TLD Pen&Paper


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A friend of mine called me minutes ago. Why he thought this time was appropriate is beyond me, but anyway - he bought TLD and he wants me to make a TLD pen&paper RPG for some variety and easy co-op  So much for my tragic story of people adding even more to the pile of stuff I have to write.

And that's why I am here: To outsource stuff! Let's make this game together! Everyone is welcome: Fluff writers for various regions, rule writers, playtesters, people who laugh at us, DnD salesmen (no, not really), Matt Ward (no, seriously no), and so on!

Personally I'd go for a D100 system as this is what the actual game seems to be using for skills. Perhaps a stat-buy character generation? How about crit tables?

Help me, fellow Survivors ;_;

EDIT: I am being intentionally vague here. I have some pretty solid ideas about this already, but I want to hear others first.

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Not sure why you'd want to make a Pen-and-Paper game based on TLD, since TLD is experiential and PnP's are narrative/descriptive...

For a system, you could honestly just make some very, very light edits to Chaosium's BRP system that Call of Cthulhu uses. Hell, just run a TLD campaign using the Call of Cthulhu book, have the PC's add a few skills (like firestarting), and you don't even need to write anything other than your campaign (ignore all the Mythos monsters, obviously). It's d100 already, and the games have quite a few parallels that match up nicely:

- High turnover (death) potential.

- Combat is deadly, simple, and not a central focus of gameplay.

- Characters are "everyman" types, not heroes. (No levels or XP or spells/day, etc.)

- BRP has tables for actual, real-life guns that part of the base system and not a broken add-on.

- BRP has entries for bears, wolves, deer, cougars, elk, rabbits, and other fluffy food bags.

- Modern-day setting.

- Use-based skill increases.

- Replace the word "Sanity" in CoC with "Welbeing" and you'd even be a step ahead of the Dev team.

- Books that increase skills.

 

The problem I see (and mentioned earlier) is that TLD is a piece of interactive art. The landscapes, encounters, immersion, and micro-management of vitals give the game it's primary draw. Trying to run a PnP version would require the GM to describe "you see yet another snowy hill/field/rock" often enough to be aggravating. It's kind of like trying to write a description of a painting that inspires the same emotions as the actual art (i.e. largely impossible). Micromanaging calories/temperature in a PnP is also largely advised against because it's way easier to let a computer do that for you. In order to maintain player interest, you'd have to add in-depth plot to fill in the holes left by the lack of nicely-crafted visuals and "survival pressure". You'd basically be running a completely different game that just used Great Bear Island as a setting, and it wouldn't really deliver a similar experience. You might see a few familiar notes, but you'd be singing a very different tune.

If you've got your heart set on this, I've been designing and modifying PnP games as a hobby for over 15 years, and I'll happily act as a "consultant" here and there.

 

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58 minutes ago, Vilespectre said:

If you've got your heart set on this, I've been designing and modifying PnP games as a hobby for over 15 years, and I'll happily act as a "consultant" here and there.

 

I'll remember this, both for this and for other projects ;) my first completed PnP was around 4 years ago, so you really have a lot more experience that I have.

And yeah, BRP would be my first go-to rule system you mentioned.

As for why I'd do this in the first place: First of all, I think it's a fun project to design with the community. BRP would make this very easy crunch-wise, but there'd be a bit of different fluff for different regions. Yeah, we could use Great Bear Island as a background, but there should be nothing stopping us from porting the basic premise of TLD to other regions.

Also, storytelling can get athmospheric without getting repetitive with the right GM and the right group - which, admittedly, is a rare combination (my current group is a flock of "That Guy"-types, unfortunately). The PnP would give players a TLD-inspired setting with the added bonus of not being alone. Of course, this puts more emphasis on the survival aspect and not the overall experience and the art style, on this you're right, but it could still be fun to play.

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7 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

Of course, this puts more emphasis on the survival aspect and not the overall experience and the art style, on this you're right, but it could still be fun to play.

I never said it wouldn't be fun ;),

Gonna need some time to gather data, look at Chaosium's copyright structure (to see what we can borrow), consider a few things, consult some notes, herd llamas, gather links/resources together, etc. Also, I have this day job I'm supposed to be doing atm instead of posting... give me a few hours and I'll put together another post with the stuff I mentioned above.

