[Lord of Hate]

I decided i was going to GM for the first time and though if im going to do it i should go hard of go home and did a home-brew Malazan game. i heavily based the mechanics on Dark Heresy(Warhammer 40K rules) as I enjoyed the way that critical damage (having negative wounds) worked, for example loss of limbs and other parts. The low health and relative high damage also helped create a more fragile feeling in combat. i created a few pages of weapons and materials and rules which worked out ok'ish (still tweaking bits and pieces to keep balance), in general all equipment needed to be made up myself with stats and such, took a bloody long time. Rules for the skills and talents are much harder and i let my players choose them from the Dark heresy games and change the cost and call them idiots when they ask for tech use. Magic was harder as Dark Heresy has psyching which didn't give me the feel i wanted so i went with a system i quickly thought up, in short a mage has a pool of magic points and this amount of corresponding spells can be used, after these MP are used up the mage can decide to use their wounds to power the magic possibly killing themselves. Force healing i have allowed in combat which significantly increases the bulk of the party members but each time they are healed the insanity points start to tally up, and with a large list of mental instabilities and illnesses has made for some rather interesting characters.
Character Creation works just like Dark Heresy as in you roll for stats to a degree but i allowed allocation of the base points to make them a bit more powerful (and min-maxed but that's ok leaves thing you can exploit), also a thing in Dark Heresy is that you start boring choose human or human so you don't have to worry about that one guy who wants to be a Jaghut. Though for a bit more flavor i decided to add a heritage roll, see if they had anything non-human for an ancestor, this ranged from all human, Tiste, Forkrul, Thel, and Elient (obviously the idea is that the blood is so diluted the PC's only get minor bonuses, usually).
Have been playing with my friends for a decent amount of time now my little group of insane murder hobos seem to enjoy it.
I'm happy to answer questions about it, and your thoughts.
From Australia so i wouldn't expect a quick reply, also my writing skills are horrid so sorry if its hard to understand.

[D'rek]

What happens if your players don't go where you want them to and end up taking a ship to Assail? Instantly kill the whole party and start over?

[Lord of Hate]

D, on 22 January 2015 - 03:56 PM, said:

What happens if your players don't go where you want them to and end up taking a ship to Assail? Instantly kill the whole party and start over?

Once they leave Quan Tali we can deal with that, and they would have to find a crew to take them there not so easy, also they seem afraid of going on boats probably because none of them can swim. i usually get where they are travelling next and plan it roughly for the next session. I am not above killing the party one guy took a swing at a Jaghut, while the rest of the party ran for the hills. "Don't I get a roll for dodge" "NO"

[D'rek]

Are they allowed to carry Moranth munitions? If they have a cusser, do they roll to see if it explodes every time they get hit, fall down, dance with joy and eat breakfast?

[Lord of Hate]

D, on 22 January 2015 - 04:32 PM, said:

Are they allowed to carry Moranth munitions? If they have a cusser, do they roll to see if it explodes every time they get hit, fall down, dance with joy and eat breakfast?

Not yet but thats kind of the idea once they manage to get some. I'm pretty sure a cusser is end game stuff though

[Nicodimas]

D, on 22 January 2015 - 03:56 PM, said:

What happens if your players don't go where you want them to and end up taking a ship to Assail? Instantly kill the whole party and start over?

A Good GM makes sure this doesn't occur and they end up over here where there is cool loot
Or they conveniently no longer have said ship, these guys stole it!!!
Or actually over here this is going on, you have to go that way...


I would heavily modify an exalted game as it has some powerful classes and history that could just be modified to work.

[Nicodimas]

D, on 22 January 2015 - 04:32 PM, said:

Are they allowed to carry Moranth munitions? If they have a cusser, do they roll to see if it explodes every time they get hit, fall down, dance with joy and eat breakfast?

Awesome..I could see this now.. Well critical fail!!! /uhhhhh

BOOM!!

[Lord of Hate]

I'm not a fan of critical failures in my games I'm intending to do it more like when they are hit by something like a mace perhaps or trampled by a horse depending on where the hits land have a luck roll to see if it goes up and kills most or all of the party. I try to encourage stratergy and tact in my players so hopefully they give the munitions to the ranged characters or it might not go so well.
Most of the players haven't read the books so its interesting to see how they react to some of the encounters and how magic works

[D'rek]

Well I kind of see it as the players know carrying cussers is stupid and proper 'strategy' is to not bring cussers with them. If they decide against their better judgement to carry them, they risk paying the price.

But on the plus side if they are smart they can hide the cussers in a secret stash, and then later when their squad mage learns how to make a personal pocket warren they can go back, get them from the stash and put them in a safe mobile secret stash, only to bring them out when absolutely necessary!

[Lord of Hate]

Well seeing as the setting is pre-empire no one knows that munitions even exist yet so they wont know anything until they experiment (hehehehe), or ask there friendly neighborhood Moranth.

[Nicodimas]

Do you know what would be so much fun a group of folks who had done several re-reads on Malaza Universe...playing a RPG together.

I really think the game would stay on track and get accomplished in a good amount of time..i think.

[Lord of Hate]

Nicodimas, on 23 January 2015 - 04:21 AM, said:

I really think the game would stay on track and get accomplished in a good amount of time..i think.

staying on track getting things done i see you find enjoyment from significantly differnet part of Roleplaying game that my friends and I do. No idea how long the game will go for the fallout game has been going for a year now i expect at least that long and still have quest that they started with

[Gorefest]

Nicodimas, on 23 January 2015 - 04:21 AM, said:

Do you know what would be so much fun a group of folks who had done several re-reads on Malaza Universe...playing a RPG together.

