different, because they're are encouraging you to do different things. Roleplaying game mechanics are about roleplaying, clever thinking, and good ideas. Video game mechanics are about buffs and booster to encourage you to behave certain ways. Roleplaying games reward you for thinking outside the box. Video games reward you for climbing into the box, and closing the lid behind you. As for splitting skills, once again you and I are on the same page here, that this can be and normally is done in most games. You're riding a horse and the GM calls for a defense roll, but you say can I use my Riding roll instead to duck under the horse... the answer is almost always YES! So that's not really an issue, what is an issue is that we shouldn't be making rolls using such a limited skill list. It takes only a couple seconds to realise basic standard skills are MISSING, not because they weren't important, but because they weren't part of the original skill list from Bethesda. While keeping the original list is a nice idea, every author and game designer knows "Kill your babies, and kill them early". When what seemed like an artistic idea turns out be a problem, you gotta fix it. Even if it distorts what seemed thematic in your design, the ultimate goal of the designer is to make a game that fits the themes and setting of the world. Not to backfill video game mechanics. The seventh time in a session, that the game master had to replace a basic skill roll with Survival should have killed this problem and sent them back to the design board to just add the missing skills. But it didn't... which is just bad game design. There is literally no excuse for not fixing that... But as I said, any good game master can fix these things... BUT your not supposed to have to. They're supposed to give you a good product to start with. If a game has the occaisional rough edge or poorly thought out rule. No big deal, that's why we have GMs. But when every part of the game is either superflouse, useless, unbalanced, incomplete or just broken its not your job to fix it. It was theirs to give you a working product to begin with. So you asked what the perfect game is, and lets face it. We both know, there is no such thing. But there are a heck of a lot better games then this one. Specially at replicating the world they're supposed to be representing. Here's the thing, when you build a game you don't start with the rules... you start with the world. The themes, and setting. You then create your rules to reflect and replicate that. If your building a world about extensional horror like "Call of Cthulu", you make rules about horror, madness, arcane and bizaare magic. Skills like research, ancient history, arcane languages and science become your focus's. You don't cram in ten pages of martial arts rules, because the game system you pulled from had them. You remove those rules entirely, and spend chapters explaining the hidden history of your world, and why trying to sucker punch a Deep One, will get you killed even if you are Bruce Lee. Game designers know this... which is why this game is so freaking frustraiting. Because its clear they understand this stuff, but actively choose not to do it. If they had kept it simple and rules lite, it would have been fine. If they had made it crunchy, but made the crunch appropraite to a roleplaying game and not a video game, that would have been fine too. But they didn't. Instead they tried to cram and pages and pages of video game rules into a roleplaying game and ignored everything that makes Fallout... Fallout. I don't see a single theme of Fallout in these rules, just mechanics pulled from a video game. And that's why for me its bad game, and why I believe you deserved for them to give you a better game.
PS: As for the propritary dice... top three reasons I hate propritary dice 1) If your using a virtual table top your @$@ out luck, you'll need to convert. 2) They don't need to exist in the first place. If you could do the same thing with regular dice, then start with regular dice. This just slows down the game. There is zero justification for doing then just selling you another product. 3) They're called propriatary for a reason. They can only be used for that game and only they can make them. Which means you're shoveling more money into pockets of the people who designed the game, just to play the game you already bought from them. Proprietary dice is just preditory game design. I know lots of games that use specailty dice, but all of those can be used in other games. Heck I use "Boggle" dice to help decide random names and hit location die for random damage. But these can only be used for 2d20 and thats it. If it was just poorly thought out rules. That would be one thing. If it was just a couple missing tables that they gave you with the errata... that would be some thing else. These guys just go and on with the violations of good and game design. But these guys are EA of Roleplaing games. I'm glad you liked the game, but you deserved better. So thanks for the comment, I appreciate the feedback. Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
@@GameMastersWorkshop i can see where your points of concern come in. Maybe these things don’t really bother me, because even 7-8 years ago, when I started DM-ing DnD, and I real the players guide, and DM’s guide front to back, I changed things out of the gate. Just how I am, I find issues with most systems I play, and immediately change them to fit things that make sense. However it just hasn’t felt necessary in fallout. Here I’m just having a discussion at this point. To start with something small and quick, skills. I don’t think you need a massive skill list. Some things just don’t require checks. There shouldn’t be a roll done for every single check the players do. And for a fallout world, I feel like the skill list is adequate. An example you used in video was “what if I want to know what rank a US military petty officer was?” Why the fuck does that matter? You ask any normal American citizen, and I’m sure 95-98% of them will have NO clue. Now, take that 100-200 years into the future? Almost NOBODY would know that. And if a very niche situation called for it, I would simply look at those Intelligence and if it wasn’t a 9 or 10, they don’t know. Because that information is going to degrade massively over time. Secondly, minor nitpick, you said special stats go from 1-10. That is in fact wrong. In the book, they cannot be lowered below 4. It may not seem like it matters, but when giving a review for a book, and stating something incorrect like that, it comes off as disingenuous. Like, you hate the book and system, got it. But when you give false information like it, it makes it look like you haven’t done more than skim through the book, and then shit on it while only half-knowing the rules. Then, we get a little more into food, and survival since I feel like I didn’t express myself well before. I felt that what they were doing with food, was using it as a plus side. Because I never said I personally got rid of survival. I like survival (in a general sense for TTRPGs) Let’s say you have a group of 4 players (my normal average). 2 want survival rules, 2 don’t. Well, in my 3 campaigns, one of two things happened: 1) they played a robot. And that was that. “Survival rules? Not for me!” And then they just dealt with the drawbacks of being a robot. 2) they looked more into the food they ate. Since they HAD to eat, and drink to keep going, they picked the food and drink that gave them buffs that suited them best. Even if it cost a few more caps than something else, that’s what they chose. I also found that running Fallout’s survival rules not too hard. I made the players track their own negative effects against their characters (as it should always be, I as the GM, will not track every single little thing my player has, FUCK that. They forget a cool ability they had? That’s on them.) when they travel, I look at it as “Will there be an encounter while they travel? Yes? Then they shall need to eat or drink once the encounter is over, or during it.” “Will there be an encounter? No? Then if they are traveling for, say, 6 hours. I will tell them I want them to consume 2 units of drink, and 1 of food.” And I don’t really calculate the over all “peckish, hungry, starving, etc.” Until the end of that in-game day. Because thats what works best for me, personally. In your review and your reply, you compare it constantly to a video game, which is fair. However, you say in both the review, and the reply, that buffs is all video game. Clothes, food and drink, all the buffs these things give you is video game only stuff. Ummm….no? There are literally buffs in EVERY TTRPG game I’ve played. Sure, the food in fallout gives buffs, which some others don’t, but like I said, I think that’s to serve as a positive to counteract the survival rules. Because if you DONT play survival rules, there is NO reason for players to ever have food or drink, and they won’t. They’ll just stock up on stimpacks which can be used in combat, when food and drink can’t. DnD? Buffs on weapons and armor. Star Wars Edge of the Empire? Buffs on weapons, armor, clothes, gear, modifications for your gear, perks and abilities. Legend of the Five rings? Lots of buffs or minor characteristics for for literally anything you wear, or items you choose to use. Not including abilities. Cyberpunk Red? SO many buffs from drugs, different special clothing, weapon mods, and gear you choose to use. Fate of the Norns Ragnarok? That game is literally both crunchy and not crunchy at the same time, with buffs and debuffs galore. Never heard of one or more of these? That’s fair. There’s TONS of TTRPG’s, and many of them have buffs like this. And in this list I just gave, NONE of them are based on video games. My point is, you are literally only comparing it to a video game, not any other specific TTRPG when giving your examples. If you want to shit on a system for a TTRPG because it’s done poorly, explain WHY it’s done poorly, how it could be improved, and a comparable system who did it better. Then compare the two TTRPG’s. I get it’s very similar to the video game. They WANTED it that way. But it also has a lot of things that other TTRPG’s do as well. Don’t only compare it to the video game. Not only does it get frustrating to hear, over and over in a review, but it isn’t helpful. You want to demonstrate your knowledge of how TTPRG’s should be? Reference other TTRPG’s. Otherwise, as a viewer, I can’t really take your word for being a GM for over 40 years. You don’t list literally any other system in this. I’m not trying to attack you here. Not at all. Just trying to give a different perspective, and as a viewer point out where some of your arguments come off a little weak as to why it’s a bad system.
To start with l like the fact that you change things right out of the gate! Good for you! Bravo brother, you'd be surprised how long it takes some DMs to learn that skill! So Gratz! As for the skills, those were examples that actually happened, in the first session. When you make a game around the concept skill plus attribute, you need your skills to cover the basics. They didn't even try. They just took the skill list they were handed and just went with it. Many many thing were missing. Lets face it, there are a miraid of characters in Fallout that have skills that go way beyond what the heros of the game have. Knowledge of history, musical ability, literature, archeology, etc... Pretty much every game on the market makes at least the vaguest attempt to cover things like this, but they made zero effort. But it went beyond that, to thing that every hero has to do... like survive poison, or not be surprised. Even if you hand waved things like preformance or academics, why would you hand wave, Alertness? The worse part was, they hamstrung you on being able to substitute other things in for skills because they weighted attributes so high. Like I said you can't say do an Attribute plus Attribute check because the scores are too hight. You can't do say a Gear (Rating) plus Attribute check, because those ratings don't exist. They just said, its Skill plus Attribute, and wing it. Come on... are really tellling me they didn't need a basic Search skill? As for the SPECIALS. The 1 through 10 is the actual system from Fallout game system. Not the RPG. In the RPG, the "Character" start at a 4, which they can ding down to a three for a bump but that's a nitpick. NPCs can have whatever. The actual SPECIALs that Tim Caine orginally came up with are 1 to 10, but they have grown higher with other games like 76. So sorry if you thought I was talking about the RPG when I meantioned the SPECIALs I was actually talking about Fallout. I like the SPECIALs and if they could have implimented into their game in a manner that didn't skew the rules it would have been nice, but we're neither here nor there, so moving on. And as for the book, I like book. I like 2d20. I don't like how they implimented Fallout into the 2d20. I don't hate it, but I find it unplayable, and I hate that. A good editor should have taken a big red pen to half these rules. If they had, it would be great, but they didn't so its a mess. Lets see, moving on to Survival. Thanks reading your stuff on survival made laugh. Here's the thing, survival was example of the miss-use of video game mechanics. Alls they had to do was say you need two water and two food a day, and move on. Add a rule about needing an extra food in winter, and extra water in summer and your done... but nope. Instead they tried to recreate the video game stages, and then just gave up and said, take a point of fatigue. Seriously they could have done that to begine with. But lets move on from here. Because we both agree this is something that can largely be ignored. As for clothing and armor giving you bonus's in other TTRPGs, those are innate parts of the gear. A helmet has a targeting computer that has a perception bonus, a magic cloak that turns you invisible that has a stealth bonus, or a set of armor protecting from damage is the gear doing what the gear is actually supposed to do. That's why equipment in TTRPGs has appropriate effects. Combat Fatigues giving you a bonus on Athletics... isn't what Combat Fatigues do. They keep you warm while crawling through mud. Lab Coats helping understand science isn't what lab coats do. They protect you from splashed chemicals or other fluids. Saying that gear in other games gives buffs and bonus's is actually kind of disingenious. I get it man, but come on. Why does one hat protect you from glare, while the other give you charisma buff? They both have brims, they both should protect you from glare, thats one of the things hats do. RPG mechanics are supposed to help replicate things like this. But thats not the way they treat them in this game. Instead they use the same sort of mechanics we find in video games. Buffs to skills and attributes that don't belong there, because thats what the video game did not because it makes sense. Do you really think a character putting on their Lucky Pair of Sunglasses makes them Luckier? Or is that just what happens in the video game. As for games I've game mastered for and can compare the rules for... Ok... you asked for it... Dungeons and Dragons (seven different versions - theres actually more then that), Star Frontiers (Two Editions), Pathfinder (2 Editions and half a dozen play test versions), Paldium, Heros Unlimited (two editions), Beyond the Super Natural (two editions), Rifts (No I don't want to even think about how many worlds), Robotech (Four Settings), TMTNT (Both regular and After the Bomb settings), Top Secret, Top Secret SI (Regular, Commando, and Agent 13), Traveler (at least four editions), GURPS (countless titles), Star Trek (FASA), Gama World (Four Editions), Legend of the Five Rings (Two Editions), Mechanioids, Nightbane, Ninja's and Super Spies, Recon, Over the Edge, Twililight 2000, Aftermath, Conan, Continum, Werewolf, Vampire, Wraith, Hunter, Mummy, Mage, Changling, MERP, Rolemaster (Robin Hood), Indiana Jones (WEG and TSR), Tunnels and Trolls (Two Editions), Xena, Alteracity, Trinity (Two Editions), Shadowrun (Four Editions), Cyberpunk, Earthdawn (Two Publishers), Hero System (Multiple Generes), FATE (Multiple Games), TriTac (Multiple Games), Paranoia (Three Editions), Marvel Super Heros, Scion, Fantasy Craft, Spy Craft, Witcher, Doctor Who, The Riddle of Steel, Chill, Call of Cthuluth (I think five editions), DC Heroes, Blades in the Dark, A|State, Cypher System (A couple different settings including Fallout), Numenera, Shotguns and Sorcery, Star Wars D6, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Deadlands (Two Editions), Burning Wheel, Dungeon Crawl Classics, OSRIC, Ares Magicka (Two Editions), Werewolf Old West, Vampire Middle Ages, Arcanium, Fire Fly, Dune (LUG), ELFs (No, I'm not proud), Torg (Two Editions), Senguko, Lost Colony, Marvel Heroics, John Carter of Mars, Splices, System Failure, Fallout, Amber, Bushido, Toon, Fengu Shui, Ghost Busters, Justice Inc, Innomne, Space 1889, Timewatch, Torch Bearer, Five Torches Deep, Elf Quest, Hell on Earth, Highlander, Demon, FUDGE (A bunch of games but its basically just FATE), Champions, Pheonix Command, Fuzion (Several Games), Tales from the Wandering Vagabond, Robocop, Lawn Mover Man, D20 (Countless trash), and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, but I've played a lot more then that. (Dear God I Need A Life) Now that might seem a like a big list but lets face it doesn't mean anything. It just means I've run a lot games. Does that make my opinion any more valid then yours? No, of course not. But I'm not talking out of my @$#@ either. I've played a lot of good games, and lot of bad games, and this one could have been great. It has all the physical qualities to indicate actual care and effort into the title , but holy @$%&. Its like they assembled a bunch of rules, started to write the game, ran out of time and swept everthing into the cover and pretended that was going to be final version. This is the first game both I and my players ever looked at each other and agreed never to play this again. And believe me we tried to make this thing work. For three we ran an ongoing campaign, before we just said @$!@# and broke out a copy of Cypher instead. Seriously though, if you sat down a copy of GURPS and just adlibed your own rules you would still do better then these guys did. If you like the game, great! More power to you. Could it have been better? HOLY @$%# YES! So, I'm sorry you're not hearing what you want to hear, but I'm glad you got something that you and your friends can play. Which is the whole point anyways. Getting together, grabbing some dice and having fun. And if this game gives you that. BRILLIANT! [Oh... in case you want examples of games that do it better then Modiphius did it with Fallout, pretty much the entire list above except Indian Jones, Lawn Mower Man, and Robocop].
@@GameMastersWorkshop sweet, I actually love everything you just said. Literally, it’s great. I just wish THAT was the review. Like, if the contents of your review was this reply, and your past couple. Because these comments right here are a great way of saying it and breaking it down. The mechanics of the system, whatever. What I was trying to get at, was how much you were pointing out in your review that it was based off the video game. Believe me, I watched your video to buck against my own confirmation bias. It doesn’t matter that you like the game or not. But I feel like you covered a lot more in these replies than you did the review. These other systems? Fantastic reference. And even explaining what you did and didn’t like about it, was done really well in these replies. If you do more reviews in the future, please, lay them out like you did these replies, and it would be fantastic, and I’d love to watch it more. I can completely understand how frustrating it would be, to see a system have so much potential, and then see it’s actually disappointing. The video felt more like a rant than a review. And I feel like these points you made here were far more fleshed out. I hope you do more RPG reviews, branch out into other things. I get this channel is mostly fallout. But I would love to see more grognards out there. My favorite RPG channels are the ones that can systematically make good points, and tear apart TTRPG systems. And for that I’m being genuine. I’m the perma GM. I don’t do player things. When I watch reviews like that, it points things out to me my players might not like, and I should probably change. So I hope none of this upset you. I would love to see more content from your perspective, breaking down how they do things. Especially things in the cypher system. That one has had my curiosity, and I haven’t made any moves towards it. Please keep up the good work, please do more reviews of RPG’s if that’s something you enjoyed doing. And if you do, structure it like you did in your replies here, I thoroughly enjoyed them 😁. Have a wonderful day
I think I'll get the books and use them as source material to convert them to Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System. The basic stats will fit in well with a d100 game format.
Yes, you can. The mechanics are a bit wonky, but not incredibly complicated. Here's the gist. 1) Every piece of armor has a location it covers, along with Balastic and Energy Resistance scores. 1) During a normal attack the GM is expected to roll 1d20, to determine a random hit location. Damage is applied to that location, but subtracted from the general hit points. 2) Damage that exceeds around 4pts can do additional effects like crippling the limb, etc.. a saving throw USING SURVIVAL is required to determine the effect. 3) If the player wants to target a paticular hit location, to shoot around armor, disarm some one, etc... they mearly need to raise the targeting difficulty by 1 to hit that location. If the player has a Pipboy, the VATS system, over rides that, and no additional difficulty is needed. If you want a fast and easy way to do it, here's what I ended up doing based on ideas I got from Tim Caine. 1) All hits are body hits unless the player calls it. 2) Raise the difficulty by 1 for targeting a hit location. 3) Stagger, Disarm, Stun, etc... if the damage exceeds half the targets Endurance. Disable the location if the damage exceeds their Endrance. There you go, quick, fast, and dirty, but a lot faster then rolling random hit locations and making saving throws after every successful hit.
Hey Locusthorde, Great question, and I wish I knew! That was bit of stock footage I got from Pexels.com. So I don't really know. I just used as part of the visual narrative of the video. Let me see looking up the video it was by "Tim Miroshnichenko". You can find more of his work at Pexels, and might be able to ask him. Later my friend Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I bought Fallout some time ago. What I liked, I thought was great. What I didn't like is the bits that make it too fiddly to want to play. 2d20 roll under seems like a great mechanic. I wasn't sold on Action points and feats. I'm also not keen on any game that needs special dice.
Agreed... specially the priotarity dice Perks are pretty standard, but like many of buffs in this game they weren't done right. So I'm one hundred percent with you there. Meanwhile I was personally OK, with the premise of Action Points, specially in a game that requires multiple successes for a task, but soured on them as you noted that they became ridicuiously fiddly. If you need a chart to use your mercy currency, your doing something wrong. Its clear that this game needed a good editor, unify all the competing tones. Its kind of perplexing to see a game, that hand waves reloading your gun, still charges you a simple action to draw it. I mean pick a lane! Do you want to quantify and track everything, or do you want to hand wave things that slow down game. Both are legitimate styles of play, but you gotta choose one or the other not both. This game is like a desert cart with Chocolate Creme Bruel, a Twinkie still in the wrapper, and bag of sugar with vanilla dumped all over it all on the same plate. They all might be tasty, but putting them together is tonally deaf. A good editor, and some proper play testing could have fixed most of this. What makes maters worse, is talking to some people who've played through the so called fixes... Modeiphuis has actually made maters worse. They quadruplled down on the propriatary dice, and made their resolution sytem even more fiddly. In the newest system, you have to use AP and or Luck to purchase the type of Effect dice you want to use (because now there are a variety of them), and then use them to generate a effect value that exceeds the difficulty of the task, to resolve things Now the 2d20 just lets you make the effect roll, it doesn't actually resolve the task, and is essentially an after thought. Seriously!? Its like buying a car, finding out that the engine was put in backwards and the wheels weren't included, only for them to attempt to fix the situation by selling a tow truck to drag the car around with. If these people sold used cars and not roleplaying games, they would be in jail for fraud.
@jeremiahjohnson2784 Fate, storytelling dice. Not sure what they are called. D6s with different faces. I know there is a conversation in the core book. GM has enough to worry about as it is. I've lost so many dice and other bits and pieces over the years. If I have to have something game specific, that's a turn off for me.
So i noticed on archive there are a few fan written games some are 5e some are gurps? (Sorry new to ttrpgs) Can an experienced table top player and fallout fan tell us who makes a decent fan game?
Ah, those are actually a hybrid we did using Cypher. Basic Cypher rules, but we replaced cyphers with rerolls and used 3d6 rather then a D20 Dungeon master for 'Wrong side of the Verse' was TinCat one of players running his first game As for whats makes a decent fan game, thats a great question, and it depends on your target audience. First thing to note is their familiarity with the setting: If your game is targeted toward low familiarity players, you want to hit all the high points and basics of the world. AKA: If you were making a Starwars game, you're gonna need the Force, Lightsabers, Stock Light Freighters, Blasters, Wookies, and some driods. Basically anything your Grandmother might know if you asked her about Star Wars. As your target audience level grows, you'll want to include more and more precise details and fan service, and with it lore checking (which can be a nightmare because most IPs have plot holes or discontinuties in their lore). Next is Skill level of your players: If your making your game for new players or low skill players who are new to the hobby. You want your rules as rules lite as possible and stream lined. Start from scratch explaining what an RPG is and work your way back through the process explaing each important beat in detail. Like what is a character. How to makes rolls. How to make mission. Run a combat etc... Bonus things you can do for new players is walk throughs of an actual play session and rules summary in the back of the book, so they can read the book and learn, and then just flip to the back in case they forget anything. After that is Play Style: Different IPs have different themes and appeal to different styles of players. If the IP is hard and crunchy, the rules should be hard and crunchy. If they're game is improvisational and narratively driven, the rules should be too. Take James Bond as an IP, while James could probably rattle off the stats of every gun, car and gadget he uses, the audience just sees FLASHY CAR, HOT BABE, and COOL GUN. If your writing a James Bond game, you want to do cool stunts, and wild death defying gambles. A James Bond game would run rules lite, with plot and hero points, so James could jump his folding briefcase motercycle over a tank sharks, rather then rules crunchy rules where he would die in a firey wreck the first time he tried to do Bootlegger Reverse in heavy traffic in the middle of Paris. No mater what you want the style of play your rules create reflect the stories and themes of the game your writing. Etc... after that you're gonna want to make sure your Flavor Text, Layout and Filler is evocative of the game your trying to make. For example a Blade Runner game is going to be a dicotimy between the "Dirty and Darkness" of dying world where the sky is always dark and "Neon and Flash" of corperations selling false hope. The stories should be inspired by Film Noir, and art should be pastel water colors over dark muted browns and blacks to capture the contract between neon glitz and dark empty streets. Nothing should be completely in focus with no sharp lines, as Blade Runner is about uncertianity, and your art should if possible have multiple meanings, so two people looking at the same image can come to completely different conclusions. Sorry, that went on for a bit: TLDR: Short answer, the game should be built around the world. With rules designed to emulate the way the world feels and the way its stories are told. When possible the IP owner and game designer should share single vision and work together to make something that reflects that. If any of that breaks down, your game is gonna suffer. Whew.. sorry that was a lot, I hope it helps. If it doesn't let me know. Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I wonder if Fallout would be played better on something like Pinnacle's Savage World System. I mean they did Rifts which with a bit of tweaking could easily be made into Fallout I would think.
