Glorified Mercenaries (LWRPG) (Still a thing and unsure about playerlist)

So I've been kicking around this idea for a tabletop RPG campaign for a while, but not actually done that much about it. This changes now, as I am planning to start it in roughly a month (give or take, depending on people's schedules).

Basically, there are three days a week that I can reasonably run this thang, those being Mondays and Wednesdays (Past 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time) and Fridays (Past 6:00 PM, I believe) (other days are reserved for homeworkin', socializin', girlfriendin', etc.) but it doesn't really matter to me which of those days we pick so I'd appreciate input from prospective players as to which works best. In terms of number of PCs, there's probably room for about five players, maybe six tops.

The system is Lightweight RPG, and the materials are linked here, and we'll be using something called Roll20.net to do the actual game stuff.

General conceit of the campaign:

SpoilerShow

The year is 1249 on the Sha'n calendar, roughly analogous to 1949 on our world's Gregorian calendar. Cars are becoming a big part of everyday life, people are harnessing new and exciting (and extremely dangerous) new sources of power, the youth and the oppressed are growing increasingly disaffected, and a good chunk of the planet is picking up the pieces from a long and hard-fought war. It's still a fairly fantastic setting; various species abound, nerds study magic rather than "our" physics, and so forth.

The main thing worth noting here, though, is the Adventurers' Guild. Established back in the 900s, it used to be a respected group that fostered scientific advancement, exploration of uncharted areas, and world-renowned heroics. But as the world got more advanced, they fell by the wayside. Scientists and explorers got more specific and spectacular, and began looking into places no group of misfits could reach. A world ravaged by war after war placed heroics in the realm of fiction, and in their day-to-day life focused mainly on keeping the increasingly industrialized world going.

This shouldn't be interpreted as some horrible thing, of course; it was progress, and by and large, people were better off. But an unfortunate consequence of that was that the Adventurers became less and less appealing and awe-inspiring, losing their luster and their capital A. Nowadays, the Guild is mainly staffed by those who can't find employment - crooks, dropouts, burnouts, old guys, hobos, and minorities - and those who won't, people who want jobs more thrilling than "secretary" or "salesman", who want that infinitesimal shot at glory that still lingers.

And you, perhaps predictably, are they.

Any questions, feel free to ask away.

I can do Fridays best. I can also do alternate Wednesdays, but if this is going to be a weekly thing and I'm going to be involved in it, Fridays would be optimal.

I am not a prospective player but I am pretty interested in the general practice of roleplaying and RPG game design. So I'm wondering about this system? Where'd you get it, and why'd you choose it? I see it's pretty combat/tactics heavy, is that where you're planning on going with this game? Do you have a good sense of how you'll reward boons?
If it were me, I'd be worried about boons. There's no good reward cycle if the GM hands out rewards arbitrarily. It needs to be something the player can deliberately work for, or it's worthless - and particularly when that's the only element of character growth! That means the mechanics rob the players of any mechanically-relevant goals to work towards or control over their own characters. Not just a problem for the "power gamer" approach, but also for players who want their abilities to reflect their character as a character.
I dunno, what do you think about that?

I am not a prospective player but I am pretty interested in the general practice of roleplaying and RPG game design. So I'm wondering about this system? Where'd you get it, and why'd you choose it? I see it's pretty combat/tactics heavy, is that where you're planning on going with this game? Do you have a good sense of how you'll reward boons?
If it were me, I'd be worried about boons. There's no good reward cycle if the GM hands out rewards arbitrarily. It needs to be something the player can deliberately work for, or it's worthless - and particularly when that's the only element of character growth! That means the mechanics rob the players of any mechanically-relevant goals to work towards or control over their own characters. Not just a problem for the "power gamer" approach, but also for players who want their abilities to reflect their character as a character.
I dunno, what do you think about that?

Well, a big part of choosing the system is that I feel like it has a fair amount of meat to it without being excessively complex. I've GM'd super-simple systems in the past, which are easy to run but get boring fast; and other systems I've looked at have often seemed complex enough to make them unfeasible to run. I playtested this one at PAX East, actually, and it struck me as a good balance of depth and ease of access.

As for boons, that's a good question and I'm glad you asked it! I'll probably hand out a few one-or-two use items during lulls, and talk to my players about what they think would be appropriate for that. More major boons I think would be best for when an arc is resolved, which (depending on the depth) might be anywhere from 3 to 6 sessions (of course, that's an estimate). Individual character arcs would also be a factor, of course, and I'll keep thinking that over. I think, given that this is a new system, some of it's going to be trial and error, and I do invite any players to chip in on how they think things could be made to flow better.

As for combat-heaviness, the one-off session I did previously did end up being fairly combat-heavy, so I think something I'll need to be careful about is not having too many large encounters, as well as making sure to load a fair amount of non-combat stuff in (perhaps even what might on paper seem disproportionate, but in practice evens out).

Like I said, some of this is just by nature going to be "we'll see how it goes and adjust it if need be", which I think will be good in some ways and bad in others. But I'll certainly work towards making it a good experience, both in terms of what I observe and what any players mention.

Friday evening is Saturday morning

are you asking me to wake up early

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jk ilu guysy

Is combat-heaviness something you want, though?
I just notice that about 50% of these rules revolve around combat.

And will the players be able to work for particular boons? I really am concerned about these boons. Frankly, they seem pretty broken to me. It seems to boil down to "Character advancement takes the form of the GM handing out +1s to skills according to his whim."
In my opinion, character growth should be the domain of the players, not the GM. They should have direct control over what their characters get better at.

I'm not sure if signups are open or not (actually I am because you just said they are in IRC but I am pretending I'm not because as I am writing this it is not yet in the topic) but if you are looking for people I would be interested.

