Looking at a variety of Table Top Role Playing Games ranging from Dungeons and Dragons, Fate, Dresden Files, Dread, Vampire the Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, and much much more.
I ran a game for my friends. They were in combat and one of them rolled the computer. I had them stop in the middle of fighting to fill out a survey on the experimental weapon they were using. Needless to say that was 1 clone down.
Well…you can’t pronounce Timothy Zahns name correctly and we do not care if you want to identify as Ze Zem…address the game and not your imaginary reasons to complain.
Your complaint about pronouns is literally that they used proper pronouns....... I get that in today's climate why you would say that, but it's proper English! Sorry, it's not white males not caring about other people......... 🤦♂️
“One of the problems I have with the system is that… so your PC is jumping across a chasm and rolls NO successes and NO failures and 3 disadvantages. What then?!?! PC is suspended in mid air…??” Well, in the core rule book chapter entitled “Playing The Game” in the section that deals with resolving dice pool rolls, ALL of the core rule books say quite clearly that failures cancel successes. If there are no Successes remaining, then the skill check FAILED. I will say this again as I did a double take when I first encountered this rule: IF there are NO Successes remaining after Failures have canceled out the Successes, then the skill check FAILED. You gotta have at least one single UNCANCELED Success in order to succeed on that skill check roll. That is the FIRST thing I look for when playing or GM-ing this game - how many if any Successes are left after cancelling. If none, skill check FAILED. THEN, we get to the “fun stuff.” Threat and Advantage, Triumph and Despair. In your example in the video, with no Successes and no Failures [which means the PC FAILED to get to the other side of the chasm being jumped] the PC is not suspended mid-air. Not unless you enjoy ‘Coyote and Roadrunner’ physics and scenes of plummeting to one’s death. Instead, “play” with the scene. What would be most DRAMATIC, most FUN for all around the table…? How about: “PC Davros Shmelkin, human female, sees the Stormtroopers hot on her heels. She knows she only has one option: she needs to sprint and take a running jump off the cliff in order to get to her stock light freighter parked on the landing pad below. Sprinting through a barrage of blaster bolts, Davros makes her jump. While assembling the dice pool, the player controlling Davros asks the GM if she can add a blue Boost die to the pool to represent the extra kinetic energy she is building up before launching herself over the chasm. GM agrees - then “visualizing the scene” more explicitly- decides that a black setback die should also be added to represent the hazards of all the deadly blaster bolts hampering Davros’s leap. Pool is assembled and rolled. All of the successes are canceled by failures [or NO successes were rolled - which sometimes happened] and Davros does NOT make it to the landing pad across the chasm. Player and GM look at the dice pool and see that a FAILURE was rolled by the setback die. Hmmm…. GM (or player) narrates: “Davros looks behind her and sees the squad of 6 stormtroopers rushing to blast her. Knowing she can’t afford to be captured or killed, Davros runs toward the cliff - keenly aware that this looks near suicidal to the pursuing stormtroopers. With one last lunge of every muscle in her body, she catapults herself into the air - hoping to make it the distance to her ship’s landing pad. Flailing her limbs out - near suspended in midair - Davros’s body slams into the permacrete of the landing pad. [Davros takes a strain from the jarring impact of her torso with the permacrete.] ALMOST THERE! Now just to haul herself up when PEW! PEW! PEW! The stormtroopers in pursuit let loose a barrage of blaster fire!! Davros twists her body trying to avoid the hail of lethal energy blasts and she narrowly does so. But, the energy blasts DO connect with the permacrete of the landing pad - the very section that Davros is clinging to with all of her strength. She looks and sees fissures cascading outward from the blast points and hears the ominous “pops” and “cracks” of the section of permacrete tilting downward - the whole section is about to break away from its support struts! GM: “OK, Davros. You feel your body violently jerked as the permacrete is starting to break loose from the landing pad. What do you do…?” :) And that is the beauty of the system! Action packed scenes - thrilling acts of heroism that would keep a viewer [and a player] riveted to their seat! Davros will likely have to make an Athletics check or maybe a Coordination check or maybe the PC purchased climbing gear and is able to quickly jury-rig another attempt to save their skin while Stormtroopers pepper the area with more lethal blaster shots. So, “no successes and 3 disadvantages” does not become suspended in mid-air Wiley Coyote style. Instead it becomes the gateway to even more thrilling heroics. Have fun with the advantages and disadvantages. And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the cool stuff a person can do with Triumph(s) and Despair(s).