Hey Lionel, Should work fine! Savage worlds, is a fun universal system, that awards experience based on completing quests. This is a good thing. One of things I've found from playtesting several different game systems in the setting, is that you need to stay quest focused, otherwise a lot of players will turn the game into a dungeon crawl searching and looting ruins. Not bad for a session or two, but gets montonous after a while. Also watch loot creep. If players see something shinny, they will take jack hammers and crowbars to drag it back. Given a chance your average group will turn a common junk yard, into a armored base full of robots and armored dune buggies with jet engines. So use whatever resources are at your disposal to mitgate this. In the current system I'm play testing, I added a durrability mechanic to the system, to constantly break and wear down gear. They still manage to drag stuff back to the city for sale, but they use half of it repairing the gear they have, and the other half gets spent drinking in the local bar. Finally I'm not sure how what your play style is, but I would recommend adding Reputation and Faction mechanics. Have them build a reputation, and get better quests based on it. Have them hear the exploits called out over the radio, and have the occaisional fanboy or armed assassin come calling after hearing their name. Meanwhile lock some gear and edges behind Faction membership. Have them scramble to join various group to get the goodies they want, and then pull a fast one and have the various factions begin competing against each other. Make them the protageonist that decide through their actions which Faction will prevail... And... I'm getting way off track. Sorry about that! Savage Worlds sounds fun! Let me know how it works out! I'd be interested in hearing any game logs you guys might generate. Have nice night, and good luck and good gaming! :==}:::::::::::::::::::::>
@@GameMastersWorkshop Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I'd use a durability mechanic. I'd just likely require resources. Things like batteries and gas although I suppose if they use it excessively or it gets damaged spare parts might be a quest in its own. Excessive loot usually isn't a problem in my games as I take the Mad Max approach in that if you collect too much junk you'll attract looters who will want to take it from you. Faction standing sounds like a good idea and you can have certain factions controlling different resources or areas so just playing nice to one might not be a good idea.
Fallout 1 and 2 were originally meant to be GURPS in a video game format, but the deal fell through so they designed an original system. I feel like any Fallout setting i visit will be done in GURPS lul
Hey Shade, This is true, If I remember correctly. Tim said he came up with the SPECIAL system over a weekend after Steve Jackson canceled their plans because he was having problems with some of the more adult elements of the game. So GURPS can definately work. I would just keep clear of some of the more complicated rules like their advanced firearm or vehicle rules. No reason to spend a hour figuring penetration values and bullet drop if you don't have to.
I agree with the layout. Seems to be an issue with all Modiphius' game manuals and yes survival is a crutch skill and is lame but easily fixed. I love the 2d20 system. I have been gaming forever and it's quick and easy to roleplay and combat is loose and rules lite. My players have been asking me to run another campaign.
I agree. I personally love 2d20 as well. Its a flexible system, and has been used for a lot of very good games. Conan is my favorite. Unfortunately for me they fell down when they implimented it into this setting. In Conan they tried to capture the feel of Conan. Drunken parties leveling your character, and scaring an army men off by decapitating their leader. Things like that... But in Fallout, it was like they just ran out of time, and just sent what they had to the printer, and said... @$&# it! We'll fix it in the errata. Except they never fixed it. They took a bunch of existing material and just reworked it for 2d20, without actually making a working RPG first. So we end up with a bunch of disjointed mechanics, that don't actually mesh. Where they tell the game master is just told to wing it, and figure it out for themselves. After pages and pages of nonsense. I would get that if we were talking about something kind of rare like... trying to talk a Robot into 'Self Destructing' or something, but we're not. We're talking about basic elemental things... like determining surprise or resisting poison. When you have 64 pages of loot tables, but can't actually spend half a paragraph on an appropriate poison save... that's just bad game design. I love 2d20. I love Fallout. I do not love 2d20 Fallout... And I hate that! But it doesn't mater what any one person does or doesn't like. There's always some one out there that always thinks or feels differently. So I appreciate your point of view, and I too like 2d20. Just not 2d20 Fallout. In case, thanks for the comment. I appreciate it. I'm getting called away to play testing session so I got to go. In any case have a great night, and... Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I agree with much of what you said, but your arguments (in the video) are not well made. Your feedback in the comments section is MUCH better as others have pointed out. I do think the game can be “saved”, and I do think the game designers are open to feedback for future revisions. It’s still “new” as far as ttrpgs go. And the TV show success is going to apply pressure due to the influx of new gamers. My random incomplete list of likes/dislikes in the rules ... Likes: d20 roll low is nice for simplicity, DR mechanic is simple, “magic” food/drink are fun, “magic” magazines are hilarious, “magic” gear is great, ammo usage trades are nice, d20 assist and group skills work well, similarity to video games (i.e. i already know all the perks, etc) is terrific … the more similar the better Dislikes: +1/+2 defense way too crude around an agility breakpoint, lack of clear examples or hard rules in many areas, AP max party pool arbitrary, rolling a zillion D6 is annoying, the Nd20 math for higher difficulties is broken (I made tables of all the probabilities for all checks for all special+skill combos), bleeding is hilariously vague and OP, poison isn’t a thing and doesn't match the videos games at all, crafting mods need too many perks per person (or way too many on ONE person) and no one would waste perks on this, VATS and body part hitting not really tied to AP like in the video games and accuracy isn’t a thing, +1 HP per level regardless of END is silly I had a rather massive reply written out that pushed the 10,000 character boundary but deleted it. Doesn’t really matter. For sure the rules are very soft and lacking. I’ve had to go into discord and talk with a lot of DM/GMs to come up with solid work arounds and we’ve come up with good stuff. Again, we shouldn't have to do it, but I think it will be feedback for the game in the end. Your rant on skills and skill usage is a bit off (bad examples), but for sure I’ll agree the rules put a lot of work on the DM/GM. I come from Rolemaster, which is the king of skillmagedon. So I’ve already made adjustments to the FO rules to make things work. As you say, we shouldn’t HAVE to do such things, but it doesn’t bother me and I get to use > 80% the material in the book still and that is a win for me. I kept thinking in your video … if the skill system was PERFECT, would he still give the whole game a 3/10? Also, how the heck do you not like whiskey giving you strength? Have you never HAD whiskey? Or bourbon having END effects. Or any of this stuff? I mean in any other game it would all be magic items (potions, etc). What’s the difference if it is food/drink and chems? It’s all meant to be thematic, not real. I love the idea of a set of flight goggles helping with PER, or a spiffy suit letting you gain +1 to barter. Why not? If you can’t remember things, just name them differently … “Muscle Man Whiskey”, “Steady Hand Rum”, “Bart’s Bartering Beer” (doesn’t exist but sharing a beer while trading would seem to give a boost right?). I don’t know, this seems like you had already “given up” and were just calling out random things to hate on. Anyhow neat video. Comment section was the best part. I look forward to the next one.
Hey Knaz, Dear God ROLEMASTER. WOW! There are some memories. You make a lot of valid points, and I love the fact you decided to lean into the buff mechanics rather then beat your head into the kitchen table they way I did. I mean its very "Video Gamey" but not paticularly Fallout. But it's your game and an important part of running a game is running it the way you want to. So lets take a look at the point I was making why I was giving myself a concusion beating my head against a table because time the players picked up an object it had a random magic property... and why that doesn't work in a Fallout game We'll take your example of Alcohol as an example. You see alcohol, was always just meant to be alcohol, in the Fallout. It was never was intended from a Roleplaying aspect to be anything other then alcohol. Instead thats what chems were supposed to do. "Better living through Chemistry" and all that. I mean Lucas Simms gives you a pack of "Mentats" to disarm the nuclear bomb, not a chardonnay. Chems were supposed to let you run up walls, heal instantly and punch Deathclaws into the stratosphere. Beer was just meant to be beer, but Fallout is a video game so over time, video game mechanics needed to figure a way make beer important to the player beyond being able to sell a bottle for 2 caps a peice. Beer went from "Beer the Generic Beer Flavored Beer" relaxing you and letting pick up strangers in a bar, to "Huntsmans Ale for the Man who Eats Bear!", with a 10% buff to hunting and 20% damage buff when fighting bears. In a video game its funny and hilarious, and even appropriate, in a roleplaying game its bizaare. Because in a video game you have to encourage players to do to things like eat and drink, but you don't do that in a role playing game, because eating and drinking is something they're supposed to do any ways. On top of that you need to variety and variation. If someone is doing an Alcohol build, hey you want them to have a whole slew of magical mixtures they can do. But if your playing a random drunk who's lost his family, it takes the mundane hooch you were drinking and turns it into a magical potion. It doesn't dull pain of your lost loved ones, it gives you 50% boost to haulin ass. What I'm trying to say, if your trying to replicate the stories and settings of a world, you don't include rules for every skill and power buff you get for eating Spaghetti-Os unless the themes of your game are literally "YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT", and people covet basic food for its magical properties. In other words, if you think walking up to two Wastelanders making camp in the middle of nowhere hearing them say... "You want a Huntsmans Ale?! Are you nuts we need that to hunt that Yaogui! Here have a Pickaxe Pilsner instead, we need some one to go out and dig a new latrine anyways." ...makes sense. Then go for it because thats the setting those rules are reinforcing. Not bad if your playing Zanth, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense if your talking about two grungy wastelanders deciding what to eat for dinner. Yes, I totally think they should have included rules for getting a buzz for drinking some alcohol. I think they should have included a couple special mixed drinks using rare or unique ingredients. I don't think they should have given you a ten page mixologist list allowing you to craft magic potions from drain cleaner and corn, in a game about Roleplaying, Exploration and Problem Solving. One or two those would have been cool and made them special. Pages and pages of them makes them mundane and something everyone does. But then again, my game isn't your game, so you shouldn't have to play by my rules. Instead it sounds like you like more wild and wacky game! Not paticularly Fallout, but its a game you enjoy. So good for you. Glad you guys figured out a way to fix this pig that works for you. Because holy crap its broken. Listen thanks for the insight and feedback I appreciate it. Good Luck and Good Gaming! :=};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
@@GameMastersWorkshop Thanks for the reply. I can see how you got wrapped around the axel! To me, I don't think of the bonuses as "known". Like walking up to those strangers to give them beer and have them be like "what a waste" wouldn't happen that way. Again, I think of myself in real life. Beer is indeed a "drug" that has an impact on me and makes me more social, funnier (to a limit), etc. And Scotch makes me happy. Is that a -1 INT hit with a +1 LUCK? A shitty Scotch puts me into a rage for having bought it. Is that +1 STR? I don't know and don't care. Funny to think about I guess. And also, you can just rule that none of it is real. If you simply can't get over it ... then ignore it. Just go the CP2077 way and make all alcohol a negative. -1 AGI, -1 INT, -1 PER, etc. That works too. Sometimes it just gets out of hand though. Oh shit he drank some whiskey I better decrease his hydration status! There is a limit to all this. I think of food buffs the same way and like them in this world setting. It makes sense to me that certain "meals" you make out of creatures of the wasteland have different effects and are different quality. I mean why not? My vault dwellers fresh into the world are hungry as hell and now they have to eat rad scorpion meat for the first time? Hmmm, this will be interesting. I've already layered a ton of stuff onto the rules and think they are working out well. For sure I shouldn't have to! But it takes me no time at all. I now have a full "stat check" table for actions that cannot be trained/skilled and only come from experience (i.e. level bonuses). I have all the standard skills mapped to actions that make sense. I've layered on the entire Fallout New Vegas Reputation system (with slightly easier math) because it is amazing. I LOVE everything being gray and no choices are B&W. I think the game is working well. Last thing I'll say ... I liked your reply (it made me laugh with the thought of an alcohol build!) except I kind of take mild offense at you thinking I like a "wild and whacky" game. I do not. We just see things differently. What needs to be realistic vs what is just a means to an end mechanic. In fact my campaign is quite harsh and a battle of attrition with resources hard to come by to really make players think like their characters in a tough environment. It all adds to the fun. That's what I love about Fallout. It's "dark humor". Stuff you have to shrug off as silly, but has very dark implications. I am staying incredibly close to Fallout canon. Anyhow I hope you find your ideal system! PS: It's not Rolemaster that should make you shudder ... it's the fact we're playing in Shadow World!
Hey Knaz, No problem, sorry I didn't reply yesterday, got caught at work and wasn't able to respond all day. (Sorry its Florida, I'm lucky if I get lunch more or less a break to respond to something.) Sounds like you got a fun game going, and put a lot of work into making it work. Very cool! Gratz my amigo! And sorry about the wild and wacky statement, your right in retrospect was pretty rude. My appologies, wont happen again. And you are correct the rules of Fallout Humor Are... let me check my notes... 1) Humor is good 2) Dark humor is better 3) Slapstick is bad 4) Inside joke ok, but only if its still funny for those who don't get the inside humor. I think Tim Caine explained it as: A joke about a boy and his dog is good.... (Humor) A joke about Lassie isn't good, unless its also a joke about Lassie accidentaly shoving Timmy into the well. (Inside Jokes) A joke about Lassie randomly shoving Timmy into a well, over and over again so she can praised for pulling him out is best. (Dark Humor) But a joke about Lassie getting sick and tired of people not being to understand her barks, and just breaking the fourth wall and telling people in plain English that "Timmy fell in the well" is right out. (Slap Stick) Humor in general is such an important part of the game, it feels like it needs a proper reward. Like an Xp reward for best joke of the night or something. I'll think about it, its something to kick around. Ok, Shadow World? Never heard of it. Let check the interwebs.... OOOooooo... Ok, might have to dig up a copy of that, even though I doubt I can get any of my currents groups to give it a whirl, but that's why we have the big bookcases of gaming I guess. To have rules you can steal from even if you never get to play. Ok, my friend. I have to run off and take the wife to the beach. You great day! :) And I appreciate all the comments and feedback. Good Luck and Have a Great Day! :=};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Doing it as we speak. I was originally going to do a full rules fix, but my players convinced me to do a rewrite instead. Which is how we got the Design Document video. That said, a lot of people want the hacks we tried, so we're doing both. Just cut the audio for the first hack should be up this week. Multiple people requested deep dives on rule and why they don't work and how we can make them work, so the video is getting shot from that point of view, but if you want a top ten fast hacks. I can try to make that happen. Maybe I can do them as channel posts and toss them up there. I can knock at least one of those out a night with out a lot effort. Thanks for the request I'll see what I can do.
@@GameMastersWorkshop Bless your players for indulging you to do a writeup. I'd be interested in both the rewrite and the fixes, but if I had to choose, I'd go with the fixes first. Given the harsh review (which I agree with), it would be interesting to see how you'd tackle those issues.
@@VictorJulioHurtado Thanks if I get off track, or start to get it wrong, please correct me! Far as I'm concerned all feedback is good feedback. So I'll appreciate anything you can send my way. :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I'd love to see you have a look at lancer and icon rpgs. They're two new systems that just popped up in my radar that seem to be striking a really neat balance between video game and rpg logic in their format.
I also do want to echo here that I feel your opinion and review could have been better delivered with some more direct examples as a part. I see your argument that the topical approach was to reduce the overall video's runtime, but I do feel some of the repeated hammering home of opinions could be cut instead for a couple quick examples.
Hey Ryan, I had another viewer mention the Lancer/Icon system. Haven't tried it yet, but both look fun. The aesthetics for look interesting, and have a unique anime style vibe. That's definately evocative. I haven't read through the any setting info but I'm interested in seeing how it drives the ethos of the game. Narrative games with lots of world building, and tactical elements are right up my alley so I'll probably have to give them a go. I've only glanced at the rules so far, but just taking a peek at the character sheets so far, I can strong commitment to the themes of their setting, as well as addressing all the basic mechanical questions. For instance there are only 10 basic skills, but they are the right ten basic skills, and cover all the basic questions. When I have a chance I'll have to give them a go. Thanks for the tip! I'll look into them
@@ryandugan9176 Agreed, Hrm.... and I think I can address that. Not only in the future, but going forward in this situation in paticular. A bunch of people want to see my hacks video, on how to fix the game, so let me reformat that, to gel with that idea. 1) Present an individual problem with the rules. 2) Explain what the issue is and give an example. 3) Do a full walk through of whats causing the problem, and what needs to be changed to fix it. 4) Give one to three potentional fixes. Noting their advantages, disadvantages, and which style of play they work best with. It would be a lot of work, but players could see the problem, decide for themselves if its a sticking point for them, and then let them decide what works best for them. Hrmmm... Its a lot of work, and each hack will probably end up being a single video, but I'm down. Thanks Ryan. I appreciate the feedback Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I always am surprised by how many reviewers compliment this book's art. Yes, Bethesda's full page spreads are gorgeous and writing the book as an in-universe Vault-Tec product was pretty slick on the designer's part- but they seriously used an 'A-Pose' Super Mutant design for the artwork on the Super Mutant Origin page and then used a compressed concept sketch of a ghoul for the Ghoul Origin page. The Vault Dweller is also the standardized concept pose for thumbnailing armor design sketches and this trends throughout the entire book. Pretty sure there are several game assets just screen grabbed from Fallout 4 and pasted into the book. Was Modiphius really constrained on what art they could use for this? There is a lot of gorgeous original artwork for Wasteland Warfare (another Modiphius product), why is this entire rulebook just regurgitated concept art from Bethesda? Edit: Winter of Atom and some of the other source books did begin using original pieces for various things. I am happy about that at least. Great review. Absolutely loved Conan 2d20 and was really bummed out about this. Very interested in what you do to salvage it, with all of the hype around the new series I would love to see if you can get this to a state where I'd be happy running it at my table. Subscribed for when that video drops. Cheers! (Also great editing. I didn't actually watch this on my first viewing, only listened; came back after digesting it for a few days and ended up watching it all again because the footage was captivating.)
Hey John, You're 100% Correct! And damn I wish I had you when I was reviewing the art, because while I could general identify most of it as Bethesda's concept art, I couldn't identify paticular elements of it off the top of my head with out digging a copy of the art book myself, and was more effort then I was willing to spend. So thanks for the heads up. Lets face it, Art, Layout and Flavor Text have evolved a lot over the years. In the past they were primarily used simple as filler to reach appropriate page counts or to fill dead space. But as games have evolved so too have the use of Art and Flavor, and now rather then simply filler, they're used to convey feel of the game and its themes to the reader. Introducing them to the world and reinforcing it story as they go. Which is why even some one as critical as I, said the art was great. Lets face it, the book is filled with reused concept art, but they used it well. They expertly cut, clipped and merged elements of various art peices or whole scenes into the book to convey feel of the games, while keeping a consistent look. Not every peice is perfect, and none of it is original, but over all its not bad. And lets face it, when your talking about Licenced Titles, thats pretty damn good. As they're usually packed with poorly rendered and blocked screen captures and bad filler art, with little or no consistency in theme or concept. At least here they kept it consistent and thematic, so you got to give them credit for that even if they were cribbing directly off Bethesdas work, rather then turning in their own assignment. So while its no 'Mork Borg', but its also not 'Lawn Mower Man' either. Its good, but... not great! Instead what they've done is something in between. Even if thats mostly due to them not ruining Bethesdas art. But Hey, that's an art in itself. Ok, man. Off to port in the next video and cut audio for the first round of fixes. Once again thanks for the run down. If you have any other insight or questions let me know. I love to learn, and as you can tell, am always willing to chat. And until next time Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Do you have a review on the FWW RPG expansion as well? I know it suffers a lot of similar issues you mentioned with the 2d20 rpg. I’m new to dming and bought the limited edition book and I like the cards. Been reading all your comments on how to make it better, that would apply to both games e.g get rid of buffs for every item, ditch proprietary dice (not sure how), add more background option for player characters. And there isn’t even any starting equipment list. Perk list feels small. FWW RPG thankfully offers more options than just survival checks but not as mush as dnd. No language checks with different languages. I thought that would be cool in fallout with a Chinese pre-war ghoul faction and America just being a bastion of diverse cultures. I’m thinking of using the FWW app to randomly pick loot instead of using loot tables and just only using stats for important items like weapons, armour, chems, rare food/drink. (app lets you randomly pick with some filter options). The proprietary dice really stump me as the cards heavily rely on them but I also like the cards and rolling blue die for special effects. It’s just that skill checks are made really confusing with these dice like using the extra impact you get from black dice to improve a result. Or using the yellow or green dice for slightly different result. And then they compare their skill check to their own stat to succeed instead of the dm deciding the DC number. Players can upgrade a skills check with xp and choose which colour dice they use for that check they have proficiency in. I might scavenge some rules from 2d20 like you said armour crafting was good in the comments. Man a lot of good stuff in the comments you said were not in the video. Archetype cards are weird, the books says you can create your own but gives no balanced explanation to do so, just says use any character card from FWW you want. Which some are mighty unbalanced. Modiphius have clearly realised their mistake and hired a proper game designer for fallout factions (they axed proprietary dice) Just hope they use that to fix the rpg books for both games in the errata. I’ve only dmed a dnd 5e one-shot I made (been a player for 4 years) and it sucked so maybe I’m jumping the gun with a lot of this. It could be sunk cost fallacy but I really want to make this game work, even if I have to steal rules from 2d20 and dnd 5e from the get go. Anyway sorry for the long rant. If you already have a video on FWWRPG then my bad, gonna look through your channel now.
