Nightfall Games announce The Terminator RPG

[limburger 21705xp 0]

need to check the quick start, but that reads wrong and yet it kind of doesn’t

stat 1 + skill 4 = low talent + lots of training
stat 4 + skill 1 = lots of raw talent + little training
should training have more of an effect than raw talent ?
also keep in mind … that stat 4 + skill 1 character can still improve himself with a bit of training.
The stat 1 + skill 4 character can’t possibly find more advanced training …

Is a normal person supposed to even reach traning level 2 ?

I kind of suspect that *that* is where the ‘mistakes’ are made.
Players expect that a range 1-4 means that even ‘normal’ characters get to reach rank 4.
What if only specialists/aliens get to go beyond rank 2?
Same applies to stats …
In other words : a stat 1 + skill 4 character is definitely going to be better than a standard human who can only hope to do stat 1 + skill 2
Same applies to stat 2 humans … at best they may be stat 2 + skill 2. So they’re at a disadvantage to a stat 2 + skill 4 alien/specialist.

The only real downside is that there is no room for human characters to have a unique stat line as the best human is 2 + 2 and the ‘worst’ human is 1 + 0 (assuming 0 stat is impossible). That’s basically 2 statlines for all humans in the entire game.

So again … what is the game trying to do here ?
Are humans dead boring with zero chance of rising above the chaff ?

If your enemies are also running 2+4 style of stats then humans are going to get splattered real fast and only the ‘supers’ get to survive …

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

And here is the response from Shep the designer:

‘hi, I’m the designer of the system and the person that collated all the feedback and play testing aspects to refine the version you now have.

First thing is first, the numbers do work. The system works as intended. it might not be entirely to your liking, the ‘flaws’ being highlighted here at not flaws – they are the flavour of S5S.

SLA is a world where things are not fair – a Stormer is stronger and faster and tougher and a better shot and a better fighter and does more damage than a human. Life ain’t fair and neither is the WoP.

As such, a Stormer with maxed out stats and strength absolutely should be able to auto hit and kill in one smack. You’re considering the absolute peak of a Stormer’s capability – the top of the species. These individuals should make short work of a Carrien and other average targets all day long… that’s what they were made to do.

The system makes it particularly taxing to achieve a rank 4 in any skill – it requires time, money and XP, and the first two are often rarely available, as a result the GM can allow rank 4 skill sonly when it suits the group/game/process. Additionally, ‘power building’ to achieve success in one area at the cost of most others is present in every game system that does not force an ‘average Joe’ approach to character building (certainly not a very SLA thing to do). If your group decides to build STR5, Melee3 type characters all round, stick them in a white BPN with lots of puzzle solving 😉

During general game play, lots of options are present to tip the balance to those characters on the edge of of both high stats and skills – difficulty levels (up to 16) for non-combat situations and in combat, the effects of Fear, targets using defensive manoeuvres, cover, moving targets etc. This all tips the balance, but sill makes it highly likely that the strongest possible stormer, skilled to the peak of capability can hit a target who stands still in the open and doesn’t put up a fight – nothing about that seems unreasonable to me. If you have STR 6 and a relevant skill at 3 I’d expect you to own anything that doesn’t put up a fight/use cover/run etc. That is entirely intended.

With regards to obtaining that mega skill, let’s again assume a Stormer, who chooses to start the game with max STR 6 at the detriment of everything else and a skill of 3. They only need to increase the skill by 1 rank to obtain that mega skill. Going from rank 3 to rank 4 costs 11 XP plus 500c (500!!!!) plus a downtime period of at least 2 weeks for training. 11 XP could be earned in 6 game sessions (less if the GM wants to do silly things like giving away extra points), though as most long running games don’t consider a time scale of as much of 2 weeks between BPNs etc, the character could not do that upgrade (plus, 500c!!!!)… if they want to, sure, but then as an SCL10ish character who is power built to do one thing, you can sure bet that the GM will make life hard for them by putting them up against intellect-based tasks.

If you have a one dimensional character who can finally spend some good XP and they choose to do it in a way that makes them even more one-dimensional, I’d say it’s time to punish that character in the way that SLA does best 😉

Overall, what I’m trying to say is that while your maths are not wrong regarding highly skilled and stat’ed characters, the system provides multiple points of guidance on dealing with these builds and makes it painfully hard and expensive to get to those levels. This was all well road tested prior to being released by multiple groups who all felt the experience system balanced nicely with the general capabilities of well rounded character builds and that there were sufficient ways to deal with power builds.’

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

The numbers do not take into account weather, cover, defensive manoeuvres nor the effect of fear. All very important aspects. The number cruncher is going to add this into his bare bones mathematical model. The end effect will be rather more finessed Model of what is actually going on, but likely still to be flawed considering it’s a mathematical model of something more than just maths.