I really think the game would stay on track and get accomplished in a good amount of time..i think.

What's the point in that? Then you are just reenacting the books. Surely the whole point of RPG is carving your own free path within the world boundaries.

[Lord of Hate]

Gorefest, on 23 January 2015 - 09:16 AM, said:

What's the point in that? Then you are just reenacting the books. Surely the whole point of RPG is carving your own free path within the world boundaries.

This guy gets it. Let the players do what they want even if that is attempting to control Ryllandaras by themselves as their first thing they did, that didn't go well but freedom and all that.

[Gorefest]

I imagine they might spend more time in character re-creation than in the actual gaming world

"A huge shadow falls over your crew. You look up, expecting to see a stormcloud overhead, only to discover a massive floating piece of rock, nay a mountain, blotting out all daylight."
"That's mental. Maybe we should move from underneath it?"
"No man, I'll just hit it with some of my Thyr magic. No sweat."

"You see a jackal emerging from behind a boulder."
"Stab it!"
"A low growl alerts you to a second jackal behind your group."
"Jackals are notorious cowards. You take the front one, I'll shoot the back with my arrows."

"The multi-jointed creature appears to be trapped underneath a big boulder. You can choose to communicate with it, move the boulder, or travel on and leave it to its predicament."
"Move the boulder, he may be grateful and there could be treasure!"

"Right, I'm going to take our group through the wormhole."
"It's a Warren, and it is not instant travel. It may be dangerous in there."
"Meh, how bad can it be? It doesn't collapse, does it?"
"Again, it's not a wormhole."
"Yeah yeah, see you on the other side."

[Lord of Hate]

Gorefest, on 23 January 2015 - 10:30 AM, said:

I imagine they might spend more time in character re-creation than in the actual gaming world

"A huge shadow falls over your crew. You look up, expecting to see a stormcloud overhead, only to discover a massive floating piece of rock, nay a mountain, blotting out all daylight."
"That's mental. Maybe we should move from underneath it?"
"No man, I'll just hit it with some of my Thyr magic. No sweat."

"You see a jackal emerging from behind a boulder."
"Stab it!"
"A low growl alerts you to a second jackal behind your group."
"Jackals are notorious cowards. You take the front one, I'll shoot the back with my arrows."

"The multi-jointed creature appears to be trapped underneath a big boulder. You can choose to communicate with it, move the boulder, or travel on and leave it to its predicament."
"Move the boulder, he may be grateful and there could be treasure!"

"Right, I'm going to take our group through the wormhole."
"It's a Warren, and it is not instant travel. It may be dangerous in there."
"Meh, how bad can it be? It doesn't collapse, does it?"
"Again, it's not a wormhole."
"Yeah yeah, see you on the other side."

Are you sure your not part of my RP group you sound like it all those great idea that allow me to have so much fun. Though i do try to give more original situations than those.

[Gorefest]

We should have a thread where people can create scenario ideas for gaming sessions

[Lord of Hate]

Gorefest, on 23 January 2015 - 12:49 PM, said:

We should have a thread where people can create scenario ideas for gaming sessions

My favorite so far has been when some peasants told them that some "giant drakes" had chased the farmers off the land North of the city, of course they all armored up and bought dragon hunting gear (thing they thought would help), got out there only to see a giant male duck having sex with a barn, ahh word play. they then preceded to piss off the duck then its owner showed up a Jaghut, who bred it this big a la jhag horse style, and was not happy they promised a gift and he let them go one party member decided he could take the Jaghut and was brutally killed, then the Jaghut let via warren leaving a 400 m tall ice penis behind which started a ice rush in the city, with no freezers ice would be super expensive and the there was that mission to make money from the ice dick. good times

[Blend]

Lord of Hate, on 23 January 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

Gorefest, on 23 January 2015 - 12:49 PM, said:

We should have a thread where people can create scenario ideas for gaming sessions

My favorite so far has been when some peasants told them that some "giant drakes" had chased the farmers off the land North of the city, of course they all armored up and bought dragon hunting gear (thing they thought would help), got out there only to see a giant male duck having sex with a barn, ahh word play. they then preceded to piss off the duck then its owner showed up a Jaghut, who bred it this big a la jhag horse style, and was not happy they promised a gift and he let them go one party member decided he could take the Jaghut and was brutally killed, then the Jaghut let via warren leaving a 400 m tall ice penis behind which started a ice rush in the city, with no freezers ice would be super expensive and the there was that mission to make money from the ice dick. good times

Making money from the ice dick might be my favourite RPG thing I've ever read.

[Nicodimas]

Gorefest, on 23 January 2015 - 09:16 AM, said:

Nicodimas, on 23 January 2015 - 04:21 AM, said:

Do you know what would be so much fun a group of folks who had done several re-reads on Malaza Universe...playing a RPG together.

I really think the game would stay on track and get accomplished in a good amount of time..i think.

What's the point in that? Then you are just reenacting the books. Surely the whole point of RPG is carving your own free path within the world boundaries.

Oh I think our games get about 30 minutes of stuff done and random bullshit is what I meant. They get off-topic WAY to much lately!
/annoying

I meant people could also get really into their characters and possess/make it your own world. They would be more into that idea, cause they have history at their tips and would be willing to move forward with their own agendas They wouldn't need to go to a book each time to view specific class/race/ability..everyone would know! That type of stuff in the greater understanding.

Had to clarify as I didn't mean re-enacting the books, more like staying on topic as everyone would be into the said game, more motivation?.

Think that makes sense.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 23 January 2015 - 07:56 PM