Whatever Happened to the CoH RPG?
By
ClawsandEffect,
Posted on: 2011-02-09 14:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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MSH was a marvellous system, once you got it into your head how the scaling worked (and shifting across the columns).|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
There's only ever been two games in my thirty years of tabletopping that have ever gotten superheroes right, and I'm afraid Champions isn't one of them for me.
The first is the venerable Marvel Super Heroes from the now-defunct TSR (now Wizards of the Coast). One chart that handles everything in the game, and it handles every power level from Aunt May to the Beyonder.  All percentile based and it scales beautifully. For pure super-heroey stuff, this is your game.The second is White Wolf's Aberrant game, which has no connection to the World of Darkness, allows you to put huge amounts of customisation into your powers, and runs off a success-based system. And any game that has advanced rules where you can eventually going around making whole galaxies and lifeforms is pretty cool... Be warned, though...this is a R-rated game with everything that implies. But I've seen DC and Marvel heroes converted over with ease. Give it a look. S. |
Trinity and Aberrant were good as well, using the standard D10 WW success system with the level increases making perfect sense (although my friends Aberrant character with 10 levels of *DEAD* was taking it to the extreme)
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I doubt that was a big issue. Based on what I saw of the game at Origins, it was already quite different mechanically. For example, it had a precursor to Inspiration combining long before the MMO did. :-)|
Originally Posted by Defenestrator
I think one of the other problems was that as the table top RPG was getting closer to being a reality, the computer game dropped the bombshells known as Enhancement Diversification and the big defensive power nerf, both of which pretty well revamped how the computer game is played. If they wanted the table top RPG to be like the computer game, it was probably going to require a big rework. On top of that, Jack was off and working on "other things" and I think he was the one championing the pen and paper game (he wrote a few things for Eden Studios before COH was born).
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Seemed like fun system, but I didn't really see enough of it to judge it fairly. Too bad.
-D
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Eden Studios was supposed to create the game.
If memory serves, some of the Devs (I seem to remember Jack being the main one) was close friends with George Vasilakos, the founder of Eden (The Vahzilok are named after him).
Around the time the game was supposed to really get a big push, Eden ran into a bit of financial trouble and had to postpone it indefinitely.
By the time Eden was back in decent shape, NCSoft had bought the rights to CoH, and it seems the deal died around that time.
You can find the link to download the Quickplay version for free here:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.p...s_id=2979&it=1
And there is actually a printed copy of the Quickplay verison of the game available on Ebay right now.
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Seems like it would have been easier to simply make a new system for a CoH RPg since it'd be based on CoH rather than trying to make another system work in a way it was never meant to.|
Originally Posted by Manowar
I do think Eden Studios has a good RPG system, but it is not level based and that was one of the challenges was adding a level system to it. They were also shoe-horning in the powers system, inspirations, endurance, recharge, etc ... into the existing Eden Unisystem. |
But that's just me and I know next to nothing about RPGs.
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker
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Ran an over a decade long campaign of it....and I own nearly every sourcebook and boxed set they made...it'd be nice if they did, but they made that awful reinvention of the game which didn't do so well.|
Originally Posted by GibsonMcCoy
So many nights at high school and college playing MSH. It was awesome.
Maybe we should petition WotC to re-release it. |
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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Yeah, true. |
Originally Posted by SuperOz
Ran an over a decade long campaign of it....and I own nearly every sourcebook and boxed set they made...it'd be nice if they did, but they made that awful reinvention of the game which didn't do so well.
S. |
I've got a 16 year old World of Darkness chronicle that's gone from San Francisco, to Atlanta, to Columbus, Ga/ Phenix City, AL, to small town South, back to San Francisco, and back to Atlanta again.
Having gone through three moves, 4 editions, and a rotating and ever-growing cast of players and NPCs, I've got notebooks full of stuff on it.
Heh, me too....but it's taking a well-deserved rest along with my 13-year Star Wars campaign which is now down to 'casual' status.
Now my fun is to challenge myself with other games; Doctor Who is a fun one to try, just for the potential variety from session to session....though my baby is my Star Wars game. I never seem to get tired of it.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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As I mentioned in another thread, I've been on a Western kick lately, and I've got all the Serenity RPG books, so I may start one of those.|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
Heh, me too....but it's taking a well-deserved rest along with my 13-year Star Wars campaign which is now down to 'casual' status.