Hey Ryan, I love your thinking. You're diving deep! I love that! Don't worry, you've already done the hardest part. Picked up the dice and run a game! From here, it only gets easier. You'll be a great GM! The most important thing to always remember is that everyone is there to have fun, including you. So always remember players (including you) and story first, rules second. Remember that, and players will love your games, and you'll love running them. Ok, that out of the way.... let me try to do your questions justice. Haven't read FWW yet, but I've had several people ask about it. So I might have to. With that in mind I can't give you any indepth advice but I can lend basic generic advice that might help. Ok, lets start with the... Cards! Sounds like they're a lot of fun. And between you and me, cards are a lot more useful and faster then tables, as you can contain all the rules you need right there on the card. Which is cool! So I hope these work out for you. My best advice for using them, is to introduce them slowly. Start off by cherry picking what cards you want to use for your first few sessions, and just put those in the draw deck. After a couple of sessions as you become comfortable with those cards, add new ones. Keep doing that until you get the deck to the way you like it. Remember you're not required to use every card, so if any of the cards have weird rules, or feel over powered just drop them. Propritary Dice I'm glad to hear they made these more useful, but then not so happy to hear they then went and made things more complicated. Sorry about that. Let see if I understand how they work, the color of the dice determine the overall effect or impact from the players rolls. Blue dice are the basics, black dice have more impact, yellow and green have different special effects etc... The players determine what the impact of their rolls are by (I'm guessing here) perks, skill test results, and game currency they wish to spend (AP, Experience, Etc..) AKA: If you wanted to add more damage you would choose to use black dice, if you wanted to knock some one down, you would use the green dice or something... (Once again, I haven't seen the dice so thats a guess). Hrm... Wow that is a pain in the butt! Ok, best advice, keep the Basic Blue dice for now, and see if you can delay adding the extra dice until you got a couple sessions under your belt. Don't make the rules any more complicated for yourself then your comfortable with, and learn one step at time. Feel free to tell the players that. As long as your open and honest about that kind of stuff you shouldn't get any real push back. Difficulty Wow I really need to read these rules to untangle what they did here. My best guess is that they moved the difficulty from being success based, to being effect based. Ok... that's workable, and I'll see if I can unravel it for you. I'm going to psudo rule here, so what I come up with is a guess at best. Lets say the characteres are trying to jump over a ravine. Its not about whether or not the characters can jump, but how far! So characters make their success test, as long as they don't fail or botch it they jump... but did they make it? To determine that you would roll your effect dice. Ok, lets use the BLUE DICE for this, as I know those. The Blue Dice have an average Impact result of just under 1. [1-2 (No Impact) 3-5 (1 Impact with possible special) 6 (Double Impact)0 Not counting the special effects, you get on average just under 1 impact for each Blue die you roll. So if the ravine was say 3 meters across and the rules say you roll 1 die for every point of strength. We could assume the player just automatically clears 4 meters without having to roll. Technically we only need to roll the blue dice, if the over all effect they need is greater then the players default score. In which case the player may want to spend currency (XP) to use dice that might give them a better result. Am I getting that right? If that's right, I get it. Its more complicated, but I get it. Ok, assuming I got that right, my best advice is to familiarize yourself with the characters and determine what they're basic impact is for their most common tasks (Noticing things, Running, Jumping, Etc...), and just customize the effect you require based on that. So for basic rolls, don't require an effect roll. For challenging tests. Require an effect roll, and make sure they get about an average of 1 per die. For hard tests. Require an effect roll, and make sure they get a couple over their basic effect. So if they have 4 dice, require them to hit an effect of 5, or higher. Etc... that's not an exact analysis, but it should get you through the first couple of games if you want to use those rules. Languages I love that you want to add language. I say go for it. A cool rule I've used in the past isn't language checks but changing the way players speak. The players had language levels, but rather then make rolls whenever they used the language they were limited in their voculary and sentence structure by their level. So... Level 1: You only know the most basic words of the language. You can only speak in single one word, one sylibol sentences. "Good!" "Bad!" "Fire!" "Eat!"... etc... Level 2: You know the basics of the language and can form basic sentences. (verb noun) "Help me!" "Stay there", etc... Level 3: Conversational speach: You can use basic sentences and words, but must improvise when discussing specific things. "Hi, my name is John!", "Where are you from?", "It happens in... (October) the month after the month after now...", "Its next to... Main Frame) the big math metal box with blinky lights" Level 4: You know rarely used words, "Its by the main frame", "Do you know what frequency they are on?" Level 5: You have an extensive vocabulary, and can convey multiple meanings or precise information with the most subtle of words. "As introvert, he's quite laconic and suffers from a continual maliase that is the eniue of his life". Level 6: People use you to correct Dictionary's and Thesarus's Personally I would just make a short language list, of the most common languages in the region and then give the players 1 free point of languagers per point of Intelligence. Whew.... You have a lot of questions, and I'm on my way to work, so I hope that helps! Until I read FWW, that's probably the best I'm gonna do. As for not including everything I had in the comments in the video. I would have loved to, but the video was already 20+ minutes long and including detailed break downs would have taken it over an hour, but your right I might have to do that in future. Ok, lets see... I'm glad your excited about your upcoming game! So hope it totally works out for you. Just remember. Don't sweat the small stuff. Roll the dice, use your judgement, and move on. Don't worry about minutia, for now. The players just want to have fun. So they really don't care what the dice say, as long as they're having a good time. An Easy Cheat Sheet for a fun RP Session is... Beat them, stab them, drag them through the mud, tear off their limbs, grind their bones, but... LET THEM WIN. To most players, it doesn't mater to if you tear them from limb to limb as long as they get to beat the bad guy in the end. Ok, I'm off to work, but let me know how your game goes or if you have any additional questions. Until next time. Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
Hey thanks for the thorough response, re-read it a couple of times to get it to sink in. Had to look at the book again to fully understand the skill effect die. You were spot on with the effect based system. It seems to work by using blue, green, yellow & black die along side a white. 4 at most of each colour not including blue. In combat black die often adds more damage, yellow reduces armour, green increases chance to hit and blue can cause effects like fire or injury on some special weapons. In skill checks: Black adds more impact for greater effect, yellow reduces targets resistance (e.g. padlocked doors armour when trying to break it down) and green increases chance to succeed. Blue isn’t used. You add what’re colour die you have to the white d20 and if that d20 score is equal or lower than the stat for the skill and it meets the impact requirement by the dm then it succeeds with potentially greater effect with more impact. A luck point can also be used to make a 50:50 re-roll on a fail for one die. I think that’s how it works from what I can understand of the text. It’s a lot different from dnd 5e so hope it goes well. Thanks again for the feedback, I look forward to that FWWRPG video 👍
I mostly agree with the video, but I do think it's over the top with the criticism. Playing exactly by the rules would be torture. No way people are going to calculate encumbrance on the paper sheet. Maybe if we got a good character sheet app, but we didn't. I simplified encumbrance and other systems like hunger/thirst. The skills are capped at 6 because of tags. Having rolls crit at 8 would be insane. I do have issues with skills, so I reinterpret them a bit. I would roll gambling as Lck + Barter, because I think this skill is about money in general, not just haggling. Sometimes I just skip a roll and follow stats and background. Military history? Are you from a faction that would care (like BoS) and have at least 7 INT? Then yes, if not, nah you never heard of it. Not everything has to be a roll in this game and there is no way I would let a wastelander mechanic roll INT + Survival check with target of tagged 16 on a history check. My group and I have a lot of fun with the game, but I see how that's because I reinterpret or throw out a lot of rules. If someone completely new to ttrpg wanted to run a game on this and followed by the book, they wouldn't have such a great time. I guess tho, it's in a bethesda's style to release a messy product and just let everyone mod and fix it on their own.
Hey Yarol, Yep, rules as writen this thing is a mess, and a good Game Master is going to have to hand wave half of this nonsense, in order to make it work. So I'm glad you guys had a lot of fun playing this. Bravo. Interestingly enough, digging in this appears to be a failure by Modiphius themselves as opposed to just being a Bethesda product, apparently I'm getting feedback from a lot of viewers that they've done simular hack jobs in the past. So apparently this is a Modiphius thing rather then a Bethesda thing. In any case thanks for the feedback. We appreciate it, I got to record audio for about a dozen vidoes as speak, so have to get back to it. Have a great and Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
I've been looking at buying this for awhile now. Unfortunately the concept is way more interesting than anything Bethesda or these guys bothered doing with it. Do you know if nuclear winter fixed any of it? It would be really cool to play at the locations and with the characters that the world of fallout leaves us with. Too bad the ttrpg is as buggy as 76
Didn't check that out, far as I know not really. That said, if want to check it out, go for it. What appeals to me, may not what appeals to you. But as I said, for us at the very least a rebalance is in order. Easy fixes I would recommend: 1) Remember absolutely everything is a skill check, so go ahead and add any skills that you feel are missing rather then just stuffing them under Survival like they did. Add what seems appropriate to you. Be prepared to find out that they are missing basic simple rolls. 2) Simplify the boost's. While you might want to track the difference between Nuka Cola and Nuka Cola Quantum, but you probably don't need to tell the difference of effects between Whiskey and Burbon. 3) Important tables are missing. Like scavenging. But you can find screens, pdfs, and programs that have those tables for you. Personally I would simplify the scavenging, tather then randomly rolling on loot tables. Use colored effect dice, say red for ammo, green for drugs, etc... and just load the type of dice the feel appropriate to the area, then let any extra success the players roll on search equal extra dice they can assign. AKA: They needed one success and got two, let them add weapon die if they like. Then rather then roll on the tables, just interpet the dice and assign things as appropriate. 4) Tables slow things down. This is fine if we're talking about things like determining loot, but not if your determining damage in the middle of combat so drop any table that slows things down. For example when the characters take a shot they're supposed to roll an extra die to determine hit location, and then you're supposed to refrence where they got hit.... etc... Don't bother with any of that, just make everything a body shot unless the players specifically target a location. Etc... Wow theres a lot things to fix... Ok... I take it back. I can't recommend this game, even with fixes. So sorry to burst your bubble my friend. That said its on sale right now in PDF form over at DrivethruRPG for like $12 which isn't a bad price for a game. So if your still interested in it or want to mine it for ideas go for it. In the mean time the wife is calling me to bed. So have a great night my friend. Good Luck and Good Gaming :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
You very rarely say anything negative about anything, so this game must really stink. Looking forward to seeing your adaption. Granny and I need to get back into role playing sometime, we both miss it.
Snow DOG!!! Love you both, brother! Sorry you had to see me like that. Yeah its bad game. Its complicated where it needs to be simple and simple where it needs to be complicated. I feel bad for being so harsh on some one elses work of creativity, but its one of the few games I've tried to run, where both I and players just gave up on the rules half way through a session and agree to use something else next time we played.
I get where’s he coming from & it’s probably just me, but I do like when books don’t put everything on the table so it will easier to homebrew. With that said he is right about the skill & Stats maxing early on, still not sure if that can be fixed. Maybe if all characters start at 0 on there stats instead of 4 or 3?
Easy yes... Good no... Its a Skill plus Attribute system, but elemental and essential skills are simply missing. So you have to sub in random skills for anything basic they over looked, like survival to roll for surprise. Skills and Attributes aren't weighted the same, so everything has to be a skill roll, even when it shouldn't. like making Survival checks to Resist down when you get shot. Random buffs are added nonsensically to random peices of gear for zero reason, like a Hoodies giving you a free reroll for SCIENCE rolls. Every single consumable is also a buff item from "Nuka Cola", to a "Dirty Wastelander", so player can't even eat without considering not only the dangers (which is Fallout), but what magical bonus's they are going to get (which is not). There are pages and pages wasted on detailed crafting rules minutiazing what type of scrap you have, whick perks you've taken and what zodiac sign you were born under, but ZERO rules of REPUTATION, MORALITY, or even bloody FACTIONS. Basic freaking tables are MISSING and sold in other products. Even for things that they actually get almost right, they veer off the road and drive right for a cliff. Take combat. Lets do a simple walk through of a grab your gun and shoot it roll. You take your SmallArms+Agility and roll against their Defense [We're going to skip modifiers]. You now total the success [We'll skip AP, Food Buffs, Gear Buffs, Perks and even Extra succeses for now]. Player hits, now has to count their roll damage, counting hits and specials. The GM now has to roll a random hit location, subtract the targets armor from that location. Determine the effect of the specials on damage, and determine if there is any secondary alternative damage, like bleeding, burning, etc. The GM then notes, the level damage and now rolls for any Resistances... using SURVIVAL because there is no other skill in the game. The GM can now finally rule on the outcome of the roll and describe the effects to the player, so we can move to the next players action. Now its not hard, but its also not GOOD... For what should be a basic combat roll, they've added in six extra steps, that should have been optional rules at best. And thats not counting AP, REROLLS, Food Buffs, Gear Buffs, Perks, Extra Successes or even Modifiers to difficulty. Its just a basic I shoot it and hit roll, nothing complicated in our example, and they completely botch it. If they left it simple and rules lite, that would have been great. If they have made if an overly complex firearms simulation, that also would have been fine, but pick a freaking lane! Don't dumb down defense, but then add random hit locations. Don't simplify shooting rules, but then tack on random damage effects. Don't include excessive damage and resistance rolls, but then forget to add a skill for that and just pencil whip in SURIVAL (AGAIN!) What I'm trying to say, is these rules are bad, and they should feel bad for selling to you.
@@GameMastersWorkshop there's more rules references in this comment than the first 7 minutes of your videos, but I'm already so tired of the listening I'm not interesting in reading comments now.
@@hawkthetraveler6344 Yeah sorry, the video was already long and if I broke down every single violation of good game design point by point, it would have been two hours long, and getting longer.
I just assumed no one was interested in the game. Little 3erd party discussion or content. The only setting being Boston kinda lame. I started a mork Borg conversion of the ip
Heya Garret, Oh man, love me some Mork Borg. The book alone is literally a work of art. Hope it works out well. I get why they went with Boston as a setting, but yeah... definately lame. I personally think they should made base setting the players home town. With basic rules on how to convert locations, monuments, personalities, history and legends... into your own personal appocalypse. Would have been a lot more interesting in my fun in my opinion. But it looks like the people who did the conversion were busy trying to figure on how to convert game mechanics and stats rather then build a working or interesting game. If you have any questions let me know, I'm in the middle of a from scratch rules right up myself. So I know what your going through. Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
@GameMastersWorkshop that home town idea would have worked perfectly as they love settlement building games. I've played 5e like a settlement builder it's super straightforward and makes for a good time hard to fuck up that plot. They definitely neglected game functionality vs game feel. Like cooking sure it's spicy but that's not a very good omelette. Sure it feels like fallout but that's not a very good game.
Just bought the core book and GM's toolkit 2 days ago. I tried to watch this video to disagree, but by the time you got to "the whole game can be solved with the survival skill alone" I must admit defeat.
Hey Delta, Sorry about that. Its a beautiful looking game, but its painful to play. Looking through the rules there looks like there was a lot of effort to reuse game materials, and in the process they kind of shot themselves in the foot repeatedly. There are a lot suggestions on how to fix the game, but when it comes down to it the rules are all so over the place you'd be better off porting the setting into another game system. No mater whether you play it as is, try to fix it or just play something else, I wish you luck. Have a nice night my friend, and good luck and good gaming! :==];;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
@@GameMastersWorkshop hey thank for the kind words. I intend to port the game over to year zero engine eventually :-) But only after a time of playing it a lot. I think in the video you stated correctly, TTRPGs are not about systems, but giving the players chances for roleplay and solving situations by roleplay and thoughtprocess.
@@GameMastersWorkshop it's the song for me at least. Does not fit the subject. Sounds like something in the background of an AI generated trash video listing top ten ball hair trimmers, if I had to describe it 😄
Just skimming a PDF of it I knew it wasn't going to be a good system without serious house rules and adaptation. The slavish recreation of the FO4 video game elements were incredibly bizarre. I mean, it's so lazy and uninspired it keeps some of the outfit layering rules from the video game. Literally an element of the game designed solely because of 3D asset clipping when layering armor over clothes. Literally something thay doesn't exist in a TTRPG. Why the fuck does the game prevent me from tossing an armored chestpiece over formal wear or a set of coveralls? Why are there even stats for a "drifter's outfit" if it doesn't actually do anything special? Just because it's an item you can pick up in the game?
Hey Sarge! You called it, right off the bat. Yeah, I've seen a lot of video games adapted into Roleplaying Games, but I've never seen one that actually tried to port video mechanics into an RPG. I mean trying to play this hurt. In any case, thanks for the comment, and have a nice weekend. Good Luck and Good Gaming! :==};;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;>
It's very clear you were frustrated with the rules. Probably shouldn't post videos when you are frustrated. There are tons of videos on UA-cam that answered your questions already. Try leveraging the technology you are using to bash the game to learn the game. Good luck figuring out what you will need to do going forward. Try this from another You Tuber. ua-cam.com/video/0zsEkNt44CY/v-deo.html
Hey Cole, Thanks for the link, but I gave up on this Turkey over a year ago, and I actually I pointed out that the net was crawling with guides, tools and groups to help fix this game Because lets face it, even its fans acknowledge this game is fundmentally broken. Here's the thing, there is no excuse for that. Fallout is an incredible setting. 2d20 is a great engine. There is zero excuse for a professional game company to start with those assets and still manage to turn in a work this half @$$#%. Tonally this book is all over the place. Its complex were it should be lite, and lite where it should be complex. Its like if you made a Startrek game but forgot to include the rules for things like Exploration, Negotiation, Science or flying the freaking space ship, but still managed to include 83 pages of rules for playing Dabo, and Intergalatic Bartending. Here's the thing, THIS is the core basic book for the game system. This is supposed to be their base line. Their gold standard. All they had to do was phone it in, cover the basics, and port the Fallout setting into the 2d20 system, and call it a day. But they didn't do that. Instead they tried to port the video game mechanics into a table top system, and forgot to write half the game in the process. Your right, I'm frustraited by this game. Not because it's hard... because it shouldn't be this bad. I'm mystified how they thought we needed nearly a dozen pages of info about snacks, but forgot to include basic balanced rules for things like Reputation, Factions, or even how to detect an Ambush. Seriously, if we as game masters have to ignore half the rules, and make up the other half, then why are we buying this rule book to begin with. What I'm trying to say is this rule book is bad, and they should feel bad for making it. In any case you don't need to hear me rant about a game we both know is broken. I'm glad you like it, but don't try to call this turd gold, because man it stinks.
@@GameMastersWorkshop I can see you gave up. I can also see you are frustrated. However, Someone needs to point out the elephant in the room. People see that. And they respond by walking away. Complain away. It's your right. But if you don't want to solve the problem and all you do is complain. Then don't be surprised when people stay away in droves.
@colerape Hey Cole, I get that, but you also get that this a review right, not a random rant. There are about a dozen reviews for this game online but none of them actually tried to play the game. They just read the book, saw that it LOOKED good and then gave it a nod. The problem is I played it, and as both a game and a refrence manual this is a bad product. Worse the only attempts made to fix the game have either been from the fan base or come with a price tag from the publisher. Dude it's the 2020's we've been issuing online erratas since the 90s. If Modiphius wanted to fix this they could have. Instead they went radio silent for six months, before reappearing with more books and acessories to sell you to fix their mistakes. I mean there's shameless and then there's that. Here's the thing, Yes I can fix their game, but I shouldn't have to, that's literally their job. Worse part is this is their MO . They will never fix this book. Instead they'll try to sell new books to their existing fanbase until the lose the license. So here's the break down in case you didn't pay attention to the review. Physical Quality - 7.5. Beautiful book. Art is repurposed, but even that is done well. Layout - 5 Barely Functional. No attention given to functionality or organisation. I've seen Dadistic peotry that were more organized then this. Gameplay/Rules - 3. Attrocious. Tonaly deaf. Play style swings wildly from one extreme to the other. Rules are unbalanced and unfinished. They waste chapters of detail on minutia that will have to hand waved, while hand waving important basic elements with only a shrug and an the words "Wing It!"stamped on the back cover. This isn't a game is a novelty designed to sit in a shelf and look good. What I'm trying to say is Wendy's published a better game than this, and they had the common decency of not trying to charge you for it.
@@GameMastersWorkshop Apologies. I've quit trying to play this game. I have to say you have been spot on with some of your commentary. And you could have said more. I've been radio silent, because I'm trying to do what I enjoy...play games, but I keep running into games that just suck, because writers don't care. They're just there for a pay check. And my money. I've been playing games since 77. I try new games and there are plenty out there to use. The latest Shadowdark, Knave, and XWN from Kevin Crawford (my go to). I appreciate your passion...maybe just watch the coffee intake :P
And yet I had to make it. There are bad games, there are lazy games, there are good games that look bad, but this a bad game that looks good. No one should have to play this. It looks great sitting on a shelf, but it's barely a functional game.
Well, I've been running a fallout campaign for a year now. All I can say is every game has issues. Room for improvement? Yes. Unplayable? No.
Oh they're playable, but not well.
The mechanics of 2d20 are solid, its the rules they used to impliment them that are lacking. More importantly the focus they decide to enact when the built those rules, not only do not capture the themes of Fallout, and shift the focus to minutia that is secondary to the game at best.
What I'm trying to say, they took a game world that was about Interaction, Exploration and Problem Solving and hand waved those elements, and then created pages and pages of rules about Scavenging, Crafting and Gear. Now those are elements of Fallout games, but they're secondary at best, and if you as a game designer are wasting 10% of your page count just on Crafting rules alone, you've lost plot.
Lets face it, a good Game Master can make any set of rules work. But that's because the Game Master is good, not the rules. If you as Game Master are having to constantly ignore, hand wave, alter, or make up basic rules that should have been there to begin with. You're a good game master, and those are bad rules.
Unfortunately we aren't reviewing your Game Mastering abilities, they're obviously good. What we were reviewing was this paticular book of rules. Which are bad.
Nice layout.
Pretty to look at.
Even thematic in its design, but as a game... just bad.
So I'm glad you were able to work around the deficiencies in the rules, and sorry that you had to. You deserved better.
Listen if you have any tips for the kids who trying to make this game work feel free to post them, I'm sure they could use your advice.
In any case I got a new video to post.
So until next time, good luck and good gaming
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Review of an RPG done by someone who actually played it, rather than soyface excitement after flipping through and looking at the pictures. Awesome, thanks, I almost bought it.
Hey Rafinery!
Glad you liked the review. Man I wanted to love this game, but OUCH! There's so much here that could have been geat, but it was all so bad.
Good, don't buy this game. It will make you age fast...
This review made me roll my eyes so hard and so often that now I have a headache.
And yet all of it is true.
Seriously I love me some Fallout...
I love 2d20...
I do not love they way they implimented Fallout into 2d20.
And trying to figure out why, is madening. Because the game looks beautiful, its expertly done, but yet DONE WRONG.
Its like some one asked a talented writer to write a short ghost story, and instead they turned in 400 pages of tax forms, and wrote SPOOKY on the cover.
This is the equivelent of a student attempting to fake handing in their home work, by sending a MP3 of Gungdamn Style that they renamed to HOMEWORK.PDF, and then forgetting to actually save the file name and just sending in the MP3 instead.
There is literally no way to explain the dedicated amount of detail, spent on things that literally have ZERO value to the game, while forgeting basic elemental bits.
What I'm trying to say is this game is bad, and I feel dumber for reading it. If I ever met the authors I think I would spend hours alternating between "WTF?" and demanding an appology for the time I wasted trying to play this game.
In any case, I have a table top I got to get to.
Have a nice night and...
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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Rules book layout is huge issue with MODIPHIUS books , as Star Trek adventures has same issues. To me MODIPHIUS need more rpg prove reading.
Thanks Wolfinstedd,
I've played Conan, and really enjoyed that, but Conan isn't exactly gear heavy, so once you had your character, we really didn't need to refrence the book that often. But Star Trek... that could be a nightmare.
I feel your pain.
Thanks for the comment, we appreciate it.
My players, hammered me over the weekend so instead of doing a rules fix, they talked me into designing a new game from scratch. So that should be... fun. Or a nightmare... probably a nightmare, either way I intend to have fun. Making your own game is always a blast, mostly because you get see those bits you loved come together.
In any case we'll see how that turns out.
So if you have any questions or insight let us knew.
Until next time
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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P.S: I love your icon!
I’ve played Modiphius’ Conan and Achtung Cthulhu and for both of those books the rules are all over the place. It’s a shame because I really like the 2d20 system, I just wish the books were easier to use. Makes it hard to convince my players to switch to those systems for a while.
I agree, with 2d20 it almost feels like its easier to use if the players can't read the rules, simply to cut down on the confusion.
As someone who has GM'd for many years and gm'd Fallout 2D20 for a year now, I disagree with many of your points and if anyone is interested in the assessment of this video's points, just comment and I'll go more into detail.