Hey I gotta say, thanks for this breakdown of the game and mechanics! It's a neat system. But please, SAY YOUR TITLE CARDS OUT LOUD! People listen to videos like this, not watch them imo. So that will help us follow what's going on
Loved this, thanks for the all the thoughts, and review. Space Cowboys, War & Wizards (nice one). Just getting into these not sure why I'm buying them as no game group to play with irl. Watched some of the crazy loose fun story telling plays of this on Yogacast channel, and unsure of dice at first but the more that I've learned the more unique and cool the dice story telling is! ATM I'm drawn to the rougher wilds of Edge of Empire, and unsure how important to get all different rulebooks eventually or not. But love SW, RPG's, Call of Cthulhu etc. Are there unique details on each of the different GM screens do you know? Super detailed thoughts & very helpful - thanx. ❤👍
The real Paranoia is still the 2nd Edition. The goal of the game is to get the players to turn on each other, the current version downplays mutant powers and secret societies. That is where the fun really began, if you didn't have 3 player deaths before the mission briefing then something isn't right.
@@beniaminradomir9798 If you had a group that hadn't played before then as GM you actually had a bit more work to do. You'd set secret society missions, eg there is a Death Leopard operative in your group, you must prevent them from succeeding in their mission. Then that player would have to try and work out who it is and stop them. Also remember, it is a players duty to root out treason and be rewarded by friend computer. Things that may be interpreted as treason: dmamging Alpha Complex property (clones may not be considered property perhaps, but that uniform that has a smoking hole in it certainly is), failing to correctly fill in paper work, access to higher level security clearance objects, mutant powers, membership of secret society and so on. Treason is just an excuse to be pedantic.
Yup. You are right. Your pronoun nonsense is nonsense. There are ACTUAL issues with the game and you waste time on nonsense. You didn't even address the glaring problem with the mechanics when dealing with healing or repairing droids. Seriously, leave the SJW crap out and focus on the real issues.
I'm a newbie to Star Wars in general (more of a Trekkie personally) but my boyfriend has been into it for a very long time. We're both into D&D/TTRPG's, and I thought it would be fun to find a Star Wars TTRPG to run for us and friends. I had no idea there'd be so many different ones! I just want a Star Wars TTRPG that is comprehensive in the information and the story can be set at any point in the Star Wars timeline, allows you to play a variety of Classes such as Jedi as well as like, bounty hunters, pirates, etc. If anyone can point me to a specific SW TTRPG that would fit my specific needs, I would immensely appreciate it! I'm perfectly fine with homebrewing some extra details, I just need the base information to be good.
If I were you I’d take a look at Star Wars REUP it’s a fan made update for Star Wars D6 filled with content and the rule book is available online for free. Iirc REUP specifically has some guidelines for different time periods and is pretty much able to be dropped into any era. D6 still has a pretty large fan base so there’s a lot of fan made content for it. Ffg is the current Star Wars rpg that’s in stores. The three core books and the dice system are probably the biggest hurdles to getting into it the game. The three core books aren’t all essential purchases to play the game, I personally only got Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny as they’re less specialised than Age of Rebellion and can be used in a wider range of settings. Whilst the equipment and vehicle content in the books are based around the original trilogy the rules and classes pretty much fit any era you’d wanna play, there’s again a very large fan base that have created a ton of home brew content to fill in the gaps. It’s worth noting that there are some supplement books available that contain content from both the clone wars and pre rebel eras if you’re interested in those settings.