Now my fun is to challenge myself with other games; Doctor Who is a fun one to try, just for the potential variety from session to session....though my baby is my Star Wars game. I never seem to get tired of it. S. |
Of course, I loathe the system that it uses, so I may adapt it to my beloved Silhouette System (Dream Pod 9's awesome creation, used in Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Tribe 8, Gear Kreig and CORE) or the Storyteller System.
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It highly depends on what system you tried to adapt it to. From what I saw and read of the official CoH PnP, it felt like a weird blend of a more traditional tabletop game and City of Heroes. Not strictly terrible, but not particularly attractive to someone like myself, who only has faint experience with such RPGs and is very easily chased off by number dumps and mechanics that I can't really see the point of.|
Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
Seems like it would have been easier to simply make a new system for a CoH RPg since it'd be based on CoH rather than trying to make another system work in a way it was never meant to.
But that's just me and I know next to nothing about RPGs. |
For instance, it had a DnD-style negative health system, including your standard -10 HP = death concept. That just...doesn't suit City of Heroes, in my opinion. And as I mentioned earlier, using actual, strict measurements for things - AoEs that covered so many yards, so many points of strength allow you to lift this much weight. Feels like pointless minutiae to me.
So in that regard, it felt more like a City of Heroes-flavored PnP, rather than "City of Heroes: The Tabletop Game".
Though, I will grant, converting any pre-existing idea into something else is challenging. You have to make a judgement call on what emblematic elements to distill and what you can safely ignore. And as can be seen here on the forums on a daily basis, what exactly everyone likes about City of Heroes varies wildly.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Originally Posted by GibsonMcCoy
As I mentioned in another thread, I've been on a Western kick lately, and I've got all the Serenity RPG books, so I may start one of those.
Of course, I loathe the system that it uses, so I may adapt it to my beloved Silhouette System (Dream Pod 9's awesome creation, used in Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Tribe 8, Gear Kreig and CORE) or the Storyteller System. |
Ah yes...people had problems with Story Points when I ran it a few years back...but I began to wonder if that was just because players don't have enough imagination to use Story Points to their advantage....
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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The -10 HP = death thing seems pretty out-of-place, but the other two sound pretty standard--the AoE size bit, because it's the easiest way to express such things, and the lifting thing because, well, it'd come up sooner or later. Although the lifting thing comes down to a judgment call about just how important it'd be to have non-combat rules in a CoH RPG... personally, I'd lean toward lots of them, since if you just want to simulate combat, the game tends to do that pretty well. On the other hand, super-crunchy rules for anything would be kinda out of place... now I want to check this out and see how it was handled.
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Originally Posted by IanTheM1
For instance, it had a DnD-style negative health system, including your standard -10 HP = death concept. That just...doesn't suit City of Heroes, in my opinion. And as I mentioned earlier, using actual, strict measurements for things - AoEs that covered so many yards, so many points of strength allow you to lift this much weight. Feels like pointless minutiae to me.
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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With my group, that's definately the case. Our first Silver Age Sentinels game included:|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
Ah yes...people had problems with Story Points when I ran it a few years back...but I began to wonder if that was just because players don't have enough imagination to use Story Points to their advantage....
S. |
A Jedi-inspired lightsaber weilding former villian.
Archangel
A Witchblade user who was also head of a CSI lab in Empire city.
Tetragrammaton Cleric John Preston, who was transported back in time after the events in "Equilibrium."
Batman
Killcrow (a reformed villian from "The Tenth" comic series by Tony Daniel.)
My group at the time were some great friends, but none of them had any originality. The core group of villians I had made up to be their archrivals? All original concepts come up by my friend, Paul Baxter, and I while in college.
This was the same group of people who didn't like "Exalted" because they felt the Stunts rule was too much work!
I have a long-term, ongoing project to create Mutants & Mastermind 2nd Ed statblocks for the various villain groups in CoH. So far I have a number of them done (including a passable Tyrant that probably needs a lot of work). Here's a teaser of some Clockwork that should pass muster.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise 
; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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These people are anathema to my existence.