The only thing I'm going to really touch on within my comment is that what makes a tabletop role-playing game. Great is if it's fun and I can say Fallout 2d20 is fun. The rules effectively interact with Fallout lore, making you feel like you are scavenging and surviving within a post-apocalyptic Fallout world. And for me, that's enough. The rules are decent enough that the players can interact in meaningful ways with the world and do things that they feel are creative and impactful.
Hey Game Master,
I absolutely agree, FUN is the whole point to play any game. Which is why these rules are so disappointing.
I mean the 2d20 system, in its essence is an elegant set of mechanics. Letting you quickly and creatively build your own rolls from simple set of guidelines. They're fast, they're flexible, and they're fun. What but where the game falls down, is the RULES.
Which are completey different things.
You see mechanics are the machinary the game runs under. The way you roll the dice. How determine success and failure, and how you tabulate results.
Rules dictate how those mechanics are used, and why.
And thats where the game completely falls apart, because who ever was making this game spent more time try to fit together to noncomplimentary mechanical systems, then actually looking at the themes of the game and trying to make rules that actually emulate the stories of that setting.
What I'm talking about is, we have a game setting that revolves around Problem Solving, Exploration, and Roleplaying, but we got rules about the differences between five different types of scopes for a laser rifle.
We got, a paragraph and a shrug, telling us that Factions were important with zero rules for using them, but pages and pages of detailed break downs about how to hunt, butcher and cook bloatfly.
The game vaguely mentions Reputation as being important, without even attempting a basic rule, but still has long tedius chapters about trivial minutized rules on how to find and break down tin cans down for both paper and aluminim, while still perplexing being incomplete.
Do think they that thought complex rules about collecting cans was going to be "FUN"?
I mean basic freaking rules that players do ALL THE TIME are MISSING and never even attempted, and stuffed under the already essential "Survival" skill. Turning what was already an important, into an imbalanced Uber skill that covers everything from how quickly you heal to letting you brew magic potions.
I mean explain to me why they felt they had to add PILOTING skill to a game world where fuel is rare and roads are impassible, while completely failing to come up for a proper skill to NOTICE A FREAKING AMBUSH.
Exactly how often do you think they thought players are going to be using PILOT Predwyn, that it was absolutely mandated as being part of the basic list, while kind of just shrugging and saying "Oh you're being shot at by hidden robotic turret? I don't know, make a Survival plus Perception check to notice. I guess"
Seriously! When your players are stopping the game to say the WTF?! Something is wrong with the "Rules As Writen".
Now, yes, we as Game Masters can fix this pig. I mean no set of rules is perfect and half of our job is making game play as seemless as possible, and hand wave when the rules get in the way. But if you have to hand wave 50% basic freaking rules and make the rest up yourself, then why do we even have those rules to begin with?
Do you really need a rules to tell how many hours it takes for you to feel "Peckish", but not a single one telling you calculate complex social interactions, in a game setting that literally revolves around roleplaying?
Seriously most Game Masters could have improvised more balanced and fun set of rules by just making the players add together two SPECIALs together and rolling under that number on a 1d20, then the over price pile filler we got from Modipheus.
Lets face it, as a basic game these rules are bad; as Fallout game they're even worse; and as a rules book its barely functional.
Yes, you can fix this game... BUT YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.
It was their job to turn in a working product to begin with, and lets face it, they did not do that.
Listen I'm glad you like this game and are enjoying it, but lets not pretend that in any way this game is either good, or simulates the themes and stories of the world, because it doesn't. Fallout is about Quests, Roleplaying, Exploration and Problem Solving. These rules are about Crafting, Scavenging, and Snacks. Every part of this game misses the freaking point.
Its like someone told some one to go write a "James Bond" game and then spent zero effort writing rules about stunt driving and seducing enemy agents, and instead spent pages and pages of rules of buearacracy mechanics to requestition a missile launcher hidden inside wrist watch, and then forgot to include the basic requistion forms in the game, but still managed to give four charts to determine the color of the watches band straps.
What I'm trying to say is this game is BAD, and they should feel BAD for writing it.
Listen you don't need to listen to be rant, and I appreciate your effort to try to educate young game masters on how to run this game, but your time would be better spent telling them how to fix it. Because the only way to save this joke is to amputate two thirds of the rules, and add the basics that should have been there to start with.
Sorry I diagress
Good Game Masters are hard to come by, and your efforts are applaudable.
So Gratz to you, but don't defend the indefensible, they don't deserve you're protection.
Instead continue enjoy the games you enjoy.
Have fun with your friends and...
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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I was playing with others in a Fallout setting, and we decided the system we were using wasn't the right one for us. I wasn't the GM, I was one of the other players. We checked what other system we could use, and the book was out, so I checked it. Between the perk system and the weapon modification rules, I immediately made a face, knowing it wasn't what we wanted. That my character was basically a weird science inventor and a number of my teammates were weirder than just supermutants, ghouls, or Mr. Handies, only further confirmed how inappropriate the system was for our purposes.
Sounds like fun, I like your game it sounds like you guys had a great time.
We just started a new game ourselves.
Current group includes an Ex-soldier whos on the run from the Enclave, a Ghoul Blue Player who's hunting the man who left his family to die during the war, a mad cultists who's vault was overtaken and eventually destroyed by the cult, a kleptomaniac traveling merchant who keeps trying to sell thing people that he stole from them, and a seven foot tall giant lunk who accidentally locked a pipboy to his wrist and is trying to figure out how to unlock the biometerics to get it off.
They all got talked into heading into an old military base to collect some lost tech, called a G.E.P. but they're starting to suspect they might have misheard the name of the thing they were actually after and are getting ready to sneak back vault, under the nose of a group of Civil War Reinactors who have taken the war way too seriously.
Loved the book, like you said, looks great, but had only flipped through it. Shocked by your review, and subscribed to see if it can be fixed. (I think I may came across some fan-based Fallout TTRPGs, I saw a "d20 Modern-based version" and "Fallout: PnP v2.0" by Unasoda; not read them, so unsure of the quality, but I have the PDFs, if you're interested)
Hey Svenema,
I love the way the book looks and feels to, its just so much of a pain to actually try to use, but that said, don't take my word for it. If you already have a copy check it out for yourself, the things that gave me migrains might be stuff you love.
Everyone has different tastes, so never let any one talk you out of good time.
Ok, lets see the Fan Games:
I haven't played with any of the Fan Games, but just like you I peaked at them at a time or two.
Be aware Fan Games are Fan Games, the price is right (FREE), but balance is usually an after thought so don't be surprised if you find gaps in the game or that a player or two finds a major exploit that you might have to patch up.
That said, the one based on D20 Modern, might be the most solid choice. Its a usuable system, play tested and reliable. Basically its old fashioned 3E, but Character Classes are basically broken down by Attribute rather then role. AKA: Rather then Fighter and Wizard, you have classes like Tough and Smart, etc... (Not the real names but close enough). D20 Modern isn't a fantastic system, but its not terrible either. To quote 'The Todd', it just works.
Ok, lets see top tips on how to make 2D20 Playable
THE SKILL GAP
Its a Skill plus Attribute Roll under system, nothing wrong there, but the lack of a resolution system for any skills aren't part of the BASIC FALLOUT SYSTEM, will leave you either hand waving or scrambling a lot. There are a few solutions here, the most obvious would be to custom tailor your own skill list, but a fast and easier one would be to create some general purpose derived scores that can be used instead. Lets say...
NOTICE: PERCEPTION + (LUCK/2)
REASON: INTELLIGENCE + (PER/2)
RESISTANCE: ENDURANCE + (LUCK/2)
WILLPOWER: INTELLIGENCE + (CHA/2)
Etc...
All of these are essentially just saving throws, they're in the right general score range. So they should work with out any additional tinkering needing to be done on your part.
If do want to tinker with adding skills, and want to keep it balanced, add 1 Starting Skill point for every skill you add to the list.
THEMES & FOCUS
The game mechanics spend a lot of time focusing on crafting and scavenging. While that's a part of Fallout, its not what Fallout is really about. Simplify those rules, and focus instead on what Fallout is really about QUESTS, REPUTATION & FACTIONS.
REPUTATION: Assign the players a REPUTATION score. Make it equal to half their level, rounded up.
Now have the player write down three details about his character. "The Best Thing" they are known for, "The Worse Thing" they are known for, and the "Most Notable" thing they are known for.
Whenever they run into someone have the person they run into roll 2d20 vs the characters REPUTATION score. On a success they remember the "Most Notable Thing", on two "The Best Thing", on a Complication "The Worse Thing".
Raise or lower the difficulty of the players social tests based on those what is remembered/known about the player.
FACTIONS: These are the movers and shakes in your area. Create between 3 and 6, but no more and no less then that. Assign each group allies and enemies, and give them a reputation and a Mission Goal. Assign each player a starting relationship of 0 with each faction. As they help or harm a faction increase or decrease that relationship appropriately, on a rating scale of -6 to 6.
CLOTHING
The game toses a lot of random buffs around, simply because the Video Games do. Just ignore these. Let the players dress how they want, and don't add any bonuses for clothing, except to increase difficulties if they're wearing inappropriate clothing. Like raising the difficulty to survive a cold winter while wearing an evening dress.
CONSUMABLES
Once again, VIDEO GAME mechanics that will drive you mad. Remove the buffs from everything that isn't a CHEM or uniquely special, like NUKA COLA, and just treat them as Food or Drink. See below.
SCRAP
The game breaks down scavenging scrap into multiple categories with all kinds of incomplete loot tables. Don't waste a moments more time on this then you need to, instead just punt. Break down scrap into BASIC SCRAP (Bone, Wood, Leather, Metal, Etc...) and RARE SCRAPE (Nuclear Material, Electronics, Rare Metals, Etc...) . Basic Scrap weights 5 lbs per pt, and rare scrap weights 1 lb. Basic scrap sells for 5 caps, and rare scrap sells for 10 caps.
UPKEEP
Players in a town, spend about 20 caps a day on basic Food, Water, and Lodging. Additional caps can be spent to increase the quality of the above. At 10 caps, the player is living in the streets, and eating and drinks questionable things. Make a Resistance test every day that they do so, to see if they get sick.
SCAVENGING
SKILL: Repair
ATTRIBUTE: Perception
TIME: Minimum 1 HR
SUPPLIES: Either 1 Tool Kit, or 1 Scrap.
RULES: Player makes a basic skill check. The difficulty is determined by the GM, based on the area they are searching. On a successful roll, divide the players LUCK/2, and roll 1 Effect die per pt. The GM now assigns how to spend the dice, and rolls for effect. Special recovers either RARE materials or something rare as ruled by the GM. Each additional Hr earns 1 additional effect die. If the players Scavenging check exceeds the difficulty, they earn 1 additional effect die determined by the player.
Rowan decides to spend an hour scavenging through an old Red Rocket in the middle of nowhere. Its pretty picked over and the GM rules the difficulty is average. Rowan has a Multi-Tool so they use that for their scavenging attempt and score a single success. SUCESS! Checking Rowans LUCK, the GM sees that they have 8 LUCK. Dividing it in half the GM picks up 4 dice, and assigns 3 to Scrap and 1 to Drink. The scrap comes up with 2 successes, and the drink comes up with 1 with a special. The GM rules that after an hour Rowan has collected several pounds of scrap metal, and found 1 Nuka Cola. Popping open their refreshing drink, Rowan heads to town to sell their Scrap.
EATING, DRINKING & SLEEPING
The survival rules are overly detailed, and end up serving almost no purpose. My best suggestion when it comes to this stuff.
First set a basic standard. Every character has to eat 2 units of food and drink 2 units of water a day to stay healthy, but hungry. In cold weather they need an additional 1 unit of food, in hot weather 1 additional unit of water.
Next let food and water just be (CLEAN/DIRTY) FOOD and WATER. Don't bother with silliness like crafting Rag Stag Fillets or anything like that. Fallout is about exploring and adventuring, not making Mirelurk Dumplings. Instead, currate the food and drink list and reduce it to between 1 and 3, local dishes that have buffs. Do the same thing with Nukas add basic Nuka, Nuka Quantumn, and because every Fallout has an new Nuka add an additional regional varient of your own, say like "Star Nuka" for Texas, etc.. Clean Food and Water is just that CLEAN. Dirty has 1 Rad, and can be made CLEAN at a 2 to 1 ratio with a Survival or Science check, and by spending 1 Scrap.
Any time a player wants to make a Hunting, Foraging, Trapping roll, use the following basic guidlines
FIND FOOD
SKILLS: "Survival" for Foraging, "Repair" for Trapping, "Small Guns" for Hunting, "Survival" for Fishing
ATTRIBUTE: Perception
TIME: Minimum 1 HR
SUPPLIES: Hunting (1 ammo per Hr), Trapping (1 Scrap Per Hr), Foraging (No Cost), Fishing (1 Scap Per Hr)
RULES: Player makes a basic skill check. The difficulty is determined by the GM, based on the area they are searching. On a successful roll, roll 1 effect die of "Food" per Hr spent searching. Specials either recover supplies used, or gain additional scrap (Wood, Leather, Bone, Etc...). Note for hunting a minimum of 1 ammo must be used.
FIND WATER
SKILL: Foraging
ATTRIBUTE: Perception
SUPPLIES: 1 Scrap per hr.
TIME: Minimum 1 HR
RULES: The difficulty is determined by the GM, based on the area they are searched. On a successful roll, roll 1 effect die of "Dirty Water" per Hr spent searching. Specials, recover CLEAN or PURIFIED water. Rather then make a seperate roll to purify or clean water, let players spend one additional scrap to automatically turn 2 "Dirty Water" into clean water, as part of the gathering process.
Additional Players making Foraging Tests, can search for water as part of the Foraging Roll. The player must split the effect dice before they are rolled to determine how much of each they find.
That might sound complicated but its pretty simple:
Bill wants to hunt as spends 2 Hrs hunting in the woods. The GM rules its an easy roll (0 Difficulty), and Bill spends 2 Ammunition and rolls their (Small Guns) check, scoring... 1 success. That's three dice. Bill rolls his effect and score 1 hit and 1 hit with special. GM Rules that he came across a wild dog, and killed it with a single shot, (using 1 special to recover 1 ammo). For his trouble he got 2 FOOD, and only used one bullet.
Sanders wants to Forage, and spends all day 8 Hrs Foraging looking for both food and water. The area is HARSH, so Sanders needs to two successes, so he spend a point of AP and rolls barely getting 2 successes. For his 8 hrs of searching he gets 8 dice to split between food and water. The player decides to split them evenly, using 4 effect for water and 4 effect for food. Rolling 4 effect dice for food the player scores 2 FOOD, the GM rules Sanders finds some fresh Mutfruit that he carries back to camp.
Rolling for water, Sanders spends 4 scrap to collect and purify water and rolls the other 4 dice. Scoring 5 sucesses with 2 specials! The GM rules that Sanders found a pool of clean water where the Mutefruit was growing, and that Sanders collected 2 clean water and 3 dirty. The player decides to spend an extra scrap turn two of the Dirty water into Clean. Scoring them 3 Clean Water, and 1 Dirty. In one of the harshest areas of the Wasteland he now has Food for 1 day, and Water for two.
Etc...
Sorry I ran out of room with my original reply.
My bad.
My group convinced me to just go ahead and write my own stuff rather then fix some one elses game, but... a lot of people are asking about it, so I'll work on a fix video.
Ok one more quickies...
HIT LOCATIONS
Don't bother rolling for hit location, its just one more thing to slow down combat. Make all hits body hits unless the player calls for a specific location. Then use the rules as writen.
Ok, enough for now
I have to get to work. Have a great morning.
Good Luck & Good Gaming
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@@GameMastersWorkshophow comprehensive is your own stuff compared to just fixing the 2d20?
@@Xyphyri Gonna go deep!
I was originally just going to fix the game, but... my group asked me not to, and just go ahead and start from scratch.
So I'm starting from scratch, and building a game from the roots up to see what it actually takes, and what I got wrong.
First up is a "Design Document" breaking down themes, rules, and types of stories we want to tell in Fallout, and figuring out what needs to have focus, in order to create a style of play the reflects the games.
An example would be teaching "Emergent Game Play", to tap into the Exploration Element of Fallout. Where the GM starts by creating, some basic elements of their Wasteland, but intentionally leaves much of as a blank taspestry to be filled in as the players explore and advance the story. So that the players literally build world as they discover it.
Or a focus on Reputation and Factions, and advancing the character by questing, advancing Factions, building their Reputation, and their relationships the movers and shakers of the Wasteland. Rather then, just rudimentary XP awards.
Etc...
Its been a busy week, but I get to drop the next first video tomorrow morning. Let me know if I'm on the mark or missed the point entirely.
Because I'd rather eat a bit of crow, then get it wrong.
In any case, sorry for the delay in responding.
Catch you later.
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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Just a quick comment. As an experienced GM, I am surprised that you, as an experienced GM, had difficulty finding reasonable Attribute+Skill options for the things you listed. I thought of these pretty quickly, and they work for me as a GM: Gambling (depends on game). Dice I'd use Luck + Athletics for rolling the dice. Card games I'd let a player use Luck + Science(knowledge) or perhaps even Barter (for bluffing, counting cards, etc). Poison Save = End + Survival, although I'd accept End + Medicine. Spot Hidden = PER + Sneak. Willpower save depends on the circumstances = Int + Survival probably, but depending on what is causing the save it could use a different skill or even attribute. Military History = Int + Science, although I might accept + Speech if the player makes a good argument for having watched a show or heard something (oral recall) about it instead of reading. One thing to keep in mind is that skills are broader than what the name might suggest. Ex: 'Science' skill entails both practical as well as academic knowledge, all topics, not just on specific 'science' topics. Barter is skill with money and deals/deal-making, not just actual trading/bartering. Athletics is a catch-all for pretty much any physical activity using Strength or Agility (lifting, leaping, balancing, swimming, etc). It really isn't too hard to fit just about anything under one of thses existing Attribute+skill categories. Also keep in mind that while an attribute can potentially be as high as 10, the average will be a 5 or 6 for most attributes. So that maxxed 6 skill will be just as important as that 5/6 attribute. Only in cases where a PC min/maxes one (or possibly two) stats up to 9 or 10 will a skill be less relevent, and in that case it makes their skills more relevant for their attribute tests where their attribute has been dropped to 4. And you don't add attribute points while levelling up. While some of your concerns have some merit, especially for some of the burdensome fiddly bits, I don't think the game is nearly as broken or egregious as your video suggests.
Hey Derek,
Man I wish I was an experienced game master, but the truth is I am a very very very experienced (Grognard Level) game master, and have the dice scars to prove it.
And lets face it, yeah I could have ignored their complete lack of rules for simple elemental things, and just rolled with it, but then again I could have just flipped coins too.
Listen they made game, and they failed.
Here's the thing If I buy a car and seats aren't included but they still manage to put spoilers on the car charge me for a custom paint job I didn't order, I'm gonna have a problem with it.
Yeah I can probably sit on orange crates, or squat in a paticular position like the photoshoped diagram they stuck in the glove box implied I do...
Or....
Here me out...
They include the actual seats in the car.
I know... its crazy... but you know it might have just worked.
Listen it was basic game port, and yes, while a good game master can fix any game.. they shouldn't have to. If I'm ignoring half their rules, and making up the other half, then why am I giving them $60 to begin with.
I mean XP to Lvl 3, just dropped his second edition of his fan game of Fallout, and its actually better then this.
In fact if you cut all their rules out and just pasted his stuff in its place, the game would get a 8 for art, and 7 for content.
I mean its basically the 5e SRD with word Fallout writen on it in black sharpie, but here's the thing, unlike what Modiphius did, its not terrible.
He converts the SPECIAL to exponents FINE.
He includes all the basics rules without once getting side tracked by detailed rules on how to butcher a bloat fly.
He even includes some of his personal game mechanics.
Its not pretty, its not amazing, its clearly a fan game, but its also not terrible.
And for a game that I paid zero dollars for, I more then got my moneys worth and probably owe him something for it too.
I mean Modiphius made game so bad, I wanted my money back!
I have never had that experience with an RPG before, and I own a copy of "Lawn Mover Man".
I feel zero remorse that I traded my hardcopy into my game store for a used copy of Star Frontiers. This game is detailed where its needs to light, and light were needs to be detailed, and still comes up short.
What I'm trying to say is this game is bad, and they should feel bad for making it.
Listen I get your trying to save this pig, but let it die.
If you like it, great!
The whole point of games is to get together and have fun with your friends. Crack some jokes, roll some dice, and eat cold pizza flat soda until 2am.
And if your enjoying this game, I'm glad for you.
But I won't pretend it was good.
Listen you have a great night.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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I'll take your word for it.
I purchased the 2d20 system since it went 50% off thanks to the new TV show. And I've relatively enjoyed the product, but there's definitely some concerns I have for running it myself and with my own group. I played in a 6 month long campaign that used the Dishonored 2d20 system and absolutely loved it, it's rules-light nature made it versatile and fluid in all the right places and gave you all the setting info, resources, and rules needed to run a wide variety of activities in Dunwall. But I was surprised to see a lot of those great and versatile mechanics scraped or altered in the fallout version. I'm gonna run it rules as written at least a few times to finalize my thoughts, but it does seem like the book has too many rules on some things and not enough on others.
Hey Tricky!
Let me know how it works out for you.
A couple easy fixes we found, worked pretty well.
1) Add any skills that you feel are missing. [Just add a skill point for every skill you add]
2) If you have to do an attribute check, just add half the attribute to itself.
3) Adding background skills adds variety and interest without changing a lot of rules.
4) Skip random hit location roll, and just use body hits unless the player specifically targets a location.
That said, there are groups online who have been working hard to fix this game.
In any case I hope you and your group have fun one way or another.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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Your review and the fact i cant find a single play through that is serious has saved me a lot of money. Thanks
No problem
Top tip, if you want a serious play through of Fallout, you need civilians and Factions.
For civilians create a centeral city or town that is the characters base of operations.
Put one to three people in that town that like the characters, and try to help them out. This is a cheat code for getting players to like an NPC. A bartender that gives them drinks on the house, and free advice where to find stuff. An old lady, who mends their clothes and offers them food to take with them into the wasteland. A cute local gunsmith who is a Nuka Cola fanatic and buys Nuka Cola merchendise at twice the price. That sort of thing.
Now give each a personal goal and motive, and then give them personal obligations so they can not leave the town. "I could never sell my bar...", "This is where my husband and sons graves are...", "My mother is sick, and I can't move her...", etc...
Now create a threat... Like a hoard of mutants, a swamp full of radioactive deathclaws, etc... and use it to threaten the town.
Ask the players for help, and if they F' around, let them "Find out" by seriously harming one of their favorite NPCs and ruining whatever they had that was helping out the characters. "The Mutants burned down my bar!", "My son's grave... they took his body!", "My mother... the raiders took her medicine... I can't waste money on Nuka Cola, I have to finish this order so I can buy new medicine from the Doctor.", Etc...
They will rush to get revenge. Because if they like that NPC an attack on NPC is an attack on them, and they will be PO'd.
Congradulations... you just made them care.
Now develop your town and expand it. As they help people, have other people look up to them, and look out for them. Make them the heros of the town. Let them F' around, but not in the town. If your doing it right, the town should come to love them, and visa versa...
