ElfQuest - RPG (the pen & paper).

faeriegirl wrote:

Does that mean you're up for a virtual game then, Tymber? It's playable by 1-4 players, so it would work fine.

I would want to see (more experienced) players do a round or two before I muddled around with it.

Kojiyumi wrote:

I have the box, but never played it

Coming back to this real quick - the difference between the box set and the orange book - is the Box Set edition of the ElfQuest RPG was actually published before ElfQuest 19 and 20 were published, of the Original Quest. So the "book" edition actually contains "corrections/errata" that take into account events that happen in ElfQuest 19 and 20.

Tymber wrote:

faeriegirl wrote:

Does that mean you're up for a virtual game then, Tymber? It's playable by 1-4 players, so it would work fine.

I would want to see (more experienced) players do a round or two before I muddled around with it.

I wouldn't call myself an experienced player. I spent an hour on my first game, then decided I was basically starving my tribe so I quit.
Am planning to do another playthrough soon though, which hopefully will go better...

y'know, we could always Skype for a game if it's just us 2

Tymber wrote:

Kindredsoul wrote:

I sucked at DnD table top gaming anyway, and then I started playing it again (I forget the series) with my boys and their friends a few years back, but the only reason they wanted me to play was because the kid who was GM said the only way the game progressed was because I was the one yelling at the others to keep them on track

Well, it's technically impossible to "suck" at D&D... I mean, you can have ill fated dice rolls, sure! But that's not your fault!

How old were the kids that were playing D&D?

Because if they're old enough to have a good story, plan the adventure, then you should ideally have a good time.

Pathfinder... THAT's the name I couldn't remember

The boys were between 15 to 18 years of age, and don't get me wrong, the punk who was the DM made things quite interesting, especially with his acting skills, while the rest of us had a blast taking on hilarious personas of our characters...

I just sucked with terrible stats because no matter how many sides a die has... the lowest numbers seem to always favor me

faeriegirl wrote:

Tymber wrote:

faeriegirl wrote:

Does that mean you're up for a virtual game then, Tymber? It's playable by 1-4 players, so it would work fine.

I would want to see (more experienced) players do a round or two before I muddled around with it.

I wouldn't call myself an experienced player. I spent an hour on my first game, then decided I was basically starving my tribe so I quit.
Am planning to do another playthrough soon though, which hopefully will go better...
y'know, we could always Skype for a game if it's just us 2

True! What's the time difference? I think I am at work usually when you're around.

Kindredsoul wrote:

Pathfinder... THAT's the name I couldn't remember
The boys were between 15 to 18 years of age, and don't get me wrong, the punk who was the DM made things quite interesting, especially with his acting skills, while the rest of us had a blast taking on hilarious personas of our characters...
I just sucked with terrible stats because no matter how many sides a die has... the lowest numbers seem to always favor me

Ah. So it sounds like you roll like my friend Chuck, whom I currently game with. He has a gauntlet that gives him Hill Giant Strength (+3 to hit things) and a +1 sword. So it has a +4 bonus. Without those bonuses, he needs to roll a 10 or higher on a D20. With the bonus, he needs to roll a 6 or higher on a D20. Somehow, even with two attacks, he seems to miss more often than hit. He has a better than 50% chance to hit most of the monsters I throw at them - and he can't seem to hit the side of a barn.

The best was - two weeks ago, an Orc High Priest seized Command of him, and forced him to attack his party. Naturally, then he rolls naturally 20's and the like and pummels the heck out of the Dwarf Fighter.

Tymber wrote:

faeriegirl wrote:

Tymber wrote:

faeriegirl wrote:

Does that mean you're up for a virtual game then, Tymber? It's playable by 1-4 players, so it would work fine.

I would want to see (more experienced) players do a round or two before I muddled around with it.

I wouldn't call myself an experienced player. I spent an hour on my first game, then decided I was basically starving my tribe so I quit.
Am planning to do another playthrough soon though, which hopefully will go better...
y'know, we could always Skype for a game if it's just us 2

True! What's the time difference? I think I am at work usually when you're around.

I'm at GMT+1, European Central Time. Timeanddate.com tells me the following:
Amsterdam (The Netherlands)  CEST UTC+2 hours
Los Angeles (U.S.A. - California) PDT  UTC-7 hours    
New York (U.S.A. - New York)    EDT  UTC-4 hours

So that makes 6hr time difference with EDT, and 9hr difference with PDT.

Tymber wrote:

Kindredsoul wrote:

Pathfinder... THAT's the name I couldn't remember
The boys were between 15 to 18 years of age, and don't get me wrong, the punk who was the DM made things quite interesting, especially with his acting skills, while the rest of us had a blast taking on hilarious personas of our characters...
I just sucked with terrible stats because no matter how many sides a die has... the lowest numbers seem to always favor me

Ah. So it sounds like you roll like my friend Chuck, whom I currently game with. He has a gauntlet that gives him Hill Giant Strength (+3 to hit things) and a +1 sword. So it has a +4 bonus. Without those bonuses, he needs to roll a 10 or higher on a D20. With the bonus, he needs to roll a 6 or higher on a D20. Somehow, even with two attacks, he seems to miss more often than hit. He has a better than 50% chance to hit most of the monsters I throw at them - and he can't seem to hit the side of a barn.

