CoH d20

[EggKookoo]

A while ago I started working on a City of Heroes d20 conversion. I've made some progress but I've kind of stalled out. Rather than let it die, I thought I'd publish the site and let people see if they want to pick up where I left off.

 

https://sites.google.com/view/cohd20/getting-started

 

 

[MetaVileTerror]

I actually did a scratch d100 system myself . . . I should post that too, when I track it down.
Disclaimer:  It is incomplete, and I made some definite mistakes.  Mistakes that I learnt from, but . . . well, pretty heavy mistakes.

 

Yours is an interesting take.  Clearly wears its d&d heritage boldly.  

If you were to start over, do you think you'd do it the same way again, or develop it in a different system instead?

[Seigmoraig]

Have you considered making this with GURPS, the "Generic Universal Roleplaying System" ? Seems to me that you would have a much easier time translating the game to that system than to try to hammer it into a DnD 5e mold

 

Just my 2 inf though !

[EggKookoo]

I deliberately kept as much "D&Dism" as I could. The current edition of D&D did a good job keeping the complexity under control, so it was a way for me to use those same constraints, if that makes sense.

 

I'm not sure what I'd do if I were to start over. As I worked on it, it became more obvious that CoH has some issues translating to tabletop. Enhancements in particular are tricky. They provide many small cumulative bonuses to the many different aspects of their powers, and that kind of thing can become a pain to deal with at the table. I mean, you have three damage enhancements that do a combined 22.5% bonus. How do you model that with a d20 system? And then also be able to model it for any combination of such bonuses? I intended to have enhancements and slots appear, but I couldn't get it to work.

 

I think maybe if a tabletop CoH was going to not be d20-based, it would just need its own mechanic from the ground up. It just seems hard to keep it faithful to the MMO mechanics without becoming arduous to run at the table.

 

DoTs are another issue. Tabletop games don't handle DoTs well (they get burdensome), but CoH relies heavily on over-time effects. I ended up trying to model them as subsequent damage vulnerability, which isn't the same thing but kind of sort of gets the idea across?

[Some Random User]

C.o.H. was inspired by Champions Hero System. They even both use Endurance.

[Twisted Toon]

9 minutes ago, Some Random User said:

C.o.H. was inspired by Champions Hero System. They even both use Endurance.

I mentioned that to Mr. Emmert once and got told in a "voice" that would not be confused, ignored, or misunderstood, CoH was NOT even remotely based on Champions.

 

All CoH heroes are actually wizards. What they call Endurance is actually Mana.

 

Also, Gurps already has a Supers Supplement out. At least Gurps 3rd edition (might be second) does.

[MetaVileTerror]

Definitely, EggKookoo; avoiding d20 is probably the best choice to make in realizing a City of Heroes tabletop experience for roleplayers.

 

My initial design was using a Java-based code framework known as Maptool.  It's pretty powerful, but suffers from all the problems that Java does, and when I got to a critical mass of complexity, the code started to fall apart and cause major issues for my players.  (At least it was a fitting tribute to spaghetti!)
On top of that, simulated tabletop through Maptool is /not/ readily translatable to actual tabletop.  So, in my efforts to make my version of tabletop City of Heroes as faithful as possible to the MMO, I completely defeated my own efforts to make it actually _work_ in my target medium.

However, after years of reflection, I think I'm ready for the next iteration.  I will lean heavily on token-based mechanics.  Players make their rolls, and are rewarded with abstracted tokens which they then get to assign in combat.  Damage Tokens, Debuff Tokens, and Control Tokens to place on enemies, Buff and Healing Tokens to place on allies.  I transferred this idea to my City of Heroes system after making a Dungeon Keeper tabletop game, which used tokens to represent gold and mana for the player-Keepers.  The demo for that ran pretty smoothly, until (again, my arch-nemesis) the system got too complex.

Anyway; the GM of this City of Heroes system makes similar rolls for enemies, but instead of rolling for each individual enemy, the GM rolls per mob distributed by Rank.  In this way, it's a little similar to the Horde Mechanic from the Dark Heresy roleplaying game series.  It streamlines the experience, and allows the GM to illustrate to the players the pivotal element of City of Heroes:  The players are POWERFUL, going up against overwhelming numbers, but prevailing by sheer might.

 

Also, significant to reflecting the MMO's gameplay, Control and Debuffs are just as powerful in ending battles as pure Damage is, and all three in combination compliment one another.  This was where I made my initial mistakes in trying to make the system too complex.  As such, the abstracted tokens allow for greater flexibility while maintaining purpose.  They also allow the players to personalize the nature of their powers, since it's not a matter of precise elemental damage types, control types, and debuff types.  

The player defines, and the GM makes the call.  The player says "I'm using fire," and the GM goes "ok, well, that's not going to hurt the demon made of fire quite so much, but the demon made of ice is going to be feeling the hurt!"  These penalties and bonuses are similarly abstracted to save time, as Small, Medium, or Large.

 

Now, of course, the biggest drawback with using a token-based system is a selling point for corporations:  The need for having tokens.