Buckle up, Wastelander. This just got super-serial.

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You might want to grab a snack and a beer before you peruse this. Take a bathroom break, settle in, get comfy, etc. You've been warned.

Disclaimer: Every single thing in here is a suggestion. Feel free to ignore/use any or all of it. People sometimes mistake my enthusiasm for trying to hijack stuff; I assure you that's not what I'm doing. Also, I'm not a lawyer.

 

SECTION I: ADMINISTRATION

 

On Copyrights

Chaosium, Inc. does not distribute their copyright via a license (which is fairly standard). This means that if we're going to make this publicly available, we can't use any of their art, writing, story, characters, or logos. No OGL for us to use, unfortunately. However, you can't copyright the rules to a game, so we can use their entire game system. Huzzah. Just remember that you have to write everything from scratch without plagiarizing the source material.

But... in case a collaborator forgets the intricacies of copyright law, we can't host any of this here on the forums. That could expose Hinterland to legal headaches. and we definitely don't want that. Even an un-grounded, false accusation costs you money. This is fine, since we need off-site storage anyway (see "On Collaboration", below). Just no attaching files here.

 

On Collaborative Tools

So you're going to want a way for people to contribute to this without having to scroll through a 19-page thread. Personally, I'd recommend getting a new gmail account (TLDRPG@gmail.com or whatever) and use that account to manage a Google Drive. It's browser-based, easy to use, and free. It's not as robust as MS Office or anything, but it should be able to handle what we're doing without any issue.

 

On Backups

Yes, you need backups. On your Google Drive you're going to want to have one folder that isn't shared with anyone called Backups. Every week, you dump everything else into a subfolder of Backups with a date stamp for a title. Keep as many as you have room for. If you don't do this and someone's cat deletes all your work, I'm going to find where you live and mock you from the street with a megaphone and a large sign.

 

On Editorial Privileges

You're not going to want to make this completely open to everyone, because the internet is infested with assholes. I'd suggest having people PM you for access rights, or possibly post them in this thread. Up to you. Then you can add people one email address at a time and keep everyone's work relatively safe from harm. For extra credit, you could even go so far as to set up different folders for different sections (art, fluff-writing, rules, playtest logs, etc). That way you can make sure your playtesters don't have access to your master rules documents. Trust me, it's not a good idea. Ask Hinterland. Or anyone who's ever developed software since 1981.

 

 

SECTION II: SYSTEM

Unless otherwise noted, all rules mechanics should be derived directly from 6th edition BRP / Call of Cthulhu (CoC).

 

On Skills

You're going to want to start with the skill list from CoC (modern, not 1920's). You're going to want to add/delete a few skills, and you may want to condense/expand some as well. You should create a complete list for use in the rulebook and the character sheet. You're also going to need to write descriptions for them.

 

On Professions

BRP uses Professions instead of character classes. A profession is just a list of 8-10 skills that most of your skill points get put into. You should keep the ones you like, get rid of the rest, and maybe add in a few new ones. Obviously you'd keep Pilot and Doctor. You can modify the skills as much as you want to fit your skill list and your taste.

 

On Items

You should pick a handful of firearms and melee weapons from the list CoC provides. Don't bother with their rules for other items; make your own item table from scratch. Individual items are way more central to TLD than they are to CoC. You can obviously expand beyond the stuff provided in TLD because it's way easier to write in an item than code one. You're going to want item tables to help people generate locations that have a sensible number / variety of item drops.

I'd refrain from having a "Calories" column for your food. Works great on the computer, will not work well with PnP. I'd suggest you provide caloric content in the scale of hours. You can make certain things reduce or increase the number of hours required. A bit of an abstraction, but it'll be a lot easier to track. Same for hydration and water. Ditto for firewood and fuel. (Everything still needs a weight)

THE DRINKING VERSION: Physically track your hours of food with snacks and candy. Physically track your hours of water with shots of low-powered alcohol (you'll be doing a lot of them). Every time your character eats/drinks, so do you. Try and stay sober enough to get home before nightfall. Don't die of alcohol poisoning in- or out-of-character.