This is THEIR town, don't "F WITH IT" or they'll make you "FIND OUT"
Ok, now lets make it complicated, and add in some Factions.
Create a couple for your setting, and put them in competition with each other.
Give each a higher motive, and over reach that is their personal sin.
Example:
Brotherhood
Higher Motive: "Wants to protect the wasteland from the scientific horrors that destroyed the world that was."
Sin: "Bioggoted against anyone or anthing they see as unclean like Mutants and Ghouls. Reclusive, menophobic, militant and aggressive. Will often take what they want by force."
Now have your two competing groups move into your wasteland, and decide to FIX IT in their vision.
Start off subtle.
Have each group approach the players, and attempt to hire them for different tasks, and reward them well.
As they help the factions, have the factions be able to offer them different benefits. Like say the Brotherhood offering weapons, while the Followers of the Appocalypse offer them medical aid.
Don't let their sins get in the way at first, just play them off as Quirks. "I'm sorry, its against regulations to let Ghouls in the Citidel... I hope you undestand.", that sort of thing.
The more they help the factions, the more powerful the faction should become and them more it should trust them.
And... the greater their sins should become apparent.
Until dealing with them becomes a series of moral quanderies, and they realised they've created a Frankenstiens monster that they're either going to have to fix, or take down.
Yes, the Brotherhood brought protection to the Wasteland. But now they're harrasing the local Ghoul town. They've taken the generators and water purifiers from 'Tin Town' for their own needs, and they've upgraded their armor with Jump Jets, that they developed from the plans the players gave them. Worse yet, one of their doctors think he's discovered a test that can isolate the gene that causes a radiation victim to turn into a Ghoul, and they want to test the population and steralize anyone carrying it, and the players town will be their first test case.
Will they joke? YES!
Will they mess around? YES!
But, because they're fighting to protect someone else, that they as a group care about, they will be deadly dealy serious about that.
It won't be Game of Thrones, but it also won't be Monty Python either.
AKA: It will be very very Fallout.
Ok, sorry to drag on like that, but that's my general method for turning chuckle heads into heros.
Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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Well, knowing the Modiphius guys pretty well, having written for them, and collaborating with Modiphius for Blood and Doom, I can tell you there's no Steve from marketing. These guys are the real deal - they love TTRPGs (and other tabletop games). That being said, I do agree with your assessment that Fallout suffers quite a bit from a lack of more diverse skills and maybe too much of an effort to marry the (great) 2d20 system with the computer game mechanics.
Ahhhh... thanks Dirk
Glad to hear it.
Between you and me, I love 2d20. Its a great system with a lot of incredible possiblities, Conan is still one of my favorites.
I guess that's why its so preplexing to me that they stuck so hard to making imported content work under 2d20, rather then build a Fallout setting from scratch in the system.
There's a lot of great mechanics they could have mined, and then made their own to capture the feel of the games. It could have been something incredible.
And the fact that they didn't do that, blew my mind because four models I could come up with. were
1) Bad or lazy game design - They had a goal, and just went through motions.
"Do what? Please.... I've built a dozen games, I'll just rejigger the rules a bit, and hand it off to Editing. The project manager will catch anything I miss..."
2) Good game designers under crunch - They were building the game. Working through the details, and then some one cut the time line in half.
"We need this game out for CHRISTMAS!", or "The investors paid a ton of money for this license, we need to show something NOW.", etc...
3) They lost some one important, and had to scramble to cover their contribution.
"Bill has left the company so on top of doing all the Layout, Tony will also be doing Game Design, Editing, Lore Checking, Background Design, and Setting Design until we find someone new... by the way we roll out next week, so everyone sign off on your part of the project by the end of day..."
4) Some one with zero understanding or knowledge of game design, was at the helm and just kept asking for things that just didn't belong.
"This is Steve... I was just going over the product notes, and I don't understand this six tiered faction system you guys keep going on about... it seems complicated... Hey what about 'Calibrated Shocks' on Power Armor, I did a random word seach on this spread sheet I downloaded, and I don't see it anywhere in this list... I want to see more of that!"
Modipheius is a great game company, and as I said the flavor text, art, layout deisng, etc... are all top notch.
But WOW!
Someone dropped the %#$@ ball.
This is one of the few games systems, where both I and the players all stopped half way through the first session, and just looked at each other and.. said "Maybe we can fix it...", and then by the third session were looking at things like GURPS and Cypher instead.
I have honestly never played a game that was so badly implimented, that I was tempted to track down the designers social media just so I could ask "WTF?!"
And MAN! I have played some stinkers. BUT WOW! At least they were consistent. This book is all over the place.
If I had to fix this game, I would start by ripping the actual rules out, keep everything else, and write a fresh game from scratch.
Seriously if they had written a set rules that said, "Pick two SPECIALs add them together and roll a 1d20". The results would have been better.
Sorry to rant at the end there Dirk, but honestly its both frustraiting and preplexing.
As many great games as they have writen in the past, I'm just stunned that this is what turned out here.
In any case, thanks for the feedback friend. Good luck on your future writing projects and have a great week!
Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.
ROTFL!
Yeah, its not often that I get in a lather about a game, but this one kept punching me in the face every time I tried to make it work.
So sorry about all the venom.
Good Luck and Good Gaming
I’ve always been rules agnostic, since I never liked leveling HP since the 80s.
I’m into the themes, the genre and the opportunity to play in an existing world, buts it’s the opportunity to bring new ideas is what keeps me there.
We just need more GMs (or OS) creating small time fan campaigns developing story ideas, new directions and gaming mechanics.
More regional sourcebooks making narrative ideas the motivation for play rather than whatever system you use.
My rules will be a RQ, CoC, Hardwired, Reign, Fate, Fallout Gurps bible home brew which use modiphus as a foundation.
I want it to succeed, because I haven’t finished my DLC yet.
Hey Wizard,
Good attitutude.
For us, we tried to make these rules work for about three months, before we threw in the towel and went with another system. In the end we ended up just using Cypher, in fact one of our players if currently hosting the game himself, and second one wants to alternate with him.
As for using this and other books in the future as a refrence guide, brother I support you fully. Lets hope they do some good stuff for you, and expand they setting. Personally I do this all the time, with GURPs books, and its a massive reasource for me. I don't play GURPS anymore, but you can not go wrong with their source books. They will cover every detail, and fawcet. Give the full historical over view. And have dozens of side bars, with important facts, details, or just background info.
As for things you can mine for use with other systems. The weapon and armor info is strong and can probably easily be canniblized. Consumables like drugs or unique iconic things like Nuka Cola and Quantum, will easily fit into most games. I would steer clear of the more shall we say, 'VIDEO GAME' consumables like individual food buffs, and if you decide to introduce any of them, introduce only the most iconic or the ones that fit regionally, for instance 'Death Claw Omlettes'. They have pages and pages of loot tables, without actual tables on how to distribute the loot, so if you need random tables to determine what kind of armor they find in a box, those could work for you. Background on the Commonwealth is a bit lite, but its a start.
Those are the basic off the top of my head, but you probably already have your own list of things your looking to use. So good luck on those.
As for more source books, I haven't read any of them, but they do appear to be rolling stuff out. I suspect that they're going to drop some material for the L.A. TV show soon, as they're already releasing the minitures. So lets see what happens with that...
Ok, enough for now I got to get ready for work.
So until next time....
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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please take a look at the semi-official Fallout TTRPG made by XP to level 3 I'd be interested to hear what you think of it
Hey Luke,
Yeah, I saw his game drop a couple of days ago, and to say I was interested is an understatement.
I've always enjoyed Xp and Skylers content in the past, so this might be right up my alley. I'll have to make to time to give this a go.
Thanks!
Good Luck & Good Gaming
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If you have Fate dice, just paint in one of the "-" signs in on each die, so that you have a 1 the (-) minus sign, "2" with a different color (-) minus sign, 2 "+" for the special symbols and 2 blanks, so they will match the challenge dice exactly. And you can still use them as Fate dice.
Maloquinn
That definately would work, and if I was playing at a kitchen table half the time that would have been a fine replacement, but my main test group was on a VRTT, so effect dice were not available for them.
I appreciate the idea thought
Thanks!
@@GameMastersWorkshop Its just a good trick for anyone who wants to play 2D20 games, but doesn't want to pay the outrageous prices for their custom dice. Fate dice are pretty cheap and can be acquired from multiple vendors. I just though anyone watch your video might like to know about it. Thanks.
@@Maloquinn Hell Maloquinn
I'll include that in a hack video and throw you credit, because its damn useful!
Thanks brother
Enjoying the views? Looking forward to your rewrite/home rew thoughts. Since it's been a. Month I hope all is well. I was popping in to see if there was an update on your journey yet.
Hey Hunter!
New video is in the can, and I just have review to check for rendering errors. I'll try to get it up tonight
dude, please use examples of what you consider poorly written important rules and vague or minutia rules, you don't have to copy the text exactly but this was just an opinion piece that could have been written by anyone who didn't actually read the rules and just wanted to slag it. I'm sure you did read it, but I sure as heck can't tell that you did from this review.
Hey Hawk
I mean could have done that, but I already savaged them pretty hard without, tearing them apart peice by peice. To nitpick every single bad design element wouldn't have been just over kill, it would have been petty.
Essentialy dude, the video was already long, and they were already dead.
I mean this game was just bad.
The few reviews I could find of this game, were clearly from people who had never actually tried to play it.
Everything about the game design was done by someone who clearly did not understand the world of Fallout and spent zero time trying to make the game either ballanced or playable.
Instead they just took rules and mechanics directly from the video games, and just tried to hamfist them into the 2d20 system.
Here's the thing, that doesn't work.
Why?
Because video game mechanics and roleplaying game mechanics are essentially completely different things.
So lets start with the so called RULES from the video gam. Here's thing you have to understand about those rules. They don't actually work. They're not supposed to.
They're a fiction meant to look RPG like, but not actually meant to be playable.
They're missing basic elemental things, like knowledge checks, surprise checks, or even basic resistance rolls. Because all of that is either part of the plot, the player actions or complex mechanics behind the scenes. So no easily importable rules exist for things like that.
Now there are three easy solutions for this, were either 1) Make a few extra skills to cover these basic game checks 2) Create some derived attributes to do the same thing. 3) Weight Skills and Attributes equally so you can make combined attribute checks instead.
Those are all tested methods and would have worked fine, but they did none of them. Instead they just hand waved the whole affair and just said, make a Survival check, and if that doesn't work just wing it!
Seriously this is a basic element of game design, and they completely flubbed it.
Instead they just stuck to their vision of the SPECIALS running 1 to 10, and using "The Official Fallout Skill List", and never considered variying from that postion in the slightest.
Because of this we have wide gaps in the basic framework of the game. That could have been fixed easily, but instead zero effort was made.
This is the equivolent of painting yourself into a corner and rather then finding a way out, just walking through paint and tracking it all over the rest of the house.
Its all just lazy, and bad. Whoever did this either hates their job, or doesn't know what they're doing.
Ok, Hawk. That was just one element. Now page up and see how long that took to explain and realise there are pages and pages of this nonsense that they commited against their players.
If I tore every single element apart, it wouldn't be just beating a dead horse. It would be running over with a bulldozer. Then back up and doing again, and again, and again.... until nothing was left.
I mean I have a hard time describing how bad these rules are without getting angry at these guys, but man that would have been just petty.
But if you want more examples just ask away, they are hundreds of pages of nonsense in here, and that was just the skill list.
TLDR: This game is bad, and they should feel bad for writing it.
To add to your point about Modiphius hamfisting the 2D20 system in:
Often what I really hate about novelty franchise systems is the habit of the publishers to just make an arbitrary rule set.
Beyond Fallout, look at some of the bigger names in the RPG scene. What made West End Games use D6 for Star Wars? What made Fantasy Flight Games decide to instead use the Genesys system for Star Wars? What was it about LoTR that made Free League decide on a D12 system? Is there something about the Lovecraft mythos that made Chaosium settle for D100?
I feel like when I want to play a setting, I want rules that help me imagine that setting, immerse into it, and feel part of it.
I feel like often these publishers/designers just pick a different system to stand out, like it's a marketing thing. "Play our game because it ain't D20!", rather than think about skills that evoke the setting, perks that evoke the setting, or attributes that evoke the setting. It's basically what Modiphius did, but I suspect most publishers are just the same.
I'm at the stage where I want to just homebrew everything. It ain't perfect but I like the D20 system. I know it the best and I'd rather adapt those rules to a setting than learn a whole new ruleset for one particular game.
Hey Oddworld!
I absolutely agree. Every game world and setting has its own feel and themes, and embracing those themes is what game design is about, not just reworking the material to fit in a prepublished rules set. Early games were all different, not because they were trying to be different, but because they were experimenting with different thing and trying to capture different feelings. Old school "Top Secret" couldn't farther removed from old school "D&D" if it tried, but they were trying to do two different things. D&D was about exploring Dungeons and Ruins, Top Secret was about knowing enough French to fake out Russian boarder guard into believing that you were Belgium Chef. Meanwhile Gamma World was essentially D&D in an Atomic Wasteland, so it basically plays like D&D they just add some rules for Mutations and Radiation poisoning.
Meanwhile adapting a system you know well and can tweak is a valuable and useful tool.
The best example of this I can think of is the old "Torg" rpg. Which was a game about different realities invading Earth. The thing about Torg was while all the a basic mechanics were the same, each Realm had special rules that only applied to itself and the people from that Realm. So take "Initimidation" in the normal game world it was about scaring people into back down. If you went to Neotokyo, "Intimidation" became a tool of subtle threats and intencity, with people being cowd and doing whatever you said once you managed to stare them down. Meanwhile if technohorror realm of Tharkhold, if you intimidated people you ran screaming from area, and you had a chance of increasing the horror level of the zone. Its all the same skill, used the same rolls, but in different locals it worked completely differently.
So if you got a game system that you're comfortable with and enjoy. Adapt it for you own use and make it feel that like that world.
In any case I'm off to work, have a great day.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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If I'm remembering correctly, Fantasy Flight Star Wars came before they wrote Genesys. And that game is actually pretty damn well made imo.
@@Xyphyri
It did, but they used the same narrative dice. Fantasy Flight just can't have called it Genesys yet, but it's the same thing.
Personally I prefer the old West End Games D6 version, that feels the most Star Wars to me. I have pretty much all the PDFs for both, I borrow some of the setting material and ideas from FFG but use the rules for WEG.
Great video! Thanks for sharing your views on the system. Do you have any alternative suggestions for someone who wants to play in the fallout universe with possibly an already set up system that works well with the universe?
Great question.
When my friends and I ran into the same problem we looked at a few games and then adapted a generic system, because we were comfortable enough with it we could easily make rules up as we needed and adapt on the fly.
When it comes down to it, it will depend on your play style and comfort level as a group.
Twillight 2000, might appeal to the simulationist out there "Hard Core Radiation, and Firearms Rules", but like all simulation games can be a bit complicated and tedious, and you would have to add high tech elements likes lasers and robots.
Gamma World, has all the trappings (High Technology, Secret Societies, Radiation, Biohazards, Etc..), and can easily be adapted, but it has a high focus on Mutations, and cutting them out or back would be the highest priority. Plus there are like seven editions of the game and each plays distinctly different, and all of them are essentially variations on different editions of D&D.
Paladium, has dozens of apocalyptic titles that can be adapted, and would appeal to the GAMER style of player looking to combine power sets and the like. Plus it has a lot of cross over material. But Kevins rules are always all over the place. They're class based, and have zero game balance. And don't go near any title that uses MDC (those rules are really for GIANT ROBOTS and KAIJU), I would personally only use any of his titles if you crew already has a bunch of books sitting on the shelves and have a high comfort level with his games.
The other post apocalyptic games didn't come remotely close. For example "Powered by Apocalypse" is closer to a 'Mad Max' setting, and has weird relationship mechanics, that would only work out if half of your games were about who was sleeping with who.
So we decided to adapt a generic system instead.
In our case we went with Cypher, as it covered a lot of different character types, and the players were already familiar with it, so we could easily adapt. We just replaced the CYPHER mechanic with a reroll system, which worked for the guys, but its not perfect and I'm in the middle of doing a rules rewrite for them.
The thing to remember about Generic Systems is that they are Generic.
You either have to fly by the seat of your pants, and make stuff up on the fly half the time or spend a lot of time adapting the setting to the system in advance.
For example:
GURPS, has a lot of options that can easily be adapted, but to me the rules always feel generic. The combat can be anywhere from awkward to down tedious depending on whats you've decided to use. So with GURPS its not about finding rules that cover what you want to do, its more about knowing what rules to cut.
The Hero System, is designed to be adapted, but always plays like Champions. Also, power gaming is a major problem in that one. If you have a player that knows how to manipulate the rules, things easily get out of control.
System like FATE or TRI-TAC are super generic, but easily workable if your familiar with them.
In the end, as I said in the end it really depends on the games that you're familiar with and your style of play.
If you want a prepublished game with all the major elements covered maybe try adapting one of the Gamma World editions. If your going with Generic, use the system your group is most familiar with, but don't spend a lot of time, money or effort on it if you can avoid it. Go with a generic you already have rules for or know well enough.
Otherwise, you can use the 2d20 rules, but...
Ignore most of the survival rules, they aren't well done and don't serve much purpose.
Add skills that you think you'll need, things like "Notice", (Add one skill point to the players starting skills for each skill you add to the list.)
Cut most of the buffs out of the gear, and leave the buffs to things like consumables like JET, or NUKA COLA, but don't use most of the rules for things like (Mutt Chops), etc...
And just avoid the loot rules entirely. You're better off just using your own judgement, that spending any amount of time with those tables. They literally left half the rules out, and the rules they did include will have you rolling for random "Hats", bottles of "Dirty Water", and high tech pieces of Power Armor all in the same box.
Finally it sounds like they've tried to fix the rules with dozens of expanions, but holy $@#$@ it sounds like they've also made it extremly more complicated. AKA: Cards, even more proprietary dice, and complete rules rewrite designed around selling add on products. If you went that route, I fear you might spend a lot money for something with not of lot of improvement.
So use your own judgement.
Ok, that was a lot of writing for a pretty generic answer, but I hope it helps. In any case, I got to open the shop this morning and I got to shower up and get ready for work.
Have a Great Day, and Good Gaming!
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Subscribed after this video! Interesting reviews and I'm really curious how you will develop your hack, hope to see it!
In the meantime I will probably try to go with mythras + legend for my version of Fallout since are the generic system I know most 🤞
Nice!
Let me know how it works out. Never tried Mythras. But I'm always looking to add new ideas and learn new skills. So I'll give it a peak.
Thanks for the tip. I appreciate it.
So, I watched this all the way through. I’m going to try and keep my thoughts concise and prevent this from getting too long: I feel like this isn’t a fair review. There were some things I agreed with, such as not all the rules being present in the book I.e. scavenging. Scavenging is in the game master’s kit. Which is disappointing and feels a little like a cash grab. However, because I like to see what is IN GM kits released by developers, and compare them, I had them anyway. But most of everything else, I disagree with you. I have played 3 different campaigns with friends with THESE rules, and it worked just fine. There are multiple things glossed over in this review.
Survival rules for eating, drinking, sleeping? Optional. Want your game nitty gritty? Here you go. You don’t want your game nitty gritty? Ignore.
Then for other complaints, not only did you hardly give examples, mostly saying a video game and TTRPG are different, which yes they are, but you hardly game any actual examples of things outside of talking about the stars and skills. You constantly said it’s bad, not a good TTRPG. Ok, what’s a GOOD TTRPG? Compare it to ANOTHER game. Which should be easy with 40 years of TTRPG experience.
Look, I’m not saying this system is perfect, it isn’t. But it’s a perfectly fine system. And you can run a game fine with it. Just actually give it a chance.
Last two notes:
1) there’s a side bar in the area discussing how to do a skill check. You can un-mate skills and specials to give you a more niche roll. Example: you mentioned “how to find someone that’s hidden?” I would have my player roll perception and sneak. Use your OWN knowledge of sneaking, with your personal capabilities to perceive.
2) proprietary dice? Give me a break. It’s just the d6’s. You don’t need to buy their dice. It’s easy to memorize. This is off the cuff: on a normal d6 1 and 2 is that much damage respectively. A result of 3 and 4 is a blank face. 5 and 6 is the vault boy effect face. It’s not hard, and that is the ONLY die that is really pRoPrIeTaRy.
Thanks for watching and giving you review a shake.
Just so you know, I'm fairly famliar with this paticular territory and know when you review something, your being critical of something that many people love. So you're always going to be disagreeing with some one. So before I go farther no harm no foul assumed on either side.
So lets start with with something we both absolutely agree with... the Scavenging tables. That was... just a bridge too far. In your case, you didn't mind you were already looking to purchase the product that had them, for me I was already done with the game when I hit this snag, and it was the straw that broke the camels back. But that's neither here nor there. We're both in agreement, that was outright MISS.
Next survival rules and video game mechanics... Interesting enough we're technically on the same page on this, as I said the rules they included were unnesciary and tedious, and unless they're incredibly important to your story, your going to end up hand waving and ignoring them. Which is what you did too...
Before we move on, I want to throw role playing game truism at you, "If its important, TRACK IT! If its not... DONT". Ok, got that. Geat! Because we're about to cover that as we move on Survival Mechanics and video game mechanics.
Here's the thing, survival rules as we both know are incredibly important and something simply has to be included in a Fallout game, but these ones failed hard... why? Because they are just imports from the video game.
You see video games have a neat built in feature... they're run on a computer. The computer automatically tracks EVERYTHING in minutia. So when your playing Fallout in Survival Mode, the game knows what you last ate, how long ago you ate it, how full it made you feel, and when you need to eat again, DOWN TO THE SECOND. More importantly it divides those details up into discreate units. Are you Full, Sated, Peckish, Hungry, Starving? Those are video game units, that the computer uses to push you to stop killing super mutants and start eating. The game tracks each of those because for it, each has descreat effects, that it will automatically roll out, when you cross a threshold.
Meanwhile roleplaying games... even when we track those things we don't track them down to how many hours ago you ate. Those things are story elements or judgement calls.
We might have a Hungry condition if you haven't in a day, or starving if you haven't had food for a couple of days and were in danger of dying, but we wouldn't track things like Sated, or Peckish because you skipped your snack. Remember what I said above about only tracking important things in roleplaying games, this is an example.
GMs dont need to calculate things like that to make you stop killing mutants and remind you to eat, because we're the ones who put the mutants there to begin with, and even if you hadn't eaten all day, we wouldn't be penalizing you for it while we hammering you with mutants.
Video games track this kind of stuff because they can, and need to. Roleplaying games ignore it, because its not important.
That's a basic example of video games vs RPGs.
But we can look at a few others
Food giving healing? Video game mechanic, to encourage you to eat, when the game isn't in survival mode.
Consumables giving random buffs? Extension of video game potion system.
Yes I said potions.
Chems are essentially potions, that's how they are used in the video games engine. You use a chem/potion you get a special effect. Which makes sense... Need to think clearly Mentats! Need to move a heavy log, Buffout! Need to mess up a raider you got in an argument with in a bar, Psycho!