[limburger 21705xp 0]

@wfgdrmr yeah, that is what I expected a developer to say ….

However while it does create elites that can rip through everything there is little difference in character stats at either end of the scale. And *that* is IMHO not fun, because it effectively means that every human on the entire planet has the same 1-1 statline.

In D20 systems the range for stats is 3 – 18 which is a rather big range compared to the 1-3 range that S5S has.
Add levels into this and you can create a varied population from level 0 farmers up to level 9 kings without even needing to dip into the godlike powers beyond that.

Claiming ‘downtime’ as a barrier is a bit silly, because instead of going from 3 to 4 in a single session you could do it in 14 with a mere ‘day’ of downtime between missions. Never mind that downtime means nothing to npc’s

Yes … min/maxing can be defeated by placing the characters in a situation where none of their high level stats/skills matter, but that is a good way to piss off your players unless handled with care. A good GM should have seen that sort of thing coming and taken steps to talk to their players before placing them in such a situation.

All of this can work for SLA, because as you’ve said that is what the system was designed for.

Terminator as a setting is a different beast.
You don’t need stats for the terminators in the ‘past’ because they are impossible to damage with vast majority of weapons that the characters have access to (unless they grab a rocket launcher from the Army surplus store … ;)). So all you need to tell them is how they die …

The ‘future’ versions may need some stats, but at that point they’re closer to zombies in threat level. All you need to worry about is running out of ammo before you’re overwhelmed.

That is … assuming the players are only ever going to be humans and that playing a Termintor is not an option.

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

Where are you getting 1-3 from?

Have you played SLA 2nd Ed?

[limburger 21705xp 1]

@wfgdrmr you said yourself that rank 4 skills are (supposed to be) rare.
That means that your standard skill ranges are 1-3 (technically 0-3 including unskilled)
statwise you may have 0-6, but when you say that 2 = ‘average’ and 4 dice total tends to get you a lot of successes quickly you can’t go far beyond ‘normal’ if you want to be ‘average’. The quickstart kind of proves that.

Tammy Hardsnip is stat 2 across the board … not that much different from the beat cop the team meet in the first act. It’s almost as the game wants to say that you’re not going to survive as a team unless 90% is some kind of alien/mutant monster.

To me this says that the rules are set up for a team of supers/elites vs even tougher monsters. Not exactly noir horror, but more 80’s low budget action movie splatter fests and most definitely not something that matches what Terminator should feel like as the system doesn’t feel like it can do subtle.

I hope the quickstart for the Terminator game can prove me wrong, but I am not super impressed with the things this system can do.
Is SLA really the only system that has used this so far ?

 

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

So you are working off the SLA QS and haven’t played. Got it.

 

[tankkommanderParticipant 6423xp 0]

Passive aggressive might not be the best sales method :p

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

This is not a sales post…it’s an information post. As far as I’m aware sales is not allowed on this forum, and even if it is there is nothing to sell and I’m pretty sure Nightfall will be responsible for that.

secondly I don’t think you understand what passive aggressive means.

This post was started to inform the community here that a Terminator RPG is incoming. That to me is exciting, yet all you have done is snipe and snide, just like you have on the other 2 discussions regarding Nightfall products here. I get it you have a beef, but honestly if you have nothing nice to say…please go and find somewhere where you can. It’ll make you happier.

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

The Terminator RPG Quick Start is now available on DrivethruRPG at Pay what you want:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/341238/The-Terminator-RPG-Quick-Start

[limburger 21705xp 0]

Why are both ‘Hope’ and ‘Fate’ stats used to push the results of certain actions ?
Shouldn’t it be just one of them or is this simply an error in the quickstart ?

I thought hacking-puzzles had died last century …
I get why it is done, because rolling a few dice isn’t *that* exciting … but at the same time it tends to kill the pace of an encounter.

At least that’s one of the reasons they used to basically reduce the hacking in the new CP Red to be more like riding an elevator (things get more dangerous, but the rewards are better at higher levels), which is good enough to make it interesting without adding too much complexity or reducing the hacking attempt to a single skill check.

It’s a shame the system won’t ever include the other movies due to licensing idiocy.

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

Not sure how much you know of The Terminator Dark Horse comics, but there is a lot of content there, much of which is used in later movies, especially Salvation. I think the only thing any of the movies can add, not covered by the 1st and its DH comics is the T1000, and some aspects of the bad guy T in Dark Fate.

[wfgdrmrParticipant 400xp 0]

The Terminator RPG Kickstarter is close to launch and Nightfall Games have shared the notify me page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nightfall/the-terminator-rpg

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