Ironfox's Revised Rules for Abilities in Combat.

[takewithfood]

Well put, raynorn.

~TWF

[Revan]

Hmm.... I know it's probably been said before, but I like the idea of your AN determining your bonus to CC. I would say that for every even AN you would get 1 ability bonus as a modifier up to your ability score. Now for people like that are power house muscle heads like the hulk that have a low AN and high ability, I would propose an option at maybe a +2/3 CL to allow you to use half your ability score as a mod to CC. During combat you can still spend additional stones up to your ability to increase your stones of attack.

[WildKnight]

Dec 10, 2010 10:04:34 GMT -5 raynorn said:

It is diceless

Which is fine for PBP, but very few players like diceless systems for table top gaming (and with good reason)

It easily converts to other settings

I call shenanigans big time here. MURPG sucks for the majority of settings, because anything limited to human ranges is awful.

Also, I beg to differ on the "easy to fix" claim. If that were the case, there wouldn't be so many "fixes" here on the boards. There would be universally accepted house rules and that would be the end of it. The fact that there are so many differing versions of house rules out there is a testament to the fact that the base rules are so bad that its extremely difficult to find a functional fix.

[Dullahan]

Either that or nobody can agree on what constitutes a fix.

What fixes it for one person can completely break it for someone else.

[WildKnight]

Dec 13, 2010 19:34:38 GMT -5 Dullahan said:

Either that or nobody can agree on what constitutes a fix.

What fixes it for one person can completely break it for someone else.

Either way, it points to the fact that the system is not "easily fixed."

I don't understand why everyone is so reticent to admit that this system is so deeply and harshly flawed. It feels a lot better once you admit it and move on. You can start making honest assessments of what the system can and can't do, and you'll get better at running and playing the system.

[takewithfood]

MURPG can be converted to other settings more easily than most RPGs, though. It's hard to take D&D and play Naruto or Star Wars. If you start with the d20 system and fill in the details, then fine, but you could more easily do the same thing with MURPG.

I really have to get that Street Fighterish game of mine running one of these days.

~TWF

[Dullahan]

It's flawed.

Happy? ;D

Of course it is. The thing is I don't agree it's as flawed as you say it is.

My biggest issues with the system are as follows.

1) It doesn't do normal humans AT all well. Period.
2)Energy is king, and if you don't have a healing factor, your pretty much screwed.
3)Telepathy is ridiculous.
4)Magic can be ridiculous if the player wants to go overboard.
5)Other actions are near useless because of they're cost.

[WildKnight]

I don't think MURPG does convert well to other settings, aside from other super hero based settings. From experience, I know that it doesn't do fantasy or sci-fi well. Most systems convert easily enough to represent other settings within the same genre, but personally I've always found that for the most part, a system designed to work with a specific setting will be better than a universal system with a setting-specific paint job.

[Dullahan]

Tell me about it. I want to do an Adventure type Fantasy game, but this system's not great at it. It's so frustrating.

That and I'm bad at rules stuff.

[WildKnight]

Dec 13, 2010 19:44:21 GMT -5 Dullahan said:

1) It doesn't do normal humans AT all well. Period.

I agree with all of your points, but this is the one that makes all this talk about how its a great system bewildering to me. The majority of settings revolve around human and human-like characters. MURPG makes humans and human-like characters all but useless. So where's the magic? What am I missing?

The energy stuff is really key, too, but I feel it's pretty easily fixed. The limitations on humans? Not so much.

[Dullahan]

I've been trying(new D&R chart, plus new Overdrive rules), but it's not proving easy. Once finals are over, I'll see what else I can do.

If you have any suggestions, that'd be really awesome, as I'm not good at rulish stuff.

[WildKnight]

Unfortunately that's probably the most difficult aspect of refining this system (the D&R Chart that is). You'll notice in most of our attempted revisions around here, we never touched it LOL

I really don't know what I'd do to fix it. I know that humans need to be able to have Abilities rating higher than 3 to generate enough difference between a helpless infant and a peak human, but I really don't know what would could be done without a total overhaul of the system itself to show humans as capable as Black Widow, Hawkeye, etc.

[Dullahan]

Hmmm......

Well, you clearly need a new chart, that's for sure. It's the only real fix for the 1-3 thing.

But how do you do that without pushing the superhumans even higher....dang it.

Hence in my fix I didn't bother with trying both. I just focused on the humans, but that was because of the game I was running.

I mean, could you have 2 D&R charts? One for human characters, and one for super humans?

[WildKnight]

You could, but then you'd have someone with superhuman strength (or whatever) only able to spend the same amount of stones into an action as a person with human strength.

Maybe expanding the D&R chart to 15 or even 20 is the trick. That way humans could go up to 5 or even 8, giving them a much more fighting chance. Part of the problem (as I see it) is that comic book humans are frequently doing super-human things, but not enough so to justify a 4 on the D&R chart (for instance, Batman is stronger and more durable than any real human, but he sure can't lift a ton or whatever Str 4 is on the current D&R chart)

[Dullahan]

Well, give them the option to go up to like 10(picked because it's a nice round measure), and then give them the option of going up to like 11 in two stats. Then make 11 halfway reasonable. Instead of a ton, maybe half a ton(super human, but not overly so).

Or something like that, I'm just brainstorming here.