But they extend the same logic to things like Beer and Alcohol, or food products. Listen, Nuka Cola Quantum, and Beer having different effects on a character. Makes sense, they're different products and different kinds of drinks. But Beer, Whiskey, Burbon, and Vodka all having different effects... is just wrong. Whiskey is just Beer that's been distilled. Burbon is Whiskey, its justed aged in an chared caske so it tastes different. Vodka and Whiskey are the same thing, one is just made from potatoes one is made from Wheat. If these all gave a uniform bonus say like CHA+1, STR+1, I would understand. But they don't instead one buffs Charisma, one buffs Strength, one has no effect at all, and one buffs Endurance... Now before you tell me that's no big deal, take a second and without looking tell me which does which? Because... its not clear. Because there's no reason for it.
They only reason different effects hit with these different (but effectively the same) drinks, is because they used the video game designers put it in there. Because they did it with chems, why not do it with alcohol, after all it doesn't mater the computer is just going to track anyways.
And the list goes on and on from there, different kinds of food. Different mixed drinks. Different recipes are all treated like potions, because that's what the video game does. Not because its part of the setting or theme.
Same thing goes for clothing, and it effecting your rolls. You see, they don't use roleplaying game mechanics, they back fill with video game mechanics.
Let me give you an example, in roleplaying games there are a few places that clothing might affect you for instance warm clothing if its freezing out, or a fancy suit of clothes when your trying to impress the royals. But those kinds of effects are situational, and under the judgement call of the GM. As the same set of heavy clothing would keep you alive in the artic would kill you if you tried to wear it in the desert during the day. As the same suit fancy clothes that might impress the royals, would get your butt kicked at the "Kill Shot" Bar in the red light district.
Now lets take how Video Games treat clothing, with boosters. Wear a lab coat you get a Science boost. Fancy hat, Speech. Why? Because they want to encourage you to dress the part. If your playing a scientists, they want you to wear a lab coat. If you playing con man, they want you to wear a shifty hat.
As I said, video game mechanics and roleplaying game mechanics are different, because they're are encouraging you to do different things.
Roleplaying game mechanics are about roleplaying, clever thinking, and good ideas. Video game mechanics are about buffs and booster to encourage you to behave certain ways. Roleplaying games reward you for thinking outside the box. Video games reward you for climbing into the box, and closing the lid behind you.
As for splitting skills, once again you and I are on the same page here, that this can be and normally is done in most games. You're riding a horse and the GM calls for a defense roll, but you say can I use my Riding roll instead to duck under the horse... the answer is almost always YES! So that's not really an issue, what is an issue is that we shouldn't be making rolls using such a limited skill list.
It takes only a couple seconds to realise basic standard skills are MISSING, not because they weren't important, but because they weren't part of the original skill list from Bethesda. While keeping the original list is a nice idea, every author and game designer knows "Kill your babies, and kill them early".
When what seemed like an artistic idea turns out be a problem, you gotta fix it. Even if it distorts what seemed thematic in your design, the ultimate goal of the designer is to make a game that fits the themes and setting of the world. Not to backfill video game mechanics.
The seventh time in a session, that the game master had to replace a basic skill roll with Survival should have killed this problem and sent them back to the design board to just add the missing skills. But it didn't... which is just bad game design. There is literally no excuse for not fixing that...
But as I said, any good game master can fix these things... BUT your not supposed to have to.
They're supposed to give you a good product to start with.
If a game has the occaisional rough edge or poorly thought out rule. No big deal, that's why we have GMs. But when every part of the game is either superflouse, useless, unbalanced, incomplete or just broken its not your job to fix it. It was theirs to give you a working product to begin with.
So you asked what the perfect game is, and lets face it. We both know, there is no such thing. But there are a heck of a lot better games then this one. Specially at replicating the world they're supposed to be representing.
Here's the thing, when you build a game you don't start with the rules... you start with the world. The themes, and setting. You then create your rules to reflect and replicate that.
If your building a world about extensional horror like "Call of Cthulu", you make rules about horror, madness, arcane and bizaare magic. Skills like research, ancient history, arcane languages and science become your focus's. You don't cram in ten pages of martial arts rules, because the game system you pulled from had them. You remove those rules entirely, and spend chapters explaining the hidden history of your world, and why trying to sucker punch a Deep One, will get you killed even if you are Bruce Lee.
Game designers know this... which is why this game is so freaking frustraiting. Because its clear they understand this stuff, but actively choose not to do it.
If they had kept it simple and rules lite, it would have been fine.
If they had made it crunchy, but made the crunch appropraite to a roleplaying game and not a video game, that would have been fine too.
But they didn't.
Instead they tried to cram and pages and pages of video game rules into a roleplaying game and ignored everything that makes Fallout... Fallout. I don't see a single theme of Fallout in these rules, just mechanics pulled from a video game.
And that's why for me its bad game, and why I believe you deserved for them to give you a better game.
PS: As for the propritary dice... top three reasons I hate propritary dice
1) If your using a virtual table top your @$@ out luck, you'll need to convert.
2) They don't need to exist in the first place. If you could do the same thing with regular dice, then start with regular dice. This just slows down the game. There is zero justification for doing then just selling you another product.
3) They're called propriatary for a reason. They can only be used for that game and only they can make them. Which means you're shoveling more money into pockets of the people who designed the game, just to play the game you already bought from them.
Proprietary dice is just preditory game design. I know lots of games that use specailty dice, but all of those can be used in other games. Heck I use "Boggle" dice to help decide random names and hit location die for random damage. But these can only be used for 2d20 and thats it.
If it was just poorly thought out rules. That would be one thing. If it was just a couple missing tables that they gave you with the errata... that would be some thing else. These guys just go and on with the violations of good and game design.
But these guys are EA of Roleplaing games.
I'm glad you liked the game, but you deserved better.
So thanks for the comment, I appreciate the feedback.
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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@@GameMastersWorkshop i can see where your points of concern come in. Maybe these things don’t really bother me, because even 7-8 years ago, when I started DM-ing DnD, and I real the players guide, and DM’s guide front to back, I changed things out of the gate. Just how I am, I find issues with most systems I play, and immediately change them to fit things that make sense. However it just hasn’t felt necessary in fallout. Here I’m just having a discussion at this point.
To start with something small and quick, skills. I don’t think you need a massive skill list. Some things just don’t require checks. There shouldn’t be a roll done for every single check the players do. And for a fallout world, I feel like the skill list is adequate. An example you used in video was “what if I want to know what rank a US military petty officer was?” Why the fuck does that matter? You ask any normal American citizen, and I’m sure 95-98% of them will have NO clue. Now, take that 100-200 years into the future? Almost NOBODY would know that. And if a very niche situation called for it, I would simply look at those Intelligence and if it wasn’t a 9 or 10, they don’t know. Because that information is going to degrade massively over time.
Secondly, minor nitpick, you said special stats go from 1-10. That is in fact wrong. In the book, they cannot be lowered below 4. It may not seem like it matters, but when giving a review for a book, and stating something incorrect like that, it comes off as disingenuous. Like, you hate the book and system, got it. But when you give false information like it, it makes it look like you haven’t done more than skim through the book, and then shit on it while only half-knowing the rules.
Then, we get a little more into food, and survival since I feel like I didn’t express myself well before. I felt that what they were doing with food, was using it as a plus side. Because I never said I personally got rid of survival. I like survival (in a general sense for TTRPGs)
Let’s say you have a group of 4 players (my normal average). 2 want survival rules, 2 don’t. Well, in my 3 campaigns, one of two things happened:
1) they played a robot. And that was that. “Survival rules? Not for me!” And then they just dealt with the drawbacks of being a robot.
2) they looked more into the food they ate. Since they HAD to eat, and drink to keep going, they picked the food and drink that gave them buffs that suited them best. Even if it cost a few more caps than something else, that’s what they chose.
I also found that running Fallout’s survival rules not too hard. I made the players track their own negative effects against their characters (as it should always be, I as the GM, will not track every single little thing my player has, FUCK that. They forget a cool ability they had? That’s on them.) when they travel, I look at it as “Will there be an encounter while they travel? Yes? Then they shall need to eat or drink once the encounter is over, or during it.”
“Will there be an encounter? No? Then if they are traveling for, say, 6 hours. I will tell them I want them to consume 2 units of drink, and 1 of food.” And I don’t really calculate the over all “peckish, hungry, starving, etc.” Until the end of that in-game day. Because thats what works best for me, personally.
In your review and your reply, you compare it constantly to a video game, which is fair. However, you say in both the review, and the reply, that buffs is all video game. Clothes, food and drink, all the buffs these things give you is video game only stuff.
Ummm….no? There are literally buffs in EVERY TTRPG game I’ve played. Sure, the food in fallout gives buffs, which some others don’t, but like I said, I think that’s to serve as a positive to counteract the survival rules. Because if you DONT play survival rules, there is NO reason for players to ever have food or drink, and they won’t. They’ll just stock up on stimpacks which can be used in combat, when food and drink can’t.
DnD? Buffs on weapons and armor. Star Wars Edge of the Empire? Buffs on weapons, armor, clothes, gear, modifications for your gear, perks and abilities. Legend of the Five rings? Lots of buffs or minor characteristics for for literally anything you wear, or items you choose to use. Not including abilities. Cyberpunk Red? SO many buffs from drugs, different special clothing, weapon mods, and gear you choose to use. Fate of the Norns Ragnarok? That game is literally both crunchy and not crunchy at the same time, with buffs and debuffs galore.
Never heard of one or more of these? That’s fair. There’s TONS of TTRPG’s, and many of them have buffs like this. And in this list I just gave, NONE of them are based on video games.
My point is, you are literally only comparing it to a video game, not any other specific TTRPG when giving your examples. If you want to shit on a system for a TTRPG because it’s done poorly, explain WHY it’s done poorly, how it could be improved, and a comparable system who did it better. Then compare the two TTRPG’s. I get it’s very similar to the video game. They WANTED it that way. But it also has a lot of things that other TTRPG’s do as well.
Don’t only compare it to the video game. Not only does it get frustrating to hear, over and over in a review, but it isn’t helpful. You want to demonstrate your knowledge of how TTPRG’s should be? Reference other TTRPG’s. Otherwise, as a viewer, I can’t really take your word for being a GM for over 40 years. You don’t list literally any other system in this.
I’m not trying to attack you here. Not at all. Just trying to give a different perspective, and as a viewer point out where some of your arguments come off a little weak as to why it’s a bad system.
To start with l like the fact that you change things right out of the gate! Good for you! Bravo brother, you'd be surprised how long it takes some DMs to learn that skill! So Gratz!
As for the skills, those were examples that actually happened, in the first session. When you make a game around the concept skill plus attribute, you need your skills to cover the basics. They didn't even try. They just took the skill list they were handed and just went with it. Many many thing were missing.
Lets face it, there are a miraid of characters in Fallout that have skills that go way beyond what the heros of the game have. Knowledge of history, musical ability, literature, archeology, etc... Pretty much every game on the market makes at least the vaguest attempt to cover things like this, but they made zero effort.
But it went beyond that, to thing that every hero has to do... like survive poison, or not be surprised. Even if you hand waved things like preformance or academics, why would you hand wave, Alertness?
The worse part was, they hamstrung you on being able to substitute other things in for skills because they weighted attributes so high. Like I said you can't say do an Attribute plus Attribute check because the scores are too hight. You can't do say a Gear (Rating) plus Attribute check, because those ratings don't exist. They just said, its Skill plus Attribute, and wing it.
Come on... are really tellling me they didn't need a basic Search skill?
As for the SPECIALS. The 1 through 10 is the actual system from Fallout game system. Not the RPG. In the RPG, the "Character" start at a 4, which they can ding down to a three for a bump but that's a nitpick. NPCs can have whatever.
The actual SPECIALs that Tim Caine orginally came up with are 1 to 10, but they have grown higher with other games like 76. So sorry if you thought I was talking about the RPG when I meantioned the SPECIALs I was actually talking about Fallout. I like the SPECIALs and if they could have implimented into their game in a manner that didn't skew the rules it would have been nice, but we're neither here nor there, so moving on.
And as for the book, I like book. I like 2d20. I don't like how they implimented Fallout into the 2d20. I don't hate it, but I find it unplayable, and I hate that. A good editor should have taken a big red pen to half these rules. If they had, it would be great, but they didn't so its a mess.
Lets see, moving on to Survival. Thanks reading your stuff on survival made laugh.
Here's the thing, survival was example of the miss-use of video game mechanics.
Alls they had to do was say you need two water and two food a day, and move on. Add a rule about needing an extra food in winter, and extra water in summer and your done... but nope. Instead they tried to recreate the video game stages, and then just gave up and said, take a point of fatigue. Seriously they could have done that to begine with.
But lets move on from here. Because we both agree this is something that can largely be ignored.
As for clothing and armor giving you bonus's in other TTRPGs, those are innate parts of the gear. A helmet has a targeting computer that has a perception bonus, a magic cloak that turns you invisible that has a stealth bonus, or a set of armor protecting from damage is the gear doing what the gear is actually supposed to do. That's why equipment in TTRPGs has appropriate effects.
Combat Fatigues giving you a bonus on Athletics... isn't what Combat Fatigues do. They keep you warm while crawling through mud.
Lab Coats helping understand science isn't what lab coats do. They protect you from splashed chemicals or other fluids.
Saying that gear in other games gives buffs and bonus's is actually kind of disingenious.
I get it man, but come on.
Why does one hat protect you from glare, while the other give you charisma buff? They both have brims, they both should protect you from glare, thats one of the things hats do. RPG mechanics are supposed to help replicate things like this. But thats not the way they treat them in this game. Instead they use the same sort of mechanics we find in video games. Buffs to skills and attributes that don't belong there, because thats what the video game did not because it makes sense.
Do you really think a character putting on their Lucky Pair of Sunglasses makes them Luckier? Or is that just what happens in the video game.
As for games I've game mastered for and can compare the rules for... Ok... you asked for it...
Dungeons and Dragons (seven different versions - theres actually more then that), Star Frontiers (Two Editions), Pathfinder (2 Editions and half a dozen play test versions), Paldium, Heros Unlimited (two editions), Beyond the Super Natural (two editions), Rifts (No I don't want to even think about how many worlds), Robotech (Four Settings), TMTNT (Both regular and After the Bomb settings), Top Secret, Top Secret SI (Regular, Commando, and Agent 13), Traveler (at least four editions), GURPS (countless titles), Star Trek (FASA), Gama World (Four Editions), Legend of the Five Rings (Two Editions), Mechanioids, Nightbane, Ninja's and Super Spies, Recon, Over the Edge, Twililight 2000, Aftermath, Conan, Continum, Werewolf, Vampire, Wraith, Hunter, Mummy, Mage, Changling, MERP, Rolemaster (Robin Hood), Indiana Jones (WEG and TSR), Tunnels and Trolls (Two Editions), Xena, Alteracity, Trinity (Two Editions), Shadowrun (Four Editions), Cyberpunk, Earthdawn (Two Publishers), Hero System (Multiple Generes), FATE (Multiple Games), TriTac (Multiple Games), Paranoia (Three Editions), Marvel Super Heros, Scion, Fantasy Craft, Spy Craft, Witcher, Doctor Who, The Riddle of Steel, Chill, Call of Cthuluth (I think five editions), DC Heroes, Blades in the Dark, A|State, Cypher System (A couple different settings including Fallout), Numenera, Shotguns and Sorcery, Star Wars D6, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Deadlands (Two Editions), Burning Wheel, Dungeon Crawl Classics, OSRIC, Ares Magicka (Two Editions), Werewolf Old West, Vampire Middle Ages, Arcanium, Fire Fly, Dune (LUG), ELFs (No, I'm not proud), Torg (Two Editions), Senguko, Lost Colony, Marvel Heroics, John Carter of Mars, Splices, System Failure, Fallout, Amber, Bushido, Toon, Fengu Shui, Ghost Busters, Justice Inc, Innomne, Space 1889, Timewatch, Torch Bearer, Five Torches Deep, Elf Quest, Hell on Earth, Highlander, Demon, FUDGE (A bunch of games but its basically just FATE), Champions, Pheonix Command, Fuzion (Several Games), Tales from the Wandering Vagabond, Robocop, Lawn Mover Man, D20 (Countless trash), and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, but I've played a lot more then that.
(Dear God I Need A Life)
Now that might seem a like a big list but lets face it doesn't mean anything. It just means I've run a lot games.
Does that make my opinion any more valid then yours? No, of course not.
But I'm not talking out of my @$#@ either.
I've played a lot of good games, and lot of bad games, and this one could have been great.
It has all the physical qualities to indicate actual care and effort into the title , but holy @$%&. Its like they assembled a bunch of rules, started to write the game, ran out of time and swept everthing into the cover and pretended that was going to be final version.
This is the first game both I and my players ever looked at each other and agreed never to play this again. And believe me we tried to make this thing work. For three we ran an ongoing campaign, before we just said @$!@# and broke out a copy of Cypher instead.
Seriously though, if you sat down a copy of GURPS and just adlibed your own rules you would still do better then these guys did.
If you like the game, great!
More power to you. Could it have been better?
HOLY @$%# YES!
So, I'm sorry you're not hearing what you want to hear, but I'm glad you got something that you and your friends can play. Which is the whole point anyways.
Getting together, grabbing some dice and having fun.
And if this game gives you that. BRILLIANT!
[Oh... in case you want examples of games that do it better then Modiphius did it with Fallout, pretty much the entire list above except Indian Jones, Lawn Mower Man, and Robocop].
@@GameMastersWorkshop sweet, I actually love everything you just said. Literally, it’s great. I just wish THAT was the review. Like, if the contents of your review was this reply, and your past couple. Because these comments right here are a great way of saying it and breaking it down.
The mechanics of the system, whatever. What I was trying to get at, was how much you were pointing out in your review that it was based off the video game. Believe me, I watched your video to buck against my own confirmation bias. It doesn’t matter that you like the game or not. But I feel like you covered a lot more in these replies than you did the review. These other systems? Fantastic reference.
And even explaining what you did and didn’t like about it, was done really well in these replies. If you do more reviews in the future, please, lay them out like you did these replies, and it would be fantastic, and I’d love to watch it more. I can completely understand how frustrating it would be, to see a system have so much potential, and then see it’s actually disappointing. The video felt more like a rant than a review. And I feel like these points you made here were far more fleshed out.
I hope you do more RPG reviews, branch out into other things. I get this channel is mostly fallout. But I would love to see more grognards out there. My favorite RPG channels are the ones that can systematically make good points, and tear apart TTRPG systems. And for that I’m being genuine. I’m the perma GM. I don’t do player things. When I watch reviews like that, it points things out to me my players might not like, and I should probably change.
So I hope none of this upset you. I would love to see more content from your perspective, breaking down how they do things. Especially things in the cypher system. That one has had my curiosity, and I haven’t made any moves towards it. Please keep up the good work, please do more reviews of RPG’s if that’s something you enjoyed doing. And if you do, structure it like you did in your replies here, I thoroughly enjoyed them 😁. Have a wonderful day
I think I'll get the books and use them as source material to convert them to Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System. The basic stats will fit in well with a d100 game format.
@@Kwantomkaos Great Idea
Can you target limbs and location damage like in fo games?
Yes, you can.
The mechanics are a bit wonky, but not incredibly complicated. Here's the gist.
1) Every piece of armor has a location it covers, along with Balastic and Energy Resistance scores.
1) During a normal attack the GM is expected to roll 1d20, to determine a random hit location. Damage is applied to that location, but subtracted from the general hit points.
2) Damage that exceeds around 4pts can do additional effects like crippling the limb, etc.. a saving throw USING SURVIVAL is required to determine the effect.
3) If the player wants to target a paticular hit location, to shoot around armor, disarm some one, etc... they mearly need to raise the targeting difficulty by 1 to hit that location. If the player has a Pipboy, the VATS system, over rides that, and no additional difficulty is needed.
If you want a fast and easy way to do it, here's what I ended up doing based on ideas I got from Tim Caine.
1) All hits are body hits unless the player calls it.
2) Raise the difficulty by 1 for targeting a hit location.
3) Stagger, Disarm, Stun, etc... if the damage exceeds half the targets Endurance. Disable the location if the damage exceeds their Endrance.
There you go, quick, fast, and dirty, but a lot faster then rolling random hit locations and making saving throws after every successful hit.
What keycaps do you have that are RGB + Cyrillic?
Hey Locusthorde,
Great question, and I wish I knew!
That was bit of stock footage I got from Pexels.com. So I don't really know. I just used as part of the visual narrative of the video. Let me see looking up the video it was by "Tim Miroshnichenko". You can find more of his work at Pexels, and might be able to ask him.
Later my friend
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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I bought Fallout some time ago. What I liked, I thought was great. What I didn't like is the bits that make it too fiddly to want to play. 2d20 roll under seems like a great mechanic. I wasn't sold on Action points and feats. I'm also not keen on any game that needs special dice.
Agreed... specially the priotarity dice
Perks are pretty standard, but like many of buffs in this game they weren't done right. So I'm one hundred percent with you there.
Meanwhile I was personally OK, with the premise of Action Points, specially in a game that requires multiple successes for a task, but soured on them as you noted that they became ridicuiously fiddly.
If you need a chart to use your mercy currency, your doing something wrong.
Its clear that this game needed a good editor, unify all the competing tones.
Its kind of perplexing to see a game, that hand waves reloading your gun, still charges you a simple action to draw it.
I mean pick a lane!
Do you want to quantify and track everything, or do you want to hand wave things that slow down game.
Both are legitimate styles of play, but you gotta choose one or the other not both.
This game is like a desert cart with Chocolate Creme Bruel, a Twinkie still in the wrapper, and bag of sugar with vanilla dumped all over it all on the same plate. They all might be tasty, but putting them together is tonally deaf.
A good editor, and some proper play testing could have fixed most of this.
What makes maters worse, is talking to some people who've played through the so called fixes... Modeiphuis has actually made maters worse.
They quadruplled down on the propriatary dice, and made their resolution sytem even more fiddly.
In the newest system, you have to use AP and or Luck to purchase the type of Effect dice you want to use (because now there are a variety of them), and then use them to generate a effect value that exceeds the difficulty of the task, to resolve things
Now the 2d20 just lets you make the effect roll, it doesn't actually resolve the task, and is essentially an after thought.
Seriously!?
Its like buying a car, finding out that the engine was put in backwards and the wheels weren't included, only for them to attempt to fix the situation by selling a tow truck to drag the car around with.
If these people sold used cars and not roleplaying games, they would be in jail for fraud.
specialty dice? it uses only 2: d6 and d20...
@jeremiahjohnson2784 Fate, storytelling dice. Not sure what they are called. D6s with different faces. I know there is a conversation in the core book. GM has enough to worry about as it is. I've lost so many dice and other bits and pieces over the years. If I have to have something game specific, that's a turn off for me.
So i noticed on archive there are a few fan written games some are 5e some are gurps? (Sorry new to ttrpgs)
Can an experienced table top player and fallout fan tell us who makes a decent fan game?
Ah, those are actually a hybrid we did using Cypher. Basic Cypher rules, but we replaced cyphers with rerolls and used 3d6 rather then a D20
Dungeon master for 'Wrong side of the Verse' was TinCat one of players running his first game
As for whats makes a decent fan game, thats a great question, and it depends on your target audience.