I loved making R&D equipment for the players to mess with... I haven't DMed Paranoia in forever but I still have a huge chest in my garage full of physical R&D equipment players can play with.
Thank you for this! I play D&D, but our DM is also a teacher, so every few month I'd like to lead a one-shot in other games to give her a little break. I've heard about Paranoia from a couple of other channels, but not a lot of other people have done a quick overview like this. Now I have the information to go to my D&D group and gauge their interest in trying this one.
seems like all the force and destiny core stuff is all sold out everywhere :/ sucks because I have 4 new players (including myself) that wanna get into but now can't.
hey! this was a very informative video, thank you very much! my (now) virtual dnd group paused our 2 year campaign to do a round robin of everyone gm-ing a new system and im gearing up to run a short jaunt through paranoia! i see this video is a bit over a year old, have you since found a way to implement the action cards in virtual play? they seem terribly fun and i would hate to exclude them from the game
Is there a specific site where I could get certain games I want? I want to try and get the force and destiny stuff but I also heard the edge of empire is really good too
Maybe consider putting GM tips *after* the player tips; with a warning that players probably shouldn't watch the GM bit. They will, but they'll get treason points for it!
Thanks. Planning on running Stealth Train as a first paranoia game for my longtime RPG group and I know getting them to backstab eachother is going to take some effort on my part. All good ideas. I was already thinking of doing the Among Us style mechanic you mentioned (and having almost everyone be traitors) and am glad to hear it has worked in other people's games.
Could anyone help me out? I'm wanting to play a Age of Rebellion Campaign using the Dawn of Rebellion Era Sourcebook (Give it them Star Wars Rebels/Rogue One vibes) however, some of my players are wanting some force related journey for their characters (Like Ezra in Rebels etc) Since I've already got the AoR core book and the Era sourcebook, do I need the Force & Destiny beginner game or corerule book for the force rules if my players want to go down that path?
The AoR has a small section on Force Powers, but definitely doesn't go into much detail about them. The easiest, but most expensive solution would be to shell out for the full Force and Destiny book, but there is probably enough info online through 3rd party sites to give you the gits of it.
Treason evaluation sheet: 1:18 - signs of Communism 1:44 - disrespect towards friend computer 2:44 - disrespect for the achievements of friend computer 3:24 - forbidden knowledge of clearances 4:41 - disrespect for tasks set by friend computer according to your capabilities 4:55 - forbidden knowledge of mutants 5:48 - repeated disrespect towards friend computer 6:43 - forbidden knowledge of W.0.R.D 11:26 - forbidden knowledge of mutant powers 14:30 - forbidden knowledge of threats to friend computer 14:59 - forbidden knowledge of reproduction 17:00 - forbidden possession of reproduction sheet 21:31 - usage of Communist propaganda slogan 21:33 - 28:18 - suspiciously long time without traitorous behaviour 28:18 - forbidden knowledge of access to classified information 30:14 - repeated usage of 'comrades' 35:06 - taunting friend computer with the usage of thumbs ------------------------------------------ Overall evaluation result: normal Report to your local supervisor for your next duty! Your friend, the Computer
Having personal goals sounds like a really good improvement to roleplaying. Think about how often characters in stories create tension and interesting twists because they have their own agenda. Like the Lord of the Rings would be completely different without Boromir acting in his own interest.
If someone manages to get a min-maxed character, next time they die, have the cloning machine accidentally grab the wrong person. Last you remember you were happily watching the holovids when the cloning machine claws grabbed you. Now Friend Computer is telling you: "Welcome back, Shoot-R-TRB-3!" "There must be some mistake, I'm not a troubleshooter! My name is Neighb-R-TRB-1!" the strange fellow shouts, but the Computer is already gone.
Thank you for this review. I had been thinking about buying Court of the Shadow Fay. I have been looking for more of a courtly intreage game. And I share your disapointment in lack of equal repersentaion of people to "Court". I also think "Courting" should be used in a more genreal of terms and not just "Sexualy". By means of gaining favor in business, in politics, in position, in making deals, and such.
