Weirdest RPG (system) concepts?

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Brett

Sorry, I didn't phrase that very well. I meant, as you have now discerned, that rolling exactly what you need is a personal optimum, not a global one. It's just as in a system with margin-of-success, where rolling a "1" (or whatever is the lowest the dice will do) gives you your personal best margin of success.

That is really something! Sounds kind of like blackjack with dice -- score the best you can without going over, only your best and someone else's aren't necessarily the same. Fascinating.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

That is really something! Sounds kind of like blackjack with dice -- score the best you can without going over, only your best and someone else's aren't necessarily the same. Fascinating.

Works great for a percentile system, but not for a gaussian one like 3d.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Works great for a percentile system, but not for a gaussian one like 3d.

Yeah, it'd be rather strange with 3d6. But I'd have to think about it for a while before I was sure it was absurd.

I seem to remember that the game that I encountered it in used a d20, in which case it produces exactly the same distribution of results as calculating margin-of-success would.

[Irish Wolf]

Next question: does HoL count as a role-playing game? I mean, in a sense it's kind of playable, I guess, and the expansion, Buttery WHoLesomeness, contains character-generation rules...

[knarf]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Works great for a percentile system, but not for a gaussian one like 3d.

I did it with a 1d6 in Adventures in Oz and it worked fine. But then, 1d6 doesn't have a curve. That probably makes a difference.

EDIT: Actually, the dice mechanic I used was pretty interesting. Roll 2d6. If at least one of the dice comes up lower that your skill (rated on a scale of 1-5), you succeed. If both dice are lower, you get a "special success" (critical). Quality of success (for contested actions and such) is determined by blackjack method, though special successes always trump regular successes.

[Gaming_Bird]

Originally Posted by capnq

That would be the Xxxenophile CCG. Once you get past the erotic art and the sexual puns, there's some surprisingly subtle strategy in the game mechanics.

And if you like the game mechanics, there is the non-erotic version known as Girl Genius: the card Game.

[Gaming_Bird]

A weird game I came across was known as Khaotic (Or some other misspelling of the word 'chaotic').

The premise was that these monsters were invading the Earth from another dimension, and you could fight theme here, which was dangerous and of little benefit, since when they died they and all their gear vanished back to their home realm. Or you could take the fight to them, using this pcsycotropic machine that sent you to their world.

The twist was that when you went there, only your mind went, not your body, so you 'arrived' by possessing the body of a random inhabitant.

A single body.

No matter how many people were sent.

Only one person could 'drive' the host body at a time, and if more than one person wanted to drive there was a power struggle, will versus will, to see who clawed their way into the hot seat, metaphorically speaking. If you weren't 'driving' you could use the one psychic power you possessed, a power you never knew you had, and cannot use on Earth.

I still have the book, it's just buried right now (I'm in mid-move, and I'm not emptying boxes until I get everything to the new place.)

[Gaming_Bird]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I haven't mentioned it or other examples of dice aberrations iike Cyborg Commando (roll D10 and multiply it by the roll of another D10, the resulting probability "curve" is actually sort of X shaped) just because I understood this thread to be about bizarre concepts rather than bizarre (or even incompetent) mechanics.

I threw up a graph of the D10xD10 probabilities on a spreadsheet, and when looking at the 'roll this number or better' scenario, it makes a curve that looks a lot like the graph of an exponential decay function, where our beloved 3D6 system produces an S-shaped curve for the same scenario.

the D10xD10 system looks wacky, but it a nice set of probabilities, where a +/-1 can be a big change at the lower levels, but almost no difference at the higher levels. Our 3D6 system, however, favors the middle ground, the low end and the high end are little affected by a +/-a, but right around 10 and 11, a +/-1 can make or break the day.

[Shrale]

A lot of people badmouth Palladium, yet once you've played D&D you
can probably move to it without too much trouble.

It takes a while to learn their "logic system" meaning the nuances and
subtleties built-in (yes, there are those) but it's one of those systems
that gives you quite a bit to work with.

If you know GURPS, you can plug the holes (probably for ANY SYSTEM
with holes too); which makes knowing both attractive.

I could probably explain the game to newbies in 30 minutes, half that
if they've played D&D and have a game going within an hour (less if
I pushed them). Bringing them along (meaning a continuing campaign)
would get easier too; while GURPS is going to take months of reading
and asking questions.

I think what surprised me the most was that despite it's reputation I
met several gamers that weren't just Power Gamers either.

>

[The Sundered Sky]

How about Solipsist, the RPG? Change anything in the universe you want, but the other wankers get to rewrite things too, and if you get too out there, you wind up in your own bubble universe. No, I haven't played it. http://www.solipsist-rpg.com