First thing to note is their familiarity with the setting:
If your game is targeted toward low familiarity players, you want to hit all the high points and basics of the world. AKA: If you were making a Starwars game, you're gonna need the Force, Lightsabers, Stock Light Freighters, Blasters, Wookies, and some driods. Basically anything your Grandmother might know if you asked her about Star Wars.
As your target audience level grows, you'll want to include more and more precise details and fan service, and with it lore checking (which can be a nightmare because most IPs have plot holes or discontinuties in their lore).
Next is Skill level of your players:
If your making your game for new players or low skill players who are new to the hobby. You want your rules as rules lite as possible and stream lined. Start from scratch explaining what an RPG is and work your way back through the process explaing each important beat in detail. Like what is a character. How to makes rolls. How to make mission. Run a combat etc... Bonus things you can do for new players is walk throughs of an actual play session and rules summary in the back of the book, so they can read the book and learn, and then just flip to the back in case they forget anything.
After that is Play Style:
Different IPs have different themes and appeal to different styles of players. If the IP is hard and crunchy, the rules should be hard and crunchy. If they're game is improvisational and narratively driven, the rules should be too.
Take James Bond as an IP, while James could probably rattle off the stats of every gun, car and gadget he uses, the audience just sees FLASHY CAR, HOT BABE, and COOL GUN. If your writing a James Bond game, you want to do cool stunts, and wild death defying gambles. A James Bond game would run rules lite, with plot and hero points, so James could jump his folding briefcase motercycle over a tank sharks, rather then rules crunchy rules where he would die in a firey wreck the first time he tried to do Bootlegger Reverse in heavy traffic in the middle of Paris. No mater what you want the style of play your rules create reflect the stories and themes of the game your writing.
Etc... after that you're gonna want to make sure your Flavor Text, Layout and Filler is evocative of the game your trying to make. For example a Blade Runner game is going to be a dicotimy between the "Dirty and Darkness" of dying world where the sky is always dark and "Neon and Flash" of corperations selling false hope. The stories should be inspired by Film Noir, and art should be pastel water colors over dark muted browns and blacks to capture the contract between neon glitz and dark empty streets. Nothing should be completely in focus with no sharp lines, as Blade Runner is about uncertianity, and your art should if possible have multiple meanings, so two people looking at the same image can come to completely different conclusions.
Sorry, that went on for a bit:
TLDR: Short answer, the game should be built around the world. With rules designed to emulate the way the world feels and the way its stories are told. When possible the IP owner and game designer should share single vision and work together to make something that reflects that.
If any of that breaks down, your game is gonna suffer. Whew.. sorry that was a lot, I hope it helps.
If it doesn't let me know.
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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I wonder if Fallout would be played better on something like Pinnacle's Savage World System. I mean they did Rifts which with a bit of tweaking could easily be made into Fallout I would think.
Hey Lionel,
Should work fine!
Savage worlds, is a fun universal system, that awards experience based on completing quests.
This is a good thing.
One of things I've found from playtesting several different game systems in the setting, is that you need to stay quest focused, otherwise a lot of players will turn the game into a dungeon crawl searching and looting ruins.
Not bad for a session or two, but gets montonous after a while.
Also watch loot creep. If players see something shinny, they will take jack hammers and crowbars to drag it back.
Given a chance your average group will turn a common junk yard, into a armored base full of robots and armored dune buggies with jet engines. So use whatever resources are at your disposal to mitgate this.
In the current system I'm play testing, I added a durrability mechanic to the system, to constantly break and wear down gear. They still manage to drag stuff back to the city for sale, but they use half of it repairing the gear they have, and the other half gets spent drinking in the local bar.
Finally I'm not sure how what your play style is, but I would recommend adding Reputation and Faction mechanics.
Have them build a reputation, and get better quests based on it. Have them hear the exploits called out over the radio, and have the occaisional fanboy or armed assassin come calling after hearing their name.
Meanwhile lock some gear and edges behind Faction membership. Have them scramble to join various group to get the goodies they want, and then pull a fast one and have the various factions begin competing against each other. Make them the protageonist that decide through their actions which Faction will prevail...
And... I'm getting way off track.
Sorry about that!
Savage Worlds sounds fun! Let me know how it works out!
I'd be interested in hearing any game logs you guys might generate.
Have nice night, and good luck and good gaming!
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@@GameMastersWorkshop Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I'd use a durability mechanic. I'd just likely require resources. Things like batteries and gas although I suppose if they use it excessively or it gets damaged spare parts might be a quest in its own. Excessive loot usually isn't a problem in my games as I take the Mad Max approach in that if you collect too much junk you'll attract looters who will want to take it from you. Faction standing sounds like a good idea and you can have certain factions controlling different resources or areas so just playing nice to one might not be a good idea.
@@lionelwhiskerknotI like it!
I subbed because I 100% agree with your review and want to see it actually reworked. I look forward to your future endeavors in this area. Cheers!
Fallout 1 and 2 were originally meant to be GURPS in a video game format, but the deal fell through so they designed an original system.
I feel like any Fallout setting i visit will be done in GURPS lul
Hey Shade,
This is true, If I remember correctly. Tim said he came up with the SPECIAL system over a weekend after Steve Jackson canceled their plans because he was having problems with some of the more adult elements of the game.
So GURPS can definately work. I would just keep clear of some of the more complicated rules like their advanced firearm or vehicle rules. No reason to spend a hour figuring penetration values and bullet drop if you don't have to.
I agree with the layout. Seems to be an issue with all Modiphius' game manuals and yes survival is a crutch skill and is lame but easily fixed. I love the 2d20 system. I have been gaming forever and it's quick and easy to roleplay and combat is loose and rules lite. My players have been asking me to run another campaign.
I agree.
I personally love 2d20 as well. Its a flexible system, and has been used for a lot of very good games. Conan is my favorite.
Unfortunately for me they fell down when they implimented it into this setting.
In Conan they tried to capture the feel of Conan. Drunken parties leveling your character, and scaring an army men off by decapitating their leader. Things like that...
But in Fallout, it was like they just ran out of time, and just sent what they had to the printer, and said... @$&# it! We'll fix it in the errata.
Except they never fixed it.
They took a bunch of existing material and just reworked it for 2d20, without actually making a working RPG first.
So we end up with a bunch of disjointed mechanics, that don't actually mesh. Where they tell the game master is just told to wing it, and figure it out for themselves. After pages and pages of nonsense.
I would get that if we were talking about something kind of rare like... trying to talk a Robot into 'Self Destructing' or something, but we're not.
We're talking about basic elemental things... like determining surprise or resisting poison.
When you have 64 pages of loot tables, but can't actually spend half a paragraph on an appropriate poison save... that's just bad game design.
I love 2d20.
I love Fallout.
I do not love 2d20 Fallout...
And I hate that!
But it doesn't mater what any one person does or doesn't like. There's always some one out there that always thinks or feels differently.
So I appreciate your point of view, and I too like 2d20. Just not 2d20 Fallout.
In case, thanks for the comment.
I appreciate it.
I'm getting called away to play testing session so I got to go. In any case have a great night, and...
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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I agree with much of what you said, but your arguments (in the video) are not well made. Your feedback in the comments section is MUCH better as others have pointed out. I do think the game can be “saved”, and I do think the game designers are open to feedback for future revisions. It’s still “new” as far as ttrpgs go. And the TV show success is going to apply pressure due to the influx of new gamers.
My random incomplete list of likes/dislikes in the rules ...
Likes: d20 roll low is nice for simplicity, DR mechanic is simple, “magic” food/drink are fun, “magic” magazines are hilarious, “magic” gear is great, ammo usage trades are nice, d20 assist and group skills work well, similarity to video games (i.e. i already know all the perks, etc) is terrific … the more similar the better
Dislikes: +1/+2 defense way too crude around an agility breakpoint, lack of clear examples or hard rules in many areas, AP max party pool arbitrary, rolling a zillion D6 is annoying, the Nd20 math for higher difficulties is broken (I made tables of all the probabilities for all checks for all special+skill combos), bleeding is hilariously vague and OP, poison isn’t a thing and doesn't match the videos games at all, crafting mods need too many perks per person (or way too many on ONE person) and no one would waste perks on this, VATS and body part hitting not really tied to AP like in the video games and accuracy isn’t a thing, +1 HP per level regardless of END is silly
I had a rather massive reply written out that pushed the 10,000 character boundary but deleted it. Doesn’t really matter.
For sure the rules are very soft and lacking. I’ve had to go into discord and talk with a lot of DM/GMs to come up with solid work arounds and we’ve come up with good stuff. Again, we shouldn't have to do it, but I think it will be feedback for the game in the end.
Your rant on skills and skill usage is a bit off (bad examples), but for sure I’ll agree the rules put a lot of work on the DM/GM. I come from Rolemaster, which is the king of skillmagedon. So I’ve already made adjustments to the FO rules to make things work. As you say, we shouldn’t HAVE to do such things, but it doesn’t bother me and I get to use > 80% the material in the book still and that is a win for me. I kept thinking in your video … if the skill system was PERFECT, would he still give the whole game a 3/10?
Also, how the heck do you not like whiskey giving you strength? Have you never HAD whiskey? Or bourbon having END effects. Or any of this stuff? I mean in any other game it would all be magic items (potions, etc). What’s the difference if it is food/drink and chems? It’s all meant to be thematic, not real. I love the idea of a set of flight goggles helping with PER, or a spiffy suit letting you gain +1 to barter. Why not?
If you can’t remember things, just name them differently … “Muscle Man Whiskey”, “Steady Hand Rum”, “Bart’s Bartering Beer” (doesn’t exist but sharing a beer while trading would seem to give a boost right?). I don’t know, this seems like you had already “given up” and were just calling out random things to hate on.
Anyhow neat video. Comment section was the best part. I look forward to the next one.
Hey Knaz,
Dear God ROLEMASTER. WOW! There are some memories.
You make a lot of valid points, and I love the fact you decided to lean into the buff mechanics rather then beat your head into the kitchen table they way I did.
I mean its very "Video Gamey" but not paticularly Fallout.
But it's your game and an important part of running a game is running it the way you want to.
So lets take a look at the point I was making why I was giving myself a concusion beating my head against a table because time the players picked up an object it had a random magic property... and why that doesn't work in a Fallout game
We'll take your example of Alcohol as an example.
You see alcohol, was always just meant to be alcohol, in the Fallout. It was never was intended from a Roleplaying aspect to be anything other then alcohol. Instead thats what chems were supposed to do.
"Better living through Chemistry" and all that.
I mean Lucas Simms gives you a pack of "Mentats" to disarm the nuclear bomb, not a chardonnay.
Chems were supposed to let you run up walls, heal instantly and punch Deathclaws into the stratosphere. Beer was just meant to be beer, but Fallout is a video game so over time, video game mechanics needed to figure a way make beer important to the player beyond being able to sell a bottle for 2 caps a peice.
Beer went from "Beer the Generic Beer Flavored Beer" relaxing you and letting pick up strangers in a bar, to "Huntsmans Ale for the Man who Eats Bear!", with a 10% buff to hunting and 20% damage buff when fighting bears. In a video game its funny and hilarious, and even appropriate, in a roleplaying game its bizaare.
Because in a video game you have to encourage players to do to things like eat and drink, but you don't do that in a role playing game, because eating and drinking is something they're supposed to do any ways.
On top of that you need to variety and variation. If someone is doing an Alcohol build, hey you want them to have a whole slew of magical mixtures they can do. But if your playing a random drunk who's lost his family, it takes the mundane hooch you were drinking and turns it into a magical potion. It doesn't dull pain of your lost loved ones, it gives you 50% boost to haulin ass.
What I'm trying to say, if your trying to replicate the stories and settings of a world, you don't include rules for every skill and power buff you get for eating Spaghetti-Os unless the themes of your game are literally "YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT", and people covet basic food for its magical properties.
In other words, if you think walking up to two Wastelanders making camp in the middle of nowhere hearing them say... "You want a Huntsmans Ale?! Are you nuts we need that to hunt that Yaogui! Here have a Pickaxe Pilsner instead, we need some one to go out and dig a new latrine anyways." ...makes sense. Then go for it because thats the setting those rules are reinforcing.
Not bad if your playing Zanth, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense if your talking about two grungy wastelanders deciding what to eat for dinner.
Yes, I totally think they should have included rules for getting a buzz for drinking some alcohol. I think they should have included a couple special mixed drinks using rare or unique ingredients. I don't think they should have given you a ten page mixologist list allowing you to craft magic potions from drain cleaner and corn, in a game about Roleplaying, Exploration and Problem Solving.
One or two those would have been cool and made them special. Pages and pages of them makes them mundane and something everyone does.
But then again, my game isn't your game, so you shouldn't have to play by my rules.
Instead it sounds like you like more wild and wacky game! Not paticularly Fallout, but its a game you enjoy.
So good for you.
Glad you guys figured out a way to fix this pig that works for you.
Because holy crap its broken.
Listen thanks for the insight and feedback I appreciate it.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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@@GameMastersWorkshop Thanks for the reply. I can see how you got wrapped around the axel! To me, I don't think of the bonuses as "known". Like walking up to those strangers to give them beer and have them be like "what a waste" wouldn't happen that way. Again, I think of myself in real life. Beer is indeed a "drug" that has an impact on me and makes me more social, funnier (to a limit), etc. And Scotch makes me happy. Is that a -1 INT hit with a +1 LUCK? A shitty Scotch puts me into a rage for having bought it. Is that +1 STR? I don't know and don't care. Funny to think about I guess.
And also, you can just rule that none of it is real. If you simply can't get over it ... then ignore it. Just go the CP2077 way and make all alcohol a negative. -1 AGI, -1 INT, -1 PER, etc. That works too. Sometimes it just gets out of hand though. Oh shit he drank some whiskey I better decrease his hydration status! There is a limit to all this.
I think of food buffs the same way and like them in this world setting. It makes sense to me that certain "meals" you make out of creatures of the wasteland have different effects and are different quality. I mean why not? My vault dwellers fresh into the world are hungry as hell and now they have to eat rad scorpion meat for the first time? Hmmm, this will be interesting.
I've already layered a ton of stuff onto the rules and think they are working out well. For sure I shouldn't have to! But it takes me no time at all. I now have a full "stat check" table for actions that cannot be trained/skilled and only come from experience (i.e. level bonuses). I have all the standard skills mapped to actions that make sense. I've layered on the entire Fallout New Vegas Reputation system (with slightly easier math) because it is amazing. I LOVE everything being gray and no choices are B&W. I think the game is working well.
Last thing I'll say ... I liked your reply (it made me laugh with the thought of an alcohol build!) except I kind of take mild offense at you thinking I like a "wild and whacky" game. I do not. We just see things differently. What needs to be realistic vs what is just a means to an end mechanic. In fact my campaign is quite harsh and a battle of attrition with resources hard to come by to really make players think like their characters in a tough environment. It all adds to the fun. That's what I love about Fallout. It's "dark humor". Stuff you have to shrug off as silly, but has very dark implications. I am staying incredibly close to Fallout canon.
Anyhow I hope you find your ideal system!
PS: It's not Rolemaster that should make you shudder ... it's the fact we're playing in Shadow World!
Hey Knaz,
No problem, sorry I didn't reply yesterday, got caught at work and wasn't able to respond all day. (Sorry its Florida, I'm lucky if I get lunch more or less a break to respond to something.)
Sounds like you got a fun game going, and put a lot of work into making it work. Very cool!
Gratz my amigo!
And sorry about the wild and wacky statement, your right in retrospect was pretty rude. My appologies, wont happen again.
And you are correct the rules of Fallout Humor Are... let me check my notes...
1) Humor is good
2) Dark humor is better
3) Slapstick is bad
4) Inside joke ok, but only if its still funny for those who don't get the inside humor.
I think Tim Caine explained it as:
A joke about a boy and his dog is good.... (Humor)
A joke about Lassie isn't good, unless its also a joke about Lassie accidentaly shoving Timmy into the well. (Inside Jokes)
A joke about Lassie randomly shoving Timmy into a well, over and over again so she can praised for pulling him out is best. (Dark Humor)
But a joke about Lassie getting sick and tired of people not being to understand her barks, and just breaking the fourth wall and telling people in plain English that "Timmy fell in the well" is right out. (Slap Stick)
Humor in general is such an important part of the game, it feels like it needs a proper reward. Like an Xp reward for best joke of the night or something.
I'll think about it, its something to kick around.
Ok, Shadow World? Never heard of it. Let check the interwebs....
OOOooooo... Ok, might have to dig up a copy of that, even though I doubt I can get any of my currents groups to give it a whirl, but that's why we have the big bookcases of gaming I guess. To have rules you can steal from even if you never get to play.
Ok, my friend. I have to run off and take the wife to the beach.
You great day!
:)
And I appreciate all the comments and feedback.
Good Luck and Have a Great Day!
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Did you ever got around doing your own take of the rules for this game? I searched around your channel and didnt find it.
Doing it as we speak.
I was originally going to do a full rules fix, but my players convinced me to do a rewrite instead.
Which is how we got the Design Document video.
That said, a lot of people want the hacks we tried, so we're doing both. Just cut the audio for the first hack should be up this week.
Multiple people requested deep dives on rule and why they don't work and how we can make them work, so the video is getting shot from that point of view, but if you want a top ten fast hacks. I can try to make that happen.
Maybe I can do them as channel posts and toss them up there. I can knock at least one of those out a night with out a lot effort.
Thanks for the request
I'll see what I can do.
@@GameMastersWorkshop Bless your players for indulging you to do a writeup. I'd be interested in both the rewrite and the fixes, but if I had to choose, I'd go with the fixes first.
Given the harsh review (which I agree with), it would be interesting to see how you'd tackle those issues.
@@VictorJulioHurtado Thanks if I get off track, or start to get it wrong, please correct me!
Far as I'm concerned all feedback is good feedback.
So I'll appreciate anything you can send my way.
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I'd love to see you have a look at lancer and icon rpgs. They're two new systems that just popped up in my radar that seem to be striking a really neat balance between video game and rpg logic in their format.
I also do want to echo here that I feel your opinion and review could have been better delivered with some more direct examples as a part. I see your argument that the topical approach was to reduce the overall video's runtime, but I do feel some of the repeated hammering home of opinions could be cut instead for a couple quick examples.
Hey Ryan,
I had another viewer mention the Lancer/Icon system. Haven't tried it yet, but both look fun.
The aesthetics for look interesting, and have a unique anime style vibe. That's definately evocative. I haven't read through the any setting info but I'm interested in seeing how it drives the ethos of the game.
Narrative games with lots of world building, and tactical elements are right up my alley so I'll probably have to give them a go.
I've only glanced at the rules so far, but just taking a peek at the character sheets so far, I can strong commitment to the themes of their setting, as well as addressing all the basic mechanical questions. For instance there are only 10 basic skills, but they are the right ten basic skills, and cover all the basic questions.
When I have a chance I'll have to give them a go.
Thanks for the tip!
I'll look into them
@@ryandugan9176 Agreed,
Hrm.... and I think I can address that. Not only in the future, but going forward in this situation in paticular.
A bunch of people want to see my hacks video, on how to fix the game, so let me reformat that, to gel with that idea.
1) Present an individual problem with the rules.
2) Explain what the issue is and give an example.
3) Do a full walk through of whats causing the problem, and what needs to be changed to fix it.
4) Give one to three potentional fixes. Noting their advantages, disadvantages, and which style of play they work best with.
It would be a lot of work, but players could see the problem, decide for themselves if its a sticking point for them, and then let them decide what works best for them.
Hrmmm... Its a lot of work, and each hack will probably end up being a single video, but I'm down.
Thanks Ryan.
I appreciate the feedback
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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I always am surprised by how many reviewers compliment this book's art. Yes, Bethesda's full page spreads are gorgeous and writing the book as an in-universe Vault-Tec product was pretty slick on the designer's part- but they seriously used an 'A-Pose' Super Mutant design for the artwork on the Super Mutant Origin page and then used a compressed concept sketch of a ghoul for the Ghoul Origin page. The Vault Dweller is also the standardized concept pose for thumbnailing armor design sketches and this trends throughout the entire book. Pretty sure there are several game assets just screen grabbed from Fallout 4 and pasted into the book. Was Modiphius really constrained on what art they could use for this? There is a lot of gorgeous original artwork for Wasteland Warfare (another Modiphius product), why is this entire rulebook just regurgitated concept art from Bethesda?
Edit: Winter of Atom and some of the other source books did begin using original pieces for various things. I am happy about that at least.
Great review. Absolutely loved Conan 2d20 and was really bummed out about this. Very interested in what you do to salvage it, with all of the hype around the new series I would love to see if you can get this to a state where I'd be happy running it at my table. Subscribed for when that video drops. Cheers!
(Also great editing. I didn't actually watch this on my first viewing, only listened; came back after digesting it for a few days and ended up watching it all again because the footage was captivating.)
Hey John,
You're 100% Correct! And damn I wish I had you when I was reviewing the art, because while I could general identify most of it as Bethesda's concept art, I couldn't identify paticular elements of it off the top of my head with out digging a copy of the art book myself, and was more effort then I was willing to spend.
So thanks for the heads up.
Lets face it, Art, Layout and Flavor Text have evolved a lot over the years. In the past they were primarily used simple as filler to reach appropriate page counts or to fill dead space. But as games have evolved so too have the use of Art and Flavor, and now rather then simply filler, they're used to convey feel of the game and its themes to the reader. Introducing them to the world and reinforcing it story as they go.
Which is why even some one as critical as I, said the art was great.
Lets face it, the book is filled with reused concept art, but they used it well.
They expertly cut, clipped and merged elements of various art peices or whole scenes into the book to convey feel of the games, while keeping a consistent look. Not every peice is perfect, and none of it is original, but over all its not bad.
And lets face it, when your talking about Licenced Titles, thats pretty damn good. As they're usually packed with poorly rendered and blocked screen captures and bad filler art, with little or no consistency in theme or concept.
At least here they kept it consistent and thematic, so you got to give them credit for that even if they were cribbing directly off Bethesdas work, rather then turning in their own assignment. So while its no 'Mork Borg', but its also not 'Lawn Mower Man' either.
Its good, but... not great! Instead what they've done is something in between. Even if thats mostly due to them not ruining Bethesdas art. But Hey, that's an art in itself.
Ok, man. Off to port in the next video and cut audio for the first round of fixes.
Once again thanks for the run down. If you have any other insight or questions let me know. I love to learn, and as you can tell, am always willing to chat.
And until next time
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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Do you have a review on the FWW RPG expansion as well? I know it suffers a lot of similar issues you mentioned with the 2d20 rpg. I’m new to dming and bought the limited edition book and I like the cards. Been reading all your comments on how to make it better, that would apply to both games e.g get rid of buffs for every item, ditch proprietary dice (not sure how), add more background option for player characters. And there isn’t even any starting equipment list. Perk list feels small. FWW RPG thankfully offers more options than just survival checks but not as mush as dnd. No language checks with different languages. I thought that would be cool in fallout with a Chinese pre-war ghoul faction and America just being a bastion of diverse cultures.