In terms of me:
Friday is a very good day
Monday is an alrightish day but not ideal
Wednesday is no, very bad, definitely not

Yeh, I'll bite.

And will the players be able to work for particular boons? I really am concerned about these boons. Frankly, they seem pretty broken to me. It seems to boil down to "Character advancement takes the form of the GM handing out +1s to skills according to his whim."

I would definitely say that pretty much all permanent boons would either be entirely or partially up to the player(s) receiving them.

I might be interested in this but uh, my schedule's absolutely abysmal. Saturday's literally the only free day, seeing as I'm in lab on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Saturday night is Sunday morning

Are you telling me to yeah no can't do sunday.

pretty sure i don't have time to do this but wanna roll up a character anyway hold on

Alright so, somewhat unsurprisingly it sounds like this is going to be run on Friday evenings; specifically, I'm thinking something like seven PM, EST/EDT (eleven or midnight GMT, depending on whether daylight savings is happening). If people need it to be later than that we'll see to working that out, but I can't go much earlier based on my class schedule.

Any other problems/questions you can hit me up via PM either here or on IRC; character sheets soonish would be appreciated. As I understand it, the current lineup is
- Nottles
- Agen maybe
- XX
- Godbot
- Slorange
- Jacquerel
but feel free to correct me on that and I'll see what needs doing.

Character Sheet template:

SpoilerShow

Player:
Name:
Description:

Strength:
Intelligence:
Cunning:
Luck:
Bravery:

Armor:
Shield:
Power:
Initiative:
Movement:
Accuracy:

Defense:
Current Resolve:
Damage Reduction:

= Skills =
General 1 (+1)
General 2 (+1)
Specific 1 (+3)
Specific 2 (+3)
Signature (+5)

= Attacks =
Attack 1
Attack 2
(Attack 3)
(Attack 4)

(Healing 1)
(Healing 2)

CHARACTER SHEET TEMPLATES PLZ

Hey so planning-wise, godbot and I are going in kind of a tanky direction, has anyone else been meandering in the direction of a role?

You guys should all be bards. You can be a travelling theater troupe!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yvFU...GamfM/edit

I hath designed an ex-cop who does parkour! Designed to be a striker on any team, should the need arise.

I have very little preference about what I am doing, though as I suspect as any kind of healing role would seem to generally be the least popular I can start thinking in that direction.

oh hey turns out i actually do have time for this; i'm going to roll up a basketbard

Freakin hell i wanna do this so badly

basketbard

SpoilerShow

Player: Nopad
Name: Cherry Headlights
Description:
A b-baller at heart, Cherry yearns to improve her slams enough to make it pro. She is never seen
without her mixed-range weapon, a trusty b-ball. (This is partly thanks to an enchantment that causes the ball to return to her even after a bad toss. Not exactly tournament-legal, but watchu gonna do?)
In her downtime, Cherry has also developed a repertoire of jams, which she uses as an amateur disk jockey. She carries these around in her combination satchel/turntable, sorta like the combination boom box/paint can Willow Smith uses in her video for “Whip My Hair”, only it’s a turntable instead of a boom box, and instead of paint it stores adventurin’ materials, including her b-ball, jacket, first-aid kit, i don’t know twine? etc. If turn tables don’t exist in this time period then this one runs on magic.
Cherry has bright red skin and pink, voluminous hair, which is a reasonable thing for people in this world to look like. She wears a jersey and shorts and nice kicks, which leave her movement unrestricted but provide little in the way of protection.
After a falling-out with her family over things like “jobs” and “fucking doing something with your life”, Cherry has turned to the Adventurers Guild to prove her mettle. And also for money.

Strength: 4
Intelligence: 2
Cunning: 5
Luck: 3
Bravery: 1

Armor: 0
Shield: 0 (fuck it)
Power: 4
Initiative: 7
Movement: 9
Accuracy: 3

Defense: 16
Current Resolve: 16
Damage Reduction: 0

= Skills =
Slams (+1) Through years of b-ball training, Cherry has gained coordination and basic knowledge of the body.
Jams (+1) Cherry is quite familiar with a variety of music.
Throwing Small Objects, Especially Roundish Rubbery Ones (+3) B-ball is a way of life.
Inspiring Music That You Play in The Climactic Scene Of The Movie Where There’s Like One Second Left On The Clock (+3) Gives the party +1 to hit rolls for some turns or something that’s fair. Needs a playable music thing to work.
DUNKS (+5) Aw shitt! Cherry launches into the air, slamming her b-ball hard. Of course, this can only be used with a b-ball, and on something initially with a height advantage on Cherry. No point in dunking without some sweet air, after all.

Code:

= Attacks =     Base Precision    Base Damage    Features    Description
Jumper         2        1    Ranged    Cherry jumps and throws her b-ball at a distance.
Chest Pass        1        3    Reach 2    Cherry throws her b-ball at a nearby enemy with both hands.
MUZAK           1         2    Splash (Long Cone)    Cherry lays down some nasty beats to demoralize the enemy.
C’mon and Slam 1       1    Cannot Miss, Push Target 3    Step the fuck off!
= Heals =       Base Heal    Features    
Welcome to the Jam 3       Splash (Wide Cone)    Pump it up with inspirational tunes.
Sports Medicine    6         An ace bandage can go surprisingly far.

[/quote]

Tentative character sheet in development: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18P9z...HJY9c/edit

I think someone's going to have to start a second game due to abundance of interest
This is like Pokemon Tabletop all over again :V

Nopad clearly has the best possible character and the rest of you should just give up now.
Wait, no, now I'm reading the other ones.

I've realised based on recent developments that I probably don't really have time for this, fortunately you've got a lot of other hopefuls that could be a replacement.