 

On Survival

You're going to need to actually write some new rules here. You'll want to have weather tables (possibly even one for each "zone"), rules for injuries and maladies, a short "crit table" to see if you get conditions along with your HP loss, rules for illumination levels, exposure / starvation / dehydration / exhaustion / encumbrance rules, item condition mechanics, fishing mechanics, random encounter tables, and probably some other stuff I can't recall at the moment. If TLD has it and CoC doesn't, you need to make up how it works.

 

On Sanity

Get rid of it. I know it's basically the defining characteristic of CoC, but it's not appropriate here. Change Sanity to Wellbeing and replace all the various types of insanity with symptoms of depression (neglect a vital chore because you feel overwhelmed, oversleep, overeat, make a careless mistake while climbing, etc.)

 

On Eldritch Horrors, Weird Science, Arcane Rituals, the Great Old Ones, Cthulhu, and the Mythos in general

One of TLD's defining characteristics is the lack of monstrosities. Rip all the weird stuff out, and put in a nice crafting system instead. You can use the rules for mythos tomes as a template for skill books, if you want those.

 

 

SECTION III: PUBLISHING

 

On Due Diligence

Make sure you check for plagiarism before you unleash this on the world. Plagiarism isn't always intentional, sometimes notes get turned into a final product on accident. Do your homework.

 

On Stuff

You eventually need to produce the miracle that is "stuff". Specifically, you'll need a rulebook and a character sheet at a minimum. You may also want to put zones and adventures  in their own smaller documents ("splatbooks"). You shouldn't need much more than that. Also, you may want people to make your miraculous stuff look pretty.

 

On Format

.pdf's. That's all you need to know. You can convert them directly from Google Docs.

 

On Moneys

You wouldn't charge people for something they helped make, would you? Of course you wouldn't. Why'd I even ask?

 

On The Long Dark

Hinterland does a great job of getting involved with the community. Just double-check with them before you put "The Long Dark" or any of Hinterland's other intellectual property anywhere in this thing.

 

 

CLOSING

Okay I'm gonna go get really intoxicated and catch PokeMon now. I'll keep an eye on this thread. I'm not the world's most communicative person, so don't get concerned if I don't reply to stuff in a hasty fashion. Might take me a few days sometimes. Depends on how lazy I'm being.

And you thought outsourcing would be easy...

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Oh man, you truly did not exaggerate :D On the administration, I'll do what you said in there if more people show interest. As for the rules, yeah, I'lll go with it. I have some experience with Call of Cthulhu both as a player and a GM so I know what I'm getting myself into.

Concerning survival, especially with matters of temperature, in other games where this was of concern I usually gave clothes some kind of 'armor' rating against the cold and then rolled for damage each [time-interval] so this might be the easiest. Maybe add an additional stat like "warmth" or something that gradually gets depleted before you get damage. 

Also: We need someone from Hinterland here to check if we can, in fact, slap TLD on it or merely call it TLD-inspired :D 

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On 8/11/2016 at 5:08 AM, Wastelander said:

Also: We need someone from Hinterland here to check if we can, in fact, slap TLD on it or merely call it TLD-inspired :D 

It'd probably help them to know what license you're planning to use and whether you plan to have any commercial use to it.

(BRP System, eh? I'll give it a read or two; sounds interesting.)

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This is all really interesting!

Just a few notes on this project--

We can't endorse projects like this as "official" in any way. If you go forward with producing something, we would ask that you very clearly mark it as "fan art/fiction." 

So, is this a piece of fan art/fiction, or do you have other plans for it? :)

 

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On 12.8.2016 at 10:35 PM, Patrick Carlson said:

This is all really interesting!

Just a few notes on this project--

We can't endorse projects like this as "official" in any way. If you go forward with producing something, we would ask that you very clearly mark it as "fan art/fiction." 

So, is this a piece of fan art/fiction, or do you have other plans for it? :)

 

Well, what I originally intended was a simple ruleset for pen&paper playing so TLD-fans who either lived close to each other or found a forum with a dice-roll-mechanic could play TLD together, with players eventually supplying fluff-texts, rules addons and so on for other regions, especially the regions they live in. Guess I should have said so in my first post, so I apologize for that :D

How far this truly goes is up to the community, since I'd like to do this together with the community - nobody wants to do this alone, and nobody should go to the effort of making such a thing if there is no interest at all. Right now, I, personally, am at the 'gauging' interest phase.

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