I’m thinking of using the FWW app to randomly pick loot instead of using loot tables and just only using stats for important items like weapons, armour, chems, rare food/drink. (app lets you randomly pick with some filter options). The proprietary dice really stump me as the cards heavily rely on them but I also like the cards and rolling blue die for special effects. It’s just that skill checks are made really confusing with these dice like using the extra impact you get from black dice to improve a result. Or using the yellow or green dice for slightly different result. And then they compare their skill check to their own stat to succeed instead of the dm deciding the DC number. Players can upgrade a skills check with xp and choose which colour dice they use for that check they have proficiency in.
I might scavenge some rules from 2d20 like you said armour crafting was good in the comments. Man a lot of good stuff in the comments you said were not in the video.
Archetype cards are weird, the books says you can create your own but gives no balanced explanation to do so, just says use any character card from FWW you want. Which some are mighty unbalanced.
Modiphius have clearly realised their mistake and hired a proper game designer for fallout factions (they axed proprietary dice) Just hope they use that to fix the rpg books for both games in the errata. I’ve only dmed a dnd 5e one-shot I made (been a player for 4 years) and it sucked so maybe I’m jumping the gun with a lot of this. It could be sunk cost fallacy but I really want to make this game work, even if I have to steal rules from 2d20 and dnd 5e from the get go.
Anyway sorry for the long rant. If you already have a video on FWWRPG then my bad, gonna look through your channel now.
Hey Ryan,
I love your thinking. You're diving deep! I love that! Don't worry, you've already done the hardest part. Picked up the dice and run a game! From here, it only gets easier.
You'll be a great GM!
The most important thing to always remember is that everyone is there to have fun, including you. So always remember players (including you) and story first, rules second. Remember that, and players will love your games, and you'll love running them.
Ok, that out of the way.... let me try to do your questions justice.
Haven't read FWW yet, but I've had several people ask about it. So I might have to. With that in mind I can't give you any indepth advice but I can lend basic generic advice that might help.
Ok, lets start with the...
Cards!
Sounds like they're a lot of fun. And between you and me, cards are a lot more useful and faster then tables, as you can contain all the rules you need right there on the card. Which is cool! So I hope these work out for you.
My best advice for using them, is to introduce them slowly. Start off by cherry picking what cards you want to use for your first few sessions, and just put those in the draw deck. After a couple of sessions as you become comfortable with those cards, add new ones. Keep doing that until you get the deck to the way you like it. Remember you're not required to use every card, so if any of the cards have weird rules, or feel over powered just drop them.
Propritary Dice
I'm glad to hear they made these more useful, but then not so happy to hear they then went and made things more complicated. Sorry about that.
Let see if I understand how they work, the color of the dice determine the overall effect or impact from the players rolls. Blue dice are the basics, black dice have more impact, yellow and green have different special effects etc...
The players determine what the impact of their rolls are by (I'm guessing here) perks, skill test results, and game currency they wish to spend (AP, Experience, Etc..)
AKA: If you wanted to add more damage you would choose to use black dice, if you wanted to knock some one down, you would use the green dice or something... (Once again, I haven't seen the dice so thats a guess).
Hrm... Wow that is a pain in the butt!
Ok, best advice, keep the Basic Blue dice for now, and see if you can delay adding the extra dice until you got a couple sessions under your belt. Don't make the rules any more complicated for yourself then your comfortable with, and learn one step at time.
Feel free to tell the players that. As long as your open and honest about that kind of stuff you shouldn't get any real push back.
Difficulty
Wow I really need to read these rules to untangle what they did here. My best guess is that they moved the difficulty from being success based, to being effect based. Ok... that's workable, and I'll see if I can unravel it for you.
I'm going to psudo rule here, so what I come up with is a guess at best.
Lets say the characteres are trying to jump over a ravine. Its not about whether or not the characters can jump, but how far! So characters make their success test, as long as they don't fail or botch it they jump... but did they make it?
To determine that you would roll your effect dice.
Ok, lets use the BLUE DICE for this, as I know those.
The Blue Dice have an average Impact result of just under 1. [1-2 (No Impact) 3-5 (1 Impact with possible special) 6 (Double Impact)0 Not counting the special effects, you get on average just under 1 impact for each Blue die you roll. So if the ravine was say 3 meters across and the rules say you roll 1 die for every point of strength. We could assume the player just automatically clears 4 meters without having to roll.
Technically we only need to roll the blue dice, if the over all effect they need is greater then the players default score. In which case the player may want to spend currency (XP) to use dice that might give them a better result.
Am I getting that right?
If that's right, I get it.
Its more complicated, but I get it.
Ok, assuming I got that right, my best advice is to familiarize yourself with the characters and determine what they're basic impact is for their most common tasks (Noticing things, Running, Jumping, Etc...), and just customize the effect you require based on that.
So for basic rolls, don't require an effect roll.
For challenging tests. Require an effect roll, and make sure they get about an average of 1 per die.
For hard tests. Require an effect roll, and make sure they get a couple over their basic effect. So if they have 4 dice, require them to hit an effect of 5, or higher.
Etc... that's not an exact analysis, but it should get you through the first couple of games if you want to use those rules.
Languages
I love that you want to add language. I say go for it.
A cool rule I've used in the past isn't language checks but changing the way players speak. The players had language levels, but rather then make rolls whenever they used the language they were limited in their voculary and sentence structure by their level. So...
Level 1: You only know the most basic words of the language. You can only speak in single one word, one sylibol sentences. "Good!" "Bad!" "Fire!" "Eat!"... etc...
Level 2: You know the basics of the language and can form basic sentences. (verb noun) "Help me!" "Stay there", etc...
Level 3: Conversational speach: You can use basic sentences and words, but must improvise when discussing specific things. "Hi, my name is John!", "Where are you from?", "It happens in... (October) the month after the month after now...", "Its next to... Main Frame) the big math metal box with blinky lights"
Level 4: You know rarely used words, "Its by the main frame", "Do you know what frequency they are on?"
Level 5: You have an extensive vocabulary, and can convey multiple meanings or precise information with the most subtle of words. "As introvert, he's quite laconic and suffers from a continual maliase that is the eniue of his life".
Level 6: People use you to correct Dictionary's and Thesarus's
Personally I would just make a short language list, of the most common languages in the region and then give the players 1 free point of languagers per point of Intelligence.
Whew....
You have a lot of questions, and I'm on my way to work, so I hope that helps! Until I read FWW, that's probably the best I'm gonna do.
As for not including everything I had in the comments in the video. I would have loved to, but the video was already 20+ minutes long and including detailed break downs would have taken it over an hour, but your right I might have to do that in future.
Ok, lets see...
I'm glad your excited about your upcoming game! So hope it totally works out for you. Just remember. Don't sweat the small stuff. Roll the dice, use your judgement, and move on. Don't worry about minutia, for now. The players just want to have fun. So they really don't care what the dice say, as long as they're having a good time.
An Easy Cheat Sheet for a fun RP Session is...
Beat them, stab them, drag them through the mud, tear off their limbs, grind their bones, but... LET THEM WIN.
To most players, it doesn't mater to if you tear them from limb to limb as long as they get to beat the bad guy in the end.
Ok, I'm off to work, but let me know how your game goes or if you have any additional questions.
Until next time.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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Hey thanks for the thorough response, re-read it a couple of times to get it to sink in. Had to look at the book again to fully understand the skill effect die.
You were spot on with the effect based system.
It seems to work by using blue, green, yellow & black die along side a white. 4 at most of each colour not including blue.
In combat black die often adds more damage, yellow reduces armour, green increases chance to hit and blue can cause effects like fire or injury on some special weapons.
In skill checks:
Black adds more impact for greater effect, yellow reduces targets resistance (e.g. padlocked doors armour when trying to break it down) and green increases chance to succeed. Blue isn’t used.
You add what’re colour die you have to the white d20 and if that d20 score is equal or lower than the stat for the skill and it meets the impact requirement by the dm then it succeeds with potentially greater effect with more impact.
A luck point can also be used to make a 50:50 re-roll on a fail for one die.
I think that’s how it works from what I can understand of the text. It’s a lot different from dnd 5e so hope it goes well.
Thanks again for the feedback, I look forward to that FWWRPG video 👍
@@Ryan-gc9om No problem, and good luck my friend.
You'll do great
I mostly agree with the video, but I do think it's over the top with the criticism.
Playing exactly by the rules would be torture. No way people are going to calculate encumbrance on the paper sheet. Maybe if we got a good character sheet app, but we didn't.
I simplified encumbrance and other systems like hunger/thirst.
The skills are capped at 6 because of tags. Having rolls crit at 8 would be insane.
I do have issues with skills, so I reinterpret them a bit.
I would roll gambling as Lck + Barter, because I think this skill is about money in general, not just haggling.
Sometimes I just skip a roll and follow stats and background.
Military history? Are you from a faction that would care (like BoS) and have at least 7 INT? Then yes, if not, nah you never heard of it. Not everything has to be a roll in this game and there is no way I would let a wastelander mechanic roll INT + Survival check with target of tagged 16 on a history check.
My group and I have a lot of fun with the game, but I see how that's because I reinterpret or throw out a lot of rules. If someone completely new to ttrpg wanted to run a game on this and followed by the book, they wouldn't have such a great time.
I guess tho, it's in a bethesda's style to release a messy product and just let everyone mod and fix it on their own.
Hey Yarol,
Yep, rules as writen this thing is a mess, and a good Game Master is going to have to hand wave half of this nonsense, in order to make it work.
So I'm glad you guys had a lot of fun playing this. Bravo.
Interestingly enough, digging in this appears to be a failure by Modiphius themselves as opposed to just being a Bethesda product, apparently I'm getting feedback from a lot of viewers that they've done simular hack jobs in the past.
So apparently this is a Modiphius thing rather then a Bethesda thing.
In any case thanks for the feedback. We appreciate it, I got to record audio for about a dozen vidoes as speak, so have to get back to it.
Have a great and Good Luck and Good Gaming
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I've been looking at buying this for awhile now. Unfortunately the concept is way more interesting than anything Bethesda or these guys bothered doing with it. Do you know if nuclear winter fixed any of it? It would be really cool to play at the locations and with the characters that the world of fallout leaves us with. Too bad the ttrpg is as buggy as 76
Didn't check that out, far as I know not really.
That said, if want to check it out, go for it. What appeals to me, may not what appeals to you.
But as I said, for us at the very least a rebalance is in order.
Easy fixes I would recommend:
1) Remember absolutely everything is a skill check, so go ahead and add any skills that you feel are missing rather then just stuffing them under Survival like they did. Add what seems appropriate to you. Be prepared to find out that they are missing basic simple rolls.
2) Simplify the boost's. While you might want to track the difference between Nuka Cola and Nuka Cola Quantum, but you probably don't need to tell the difference of effects between Whiskey and Burbon.
3) Important tables are missing. Like scavenging.
But you can find screens, pdfs, and programs that have those tables for you.
Personally I would simplify the scavenging, tather then randomly rolling on loot tables.
Use colored effect dice, say red for ammo, green for drugs, etc... and just load the type of dice the feel appropriate to the area, then let any extra success the players roll on search equal extra dice they can assign. AKA: They needed one success and got two, let them add weapon die if they like. Then rather then roll on the tables, just interpet the dice and assign things as appropriate.
4) Tables slow things down. This is fine if we're talking about things like determining loot, but not if your determining damage in the middle of combat so drop any table that slows things down.
For example when the characters take a shot they're supposed to roll an extra die to determine hit location, and then you're supposed to refrence where they got hit.... etc... Don't bother with any of that, just make everything a body shot unless the players specifically target a location. Etc...
Wow theres a lot things to fix... Ok... I take it back. I can't recommend this game, even with fixes. So sorry to burst your bubble my friend.
That said its on sale right now in PDF form over at DrivethruRPG for like $12 which isn't a bad price for a game. So if your still interested in it or want to mine it for ideas go for it.
In the mean time the wife is calling me to bed. So have a great night my friend.
Good Luck and Good Gaming
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You very rarely say anything negative about anything, so this game must really stink.
Looking forward to seeing your adaption.
Granny and I need to get back into role playing sometime, we both miss it.
Snow DOG!!!
Love you both, brother!
Sorry you had to see me like that.
Yeah its bad game. Its complicated where it needs to be simple and simple where it needs to be complicated.
I feel bad for being so harsh on some one elses work of creativity, but its one of the few games I've tried to run, where both I and players just gave up on the rules half way through a session and agree to use something else next time we played.
I get where’s he coming from & it’s probably just me, but I do like when books don’t put everything on the table so it will easier to homebrew. With that said he is right about the skill & Stats maxing early on, still not sure if that can be fixed. Maybe if all characters start at 0 on there stats instead of 4 or 3?
Like- the core system is OK, but it's so slavishly connected to the source material that it really gets in its own way.
Hey Inu,
I absolutely agree
2d20 has great mechanics, but the way they implemented them here is a disservice to both products.
Rules are absolutely easiest a game can be.
Easy yes...
Good no...
Its a Skill plus Attribute system, but elemental and essential skills are simply missing. So you have to sub in random skills for anything basic they over looked, like survival to roll for surprise.
Skills and Attributes aren't weighted the same, so everything has to be a skill roll, even when it shouldn't. like making Survival checks to Resist down when you get shot.
Random buffs are added nonsensically to random peices of gear for zero reason, like a Hoodies giving you a free reroll for SCIENCE rolls.
Every single consumable is also a buff item from "Nuka Cola", to a "Dirty Wastelander", so player can't even eat without considering not only the dangers (which is Fallout), but what magical bonus's they are going to get (which is not).
There are pages and pages wasted on detailed crafting rules minutiazing what type of scrap you have, whick perks you've taken and what zodiac sign you were born under, but ZERO rules of REPUTATION, MORALITY, or even bloody FACTIONS.
Basic freaking tables are MISSING and sold in other products.
Even for things that they actually get almost right, they veer off the road and drive right for a cliff.
Take combat.
Lets do a simple walk through of a grab your gun and shoot it roll. You take your SmallArms+Agility and roll against their Defense [We're going to skip modifiers]. You now total the success [We'll skip AP, Food Buffs, Gear Buffs, Perks and even Extra succeses for now]. Player hits, now has to count their roll damage, counting hits and specials. The GM now has to roll a random hit location, subtract the targets armor from that location. Determine the effect of the specials on damage, and determine if there is any secondary alternative damage, like bleeding, burning, etc. The GM then notes, the level damage and now rolls for any Resistances... using SURVIVAL because there is no other skill in the game. The GM can now finally rule on the outcome of the roll and describe the effects to the player, so we can move to the next players action.
Now its not hard, but its also not GOOD...
For what should be a basic combat roll, they've added in six extra steps, that should have been optional rules at best.
And thats not counting AP, REROLLS, Food Buffs, Gear Buffs, Perks, Extra Successes or even Modifiers to difficulty.
Its just a basic I shoot it and hit roll, nothing complicated in our example, and they completely botch it.
If they left it simple and rules lite, that would have been great.
If they have made if an overly complex firearms simulation, that also would have been fine, but pick a freaking lane!
Don't dumb down defense, but then add random hit locations. Don't simplify shooting rules, but then tack on random damage effects. Don't include excessive damage and resistance rolls, but then forget to add a skill for that and just pencil whip in SURIVAL (AGAIN!)
What I'm trying to say, is these rules are bad, and they should feel bad for selling to you.
@@GameMastersWorkshop there's more rules references in this comment than the first 7 minutes of your videos, but I'm already so tired of the listening I'm not interesting in reading comments now.
@@hawkthetraveler6344 Yeah sorry, the video was already long and if I broke down every single violation of good game design point by point, it would have been two hours long, and getting longer.
I just assumed no one was interested in the game. Little 3erd party discussion or content. The only setting being Boston kinda lame.
I started a mork Borg conversion of the ip
Heya Garret,
Oh man, love me some Mork Borg. The book alone is literally a work of art. Hope it works out well.
I get why they went with Boston as a setting, but yeah... definately lame.
I personally think they should made base setting the players home town. With basic rules on how to convert locations, monuments, personalities, history and legends... into your own personal appocalypse. Would have been a lot more interesting in my fun in my opinion.
But it looks like the people who did the conversion were busy trying to figure on how to convert game mechanics and stats rather then build a working or interesting game.
If you have any questions let me know, I'm in the middle of a from scratch rules right up myself. So I know what your going through.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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@GameMastersWorkshop that home town idea would have worked perfectly as they love settlement building games. I've played 5e like a settlement builder it's super straightforward and makes for a good time hard to fuck up that plot.
They definitely neglected game functionality vs game feel. Like cooking sure it's spicy but that's not a very good omelette. Sure it feels like fallout but that's not a very good game.
Just bought the core book and GM's toolkit 2 days ago. I tried to watch this video to disagree, but by the time you got to "the whole game can be solved with the survival skill alone" I must admit defeat.
Hey Delta,
Sorry about that. Its a beautiful looking game, but its painful to play.
Looking through the rules there looks like there was a lot of effort to reuse game materials, and in the process they kind of shot themselves in the foot repeatedly.
There are a lot suggestions on how to fix the game, but when it comes down to it the rules are all so over the place you'd be better off porting the setting into another game system.
No mater whether you play it as is, try to fix it or just play something else, I wish you luck.
Have a nice night my friend, and good luck and good gaming!
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@@GameMastersWorkshop hey thank for the kind words. I intend to port the game over to year zero engine eventually :-) But only after a time of playing it a lot. I think in the video you stated correctly, TTRPGs are not about systems, but giving the players chances for roleplay and solving situations by roleplay and thoughtprocess.
Should’ve found this before wasting all that time and money on this dogshit system. Thanks but man I wish I saw this when you made it.
This music is annoying af
Sorry to hear that.
I'll try to dial it in.
Is it this song?
How loud it is?
Or music in general?
I think the music choice is fine but it is a bit too loud, a little distracting.
@@GameMastersWorkshop it's the song for me at least. Does not fit the subject. Sounds like something in the background of an AI generated trash video listing top ten ball hair trimmers, if I had to describe it 😄
@@kelseysvenson8544 ROTFL!
That's a hell of a description. Thanks for the heads up. No problem, can and will be changing out the music in the future!
@@joeycastellanos8013 Thanks Joey,
Ok, Will be dialing it back in the future.
Thanks guys!
Just skimming a PDF of it I knew it wasn't going to be a good system without serious house rules and adaptation. The slavish recreation of the FO4 video game elements were incredibly bizarre.
I mean, it's so lazy and uninspired it keeps some of the outfit layering rules from the video game. Literally an element of the game designed solely because of 3D asset clipping when layering armor over clothes. Literally something thay doesn't exist in a TTRPG. Why the fuck does the game prevent me from tossing an armored chestpiece over formal wear or a set of coveralls? Why are there even stats for a "drifter's outfit" if it doesn't actually do anything special? Just because it's an item you can pick up in the game?
Hey Sarge!
You called it, right off the bat.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of video games adapted into Roleplaying Games, but I've never seen one that actually tried to port video mechanics into an RPG.
I mean trying to play this hurt.
In any case, thanks for the comment, and have a nice weekend.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
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It's very clear you were frustrated with the rules. Probably shouldn't post videos when you are frustrated. There are tons of videos on UA-cam that answered your questions already. Try leveraging the technology you are using to bash the game to learn the game. Good luck figuring out what you will need to do going forward. Try this from another You Tuber. ua-cam.com/video/0zsEkNt44CY/v-deo.html
Hey Cole,
Thanks for the link, but I gave up on this Turkey over a year ago, and I actually I pointed out that the net was crawling with guides, tools and groups to help fix this game
Because lets face it, even its fans acknowledge this game is fundmentally broken.
Here's the thing, there is no excuse for that.
Fallout is an incredible setting. 2d20 is a great engine. There is zero excuse for a professional game company to start with those assets and still manage to turn in a work this half @$$#%.
Tonally this book is all over the place. Its complex were it should be lite, and lite where it should be complex.
Its like if you made a Startrek game but forgot to include the rules for things like Exploration, Negotiation, Science or flying the freaking space ship, but still managed to include 83 pages of rules for playing Dabo, and Intergalatic Bartending.
Here's the thing, THIS is the core basic book for the game system. This is supposed to be their base line. Their gold standard.
All they had to do was phone it in, cover the basics, and port the Fallout setting into the 2d20 system, and call it a day.
But they didn't do that.
Instead they tried to port the video game mechanics into a table top system, and forgot to write half the game in the process.
Your right, I'm frustraited by this game. Not because it's hard... because it shouldn't be this bad.
I'm mystified how they thought we needed nearly a dozen pages of info about snacks, but forgot to include basic balanced rules for things like Reputation, Factions, or even how to detect an Ambush.
Seriously, if we as game masters have to ignore half the rules, and make up the other half, then why are we buying this rule book to begin with.
What I'm trying to say is this rule book is bad, and they should feel bad for making it.
In any case you don't need to hear me rant about a game we both know is broken.
I'm glad you like it, but don't try to call this turd gold, because man it stinks.
@@GameMastersWorkshop I can see you gave up. I can also see you are frustrated. However, Someone needs to point out the elephant in the room. People see that. And they respond by walking away. Complain away. It's your right. But if you don't want to solve the problem and all you do is complain. Then don't be surprised when people stay away in droves.
@colerape Hey Cole,
I get that, but you also get that this a review right, not a random rant.
There are about a dozen reviews for this game online but none of them actually tried to play the game.
They just read the book, saw that it LOOKED good and then gave it a nod.
The problem is I played it, and as both a game and a refrence manual this is a bad product.
Worse the only attempts made to fix the game have either been from the fan base or come with a price tag from the publisher.
Dude it's the 2020's we've been issuing online erratas since the 90s.
If Modiphius wanted to fix this they could have. Instead they went radio silent for six months, before reappearing with more books and acessories to sell you to fix their mistakes. I mean there's shameless and then there's that.
Here's the thing, Yes I can fix their game, but I shouldn't have to, that's literally their job.
Worse part is this is their MO . They will never fix this book. Instead they'll try to sell new books to their existing fanbase until the lose the license.
So here's the break down in case you didn't pay attention to the review.
Physical Quality - 7.5. Beautiful book. Art is repurposed, but even that is done well.
Layout - 5 Barely Functional. No attention given to functionality or organisation. I've seen Dadistic peotry that were more organized then this.
Gameplay/Rules - 3. Attrocious. Tonaly deaf. Play style swings wildly from one extreme to the other. Rules are unbalanced and unfinished. They waste chapters of detail on minutia that will have to hand waved, while hand waving important basic elements with only a shrug and an the words "Wing It!"stamped on the back cover.
This isn't a game is a novelty designed to sit in a shelf and look good.
What I'm trying to say is Wendy's published a better game than this, and they had the common decency of not trying to charge you for it.
@@colerape this dude has been mind raped, not Cole raped, lol.
@@GameMastersWorkshop Apologies. I've quit trying to play this game. I have to say you have been spot on with some of your commentary. And you could have said more. I've been radio silent, because I'm trying to do what I enjoy...play games, but I keep running into games that just suck, because writers don't care. They're just there for a pay check. And my money. I've been playing games since 77. I try new games and there are plenty out there to use. The latest Shadowdark, Knave, and XWN from Kevin Crawford (my go to). I appreciate your passion...maybe just watch the coffee intake :P
Such an atrocious review
And yet I had to make it. There are bad games, there are lazy games, there are good games that look bad, but this a bad game that looks good.
No one should have to play this.
It looks great sitting on a shelf, but it's barely a functional game.
@@GameMastersWorkshoppreach!