The system requires a way to track how much damage/control/debuff is being a applied to a target, and in that way, if I were to take this game to market, I could actually use that as an element of the sales pitch.  Lately the tabletop market is dominated by systems which try to sell peripherals or mandatory components other than the miniatures themselves.  Wizards of the Coast is gaining quite a bit of notoriety for this within the industry, but other companies like Fantasy Flight are arguably the real industry leaders in this.

But I do not want to bring this game to market:  I want it to be free!  So, instead, tokens become a liability to my intent.  While 3D printing is becoming much more accessible and affordable in various places, I wouldn't want to force players to have to resort to that.  Thusly I need to give some thought to everyday items which people could have in suitably large quantities, but don't take up too much space, to use as simulated tokens.  Coin is an immediate thought, but that carries with it some pretty heavy baggage of implications.

 

 

 . . . good lard . . . I've rambled.  This was supposed to be your thread, Kookoo, and look at what I've gone and done.
Sorry.  I just get so passionate about game design work, even after I abandoned the industry.  I'll get quiet now, and let this thread get back to you.

[EggKookoo]

47 minutes ago, MetaVileTerror said:

 . . . good lard . . . I've rambled.  This was supposed to be your thread, Kookoo, and look at what I've gone and done.
Sorry.  I just get so passionate about game design work, even after I abandoned the industry.  I'll get quiet now, and let this thread get back to you.

Are you kidding? I love game-theory conversations. Rock on!

[Seigmoraig]

1 hour ago, MetaVileTerror said:

Thusly I need to give some thought to everyday items which people could have in suitably large quantities, but don't take up too much space, to use as simulated tokens.  Coin is an immediate thought, but that carries with it some pretty heavy baggage of implications.

Depending on how many tokens you want to include in your system, the simplest form of this could be playing cards of the Poker variety, you have 4 different types with numerical values 1 to 13.
If you need 5 types of tokens, you can turn instead to Magic: The Gathering's 5 land types, these don't have numerical values but dice can be used for that.
If you need more than 5 types, you can instead turn to the Pokémon TCG which has 9 Energy type cards.
The Pokémon cards are possibly best suited for this as the cards don't have any text on them and are mostly uniform from set to set and they all have an element pictured on them.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Seigmoraig

[MetaVileTerror]

You know, the deck of cards is probably not a bad way to go, but has the complication in the form of the numerical values.  Still, one could establish a rule along the lines of "2 through 7 are Small, 8 through Jack are Medium, and Queen, King, and Ace are Large."

This also helped me realize that "Healing Tokens" may not be strictly necessary, as Healing takes away Damage, so that would be simulated by merely removing Damage Tokens instead.
Thanks, Seigmoraig.

[Sidious]

I've mainly used M&M as the system for CoH TT.

Though, I guess FASERIP or Mayfair DC would work as well.

 

Aberrant & Godlike are right out.

[Cutter]

17 minutes ago, Sidious said:

I've mainly used M&M as the system for CoH TT.

Though, I guess FASERIP or Mayfair DC would work as well.

 

Aberrant & Godlike are right out.

Holy poop I haven't heard FASERIP since grade 8 playing TSR's Marvel Superheroes RPG!

[EggKookoo]

5 minutes ago, Cutter said:

Holy poop I haven't heard FASERIP since grade 8 playing TSR's Marvel Superheroes RPG!

I loved DC Heroes back in the day. Great game.

[Apparition]

2 hours ago, Some Random User said:

C.o.H. was inspired by Champions Hero System. They even both use Endurance.

 

The City of Heroes setting was originally Jack Emmert's Champions campaign setting.  The system... not so much.

 

I'd use either DC Heroes or Mythic D6.

[Lazarus]

You might consider looking into the "SILVER AGE SINTENALS" D20 system. It has 9 classes and a tone of skills and powers. It works off of the 3.0 D&D RULES, it even offers ways to convert others D20 game creatures like D&D into it...I'm sure u can prob. get copy from amazon.

[Graviton]

4 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

The City of Heroes setting was originally Jack Emmert's Champions campaign setting.  The system... not so much.

 

Several of my CoH characters were lifted from our ~30-year-old Champions universe.  Conversely, a friend of mine did versions of a couple of his CoH toons in the Hero System when I introduced him to Champions.  We still play it, the current group has been going for a dozen years or so.  So my advice is to use Hero, although I guess that would make it CoH d6.    😉

Edited October 29, 2019 by Graviton

[TraumaTrain]

Awhile back I started working on a CoH conversion for Dungeon World. It was looking pretty neat, but I never finished it.

 

Meanwhile, the Sentinel Comics RPG is nearing publication, and I'll be using that system. I'm actually pretty excited to run it.

[Odhinn]

If memory serves Statesman was originally a Villains and Vigilantes character then a Champions character. My very first CoH character was a recreation of my Champions character but somehow felt "off". I recreated my Invul/SS as Odhinn and he has been my main ever since. I played V and V Champions and Marvel RPG and recently restarted a Champions campaign for my son and his cousins. I set it in Paragon initially but am moving them to a new city.

[Sidious]

There is always the CoH starter by Eden Studios. They never got around to making the full rules available but you can see where it's going with the starter pack.

 

It's Free Here.

[catsi563]

Ive actually converted heroes into Mutants and Masterminds easily enough. my D4 Panda as well as Terrabull, and my PB Stars Fire and WS Midnights Fire