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Originally Posted by GibsonMcCoy
This was the same group of people who didn't like "Exalted" because they felt the Stunts rule was too much work!
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Ironically, when I was on the other end of the table, and I'd try stunts in other games, I got funny looks.|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
These people are anathema to my existence.
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Why just shoot the bad guy when you could dive through a window, land on a table and slide across it to do a land on chair and knock it over & riding it to the ground while shooting the bad guy?
Villians and Vigilantes hold the most treasured place for a super hero game for me. More for nostaliga than content/ruleset as I wasn't much into the metagame analysis when I started playing it, it was just a whole lot of fun.
AHh back in the days playing D&D, T&T and V&V. All a game needed was two similar initials.
Had a lot of fun with marvel super heroes at high school - werent allowed to play D&D (was at the height of the D&D = satan worship) but was allowed to spend friday afternoon classtimes playing MSH as it was a game promoting literacy and numeracy
The http://www.classicmarvelforever.com/cms/ site has a heck of a lot of resources, including PDFs of the rules in downloads section. Everything you could need if you wanted to play a campaign of it. Its unearthly good.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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And this is exactly what I was getting at. X3|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
The -10 HP = death thing seems pretty out-of-place, but the other two sound pretty standard--the AoE size bit, because it's the easiest way to express such things, and the lifting thing because, well, it'd come up sooner or later. Although the lifting thing comes down to a judgment call about just how important it'd be to have non-combat rules in a CoH RPG... personally, I'd lean toward lots of them, since if you just want to simulate combat, the game tends to do that pretty well. On the other hand, super-crunchy rules for anything would be kinda out of place... now I want to check this out and see how it was handled.
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In my opinion, "just how strong is strong" is largely irrelevant; characters should either be able to do a thing or not be able to do a thing. Basically I'm just hard pressed to see what benefit emerges from the GM saying "Ohhh...sorry, if only you had a few more points in Strength...then you'd be allowed to do something cool." Especially when Strength is not the only relevant stat - what about Telekinesis? Overall it just feels like its adding complexity (adding weight limits adds the need for objects to have listed weights) without adding very much depth (if the difference between individual points of Strength is a small number of pounds, why bother?).
In the case of measuring AoEs, there's a far easier method - target caps and relative positioning. Obviously this shifts balance and encounter design in some ways, but as long as it's built with that in mind it can work. In CoH I don't think of Fireball as a 15 foot radius attack, I think of it as an AoE that'll hit a mob yea big, either in space or number.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Heh! Yeah, I dunno what happens with some groups after a while...I definitely feel my group's in a bit of a rut and I managed to jar them out of it for a while running Doctor Who, where I got two out of my three players gelling well as a core group, with the third just trapped in some sort of two-dimensional rut. |
Originally Posted by GibsonMcCoy
With my group, that's definately the case. Our first Silver Age Sentinels game included:
A Jedi-inspired lightsaber weilding former villian. Archangel A Witchblade user who was also head of a CSI lab in Empire city. Tetragrammaton Cleric John Preston, who was transported back in time after the events in "Equilibrium." Batman Killcrow (a reformed villian from "The Tenth" comic series by Tony Daniel.) My group at the time were some great friends, but none of them had any originality. The core group of villians I had made up to be their archrivals? All original concepts come up by my friend, Paul Baxter, and I while in college. This was the same group of people who didn't like "Exalted" because they felt the Stunts rule was too much work! |
Whereas I was churning out alien races at a rate of knots...
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
They really did their best to try and make it work. I did not stay in the test through the end. I saw a lot of problems and didn't have the time to commit make the RPG feel like it was anything close to the MMORPG. But that is only my opinion there.
The QuickStart was released long after I left the beta test. It does look good and seem to have a nice feel to it, but the game mechanics are a bit cumbersome. In truth so is the MMORPG, but we never see the back end so it seems to go smoothly for us. I can only make a guess that the game was not doing what Paragon Studios wanted it to do. So my assumption is they let the licensing fall through.
I do think Eden Studios has a good RPG system, but it is not level based and that was one of the challenges was adding a level system to it. They were also shoe-horning in the powers system, inspirations, endurance, recharge, etc ... into the existing Eden Unisystem.
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