Vampire Cyberpunk?


Unlike my previous posts, this is for a non D&D based system; probably a PbtA derivation, or maybe BitD. So, if you're an OSR/trad only kinda person feel free to skip this one, you won't hurt my feelings. I promise I'll have more on that front soon, but there is some interesting comparing dice towards the bottom if you're into that.

I like some aspects of Shadowrun & oWoD..
Er, Old World of Darkness--is that OWOD, OWoD, Owod, OwOd? No idea.
Never played it, only passingly familiar.
I've played Shadowrun like twice, no idea which edition; point buy classless systems bore me to tears, no thanks GURPS et. Al.

  • Shadowrun:
    • Juxtaposition of cyberpunk and fantasy
    • The concept that increasing cybernetic enhancements or other artifical aspects decreases access to magic for whatever reason
  • WoD:
    • The idea that the PCs are hunters, mages, werewolves, or vampires
      • I know there are other properties, I don't care; those are the main ones & the most fleshed out and interesting to me
    • The concept that your character potentially loses their humanity/sanity, etc.
    • the whole gothic-punk thing is kinda cool
      • It's very angst/90s/edgelord in some ways which honestly is kinda my jam. Venom was my second favorite movie, the Super Mario Bros. movie is my first. That's not an edgelord type movie, just figured I'd include it.
        • I acknowledge these were both objectively bad movies by most reasonable standards
Anyway, I've been wanting to do a game that is a mash-up of Shadowrun & WoD for about a year now? At the time I was really into the idea of PbtA and followed a lot of story game podcasts, I took a break from that for a lot of reasons (primarily, lack of access to PbtA interested players and lack of experience running games).

The 2d6+/- 0/1/2 is simple, but a bit too player friendly and also I have a big drive to differentiate myself in minor ways for some reason. So, instead: 3d12, keep the middle. Here's an anydice link which compares 2d6 (yellow, PbtA), 3d12 keep the middle (black, mine), and a 1d12(blue, 'control') for comparison. If we keep our standard '7-9 is partial success, 10 & 11 is complete success , & 12+ is a critical success then (without modifiers) we have:

3d12kM ('keep Middle')

  • 50% chance of failure
  • 34.37% of partial success
  • 13.66% chance of complete success
  • 1.97% chance of critical success

2d6:

  • 41.67 chance of failure
  • 41.67% chance of partial success
  • 13.89% chance of complete success
  • 2.78% chance of critical success
    • This adds up to 100.1%, I'm assuming there is rounding in the 7-12 region somewhere
1d12:
  • 50% chance of failure
  • 25% chance of partial success
  • 16.6~% chance of complete success
  • 8.3~ chance of critical success
Although I'm literally going to school for this sort of thing, I'm a pretty visual guy so I'd have to make a graph to really figure this out and I don't feel like it at the moment. But off-hand:

  • I like that 3d12kM starts off at 50% success/failure with no modifiers, as opposed to the combined 58.34% with PbtA standard.
  • The biggest 'drop-off' from PbtA to 3d12kM is in the mixed success range which I also like. I do like the concept of mixed success but I think reducing that 10% will make things flow just a bit easier for the MC/Storyteller/GM/whatever the hell

As well as changing up the probabilities, this also has the important benefit of using my favorite die, the noble d12.

Now, another comparison, how does this stack up to OSR games?
Although it's not my preferred game for a variety of reasons, LotFP is an incredibly popular game. The skill system is pretty simple and widely acclaimed in OSR circles.

The 'standard' roll for unskilled characters is 1-in-6, which is 16.66~%.
3d12kM has a success ratio of 50%.
I don't remember what it is for skilled characters at the moment. I think it caps at 50%.

Now, if we add modifiers for this, say a range of -2/+2, and we add 'must be equal to or greater than 7' we get this anydice.
On 3d12kM-2 the success ratio is 25.93%.

But 3d12kM-2 isn't the best rolling method for starting out for your 'worst' rolls.

So instead of doing 3d12kM-2 must exceed 7, we can do:

  • 3d12kM>=9 for a complete success for things the character is BAD at
  • 3d12km>=7 for things they're OK at, 
  • 3d12>=5 for things they're AWESOME at

Now, we've gotten pretty far from the original PbtA 'base', but so did BitD.
I'm going to sleep on this one.

EDIT:
Slept on it. Well, didn't sleep, but it's the next day.
3d12kM-2 is fine, and adjusting the standard PbtA 'formula' is more confusing.
So, the base is 3d12kM with modifiers ranging from -/+ 2.

As far as some twists?
1. A Slayer hunter: a human assassin paid by vampire clans to kill vampire slayers
2. A vampire vampire hunter; and not like Angel, Spike, Blade, etc. Like, a vampire who kills vampires with little self control because they risk alerting humans to their existence. Sort of like Roman from True Blood kind of vibe. Maybe? It's been years since I cared about True Blood.

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