The best was - two weeks ago, an Orc High Priest seized Command of him, and forced him to attack his party. Naturally, then he rolls naturally 20's and the like and pummels the heck out of the Dwarf Fighter.

LOLOLOL

I had been playing P&P RPGs from the mid-80s till 2003, and the EQ-RPG was one of the easy game systems. I started roleplaying with MERP and Rolemaster, so anything based on Runequest was delightfully easy for me, both as a player and gamemaster... We also tried out the EQ game, but with the limited possibilities it did not last very long, though all players had read OQ prior to starting the game.

Stormcatcher wrote:

I had been playing P&P RPGs from the mid-80s till 2003, and the EQ-RPG was one of the easy game systems.  I started roleplaying with MERP and Rolemaster, so anything based on Runequest was delightfully easy for me, both as a player and gamemaster...  We also tried out the EQ game, but with the limited possibilities it did not last very long, though all players had read OQ prior to starting the game.

The lack of content that you could do really was the limiting factor in the game. (Which is why I "borrowed" from the Monster Manual and tried to make them fit into the EQ world).

one of the problems was the first quest was still in full swing when the RPG first came out, the comics creators didn't get role playing and their was a lot of miscommunication so the game developers could only go so far without upsetting the comic people and fans. the RPG Companion striped out a lot of the more complicated rules elements and covered the next few issues of the Comic.

the game was ahead of it's time from a logistical stand point, it needed to be simpler mechanics wise and the original quest comics more complete.

the 2nd ed faired better with design and source material bringing the boxed set and the Companion in to one set of covers with some updates, but wasn't enough to really make the game an ongoing property.

be nice to see a new edition of the game, but what system? most game engines are closely locked to their setting or base assumptions these days, the number of game engines that could be used is very short without major re-wrights, of the top of my head GURPS (that can do most anything with a good source-book team), or a striped down version of Basic RPG (the modern version of the Chaosium game engine). If BESM/Tri-Stat was still out there I'd say that would be your first option.

At one point I gathered a lot of info, including a well thought out idea of how to lay it out.  If you would like any of the info I gathered on doing a digital RPG, PM me.

And welcome to the Father Tree Holt!

alas I do not have the time to make a even half serious attempt at it even for personal use, and doubt I could rise a game even if I had something to go with.

Well acquainted with that. Completely understand.

I'd like to do the "Flame Beast" again, Imagine a toned down version of Madcoil, only it can burst in to flames to escape traps (drop a net on it and it burns through it) or if if goes too crazy (Flaming Armored beast with razor sharp claws going berserk), only it burns it's self as well, but that's ok since it has a healing ability (not very strong, but enough to recover from the burning or annoy the players).

or the "Mind Hunter" with Sending and an other couple of mental tricks.

(I hope it's not rude to post in threads this old!)

I just wanted to pop in here to say that one of the things that landed me on this forum was actually the hunt for a copy of the RPG box set! In looking for that, I also expanded to see what the state of the fandom away from Facebook was like and ended up here  

I'm an avid tabletop gamer, mainly Pathfinder right now, and I'd love to have a crack at the old system to see how it plays. I've played some AD&D before, and while I favor modern games most of the time I really enjoyed trying out the chunkier rules and seeing how the math and rules affect the type of game you end up playing. I've noticed that the 'character' of AD&D is very different from Pathfinder, even with the same players, and even more different from something like World of Darkness.

For an updated EQ game, I wonder if the new Fantasy AGE engine would be worth a look? I tried it out recently in the Dragon Age RPG, but they've also released a core version without any setting-specific details that's meant to be adapted to other worlds. It was quick and pretty easy to pick up, and we had a lot of fun without spending hours negotiating a whole new rules vocabulary.

Cloudbuck wrote:

(I hope it's not rude to post in threads this old!)

Not at all! I think its fantastic that you are here and reading back over things I forgot were there! Post on whatever you wish, from whenever it was, and have FUN

Cloudbuck wrote:

I'm an avid tabletop gamer, mainly Pathfinder right now, and I'd love to have a crack at the old system to see how it plays. I've played some AD&D before, and while I favor modern games most of the time I really enjoyed trying out the chunkier rules and seeing how the math and rules affect the type of game you end up playing. I've noticed that the 'character' of AD&D is very different from Pathfinder, even with the same players, and even more different from something like World of Darkness.

The original (and second edition) ElfQuest game are very, very, very clunky. I think in general, Chasium's games, were clunky (as the ElfQuest game adapts from their general format). Character creation in the ElfQuest was a mathematical nightmare. Because you had 30 different skills, and each tribe, it was different. Maybe for Wolfriders, using a SPEAR was STR+DEX, but for the Sun Folk, it might be (STR + DEX) /2 and then for the Go-Backs it might be STR + CON + DEX. I built a character generator that did ALL the math for you once you had the character stats done. It was originally done in DOS (because back when I initially developed the software, it was like in the days of Windows 3.1!) Now, it's still in DOS - but with the help of my good friend Andrew, it's wrapped up in DOSBOX, which is a DOS emulator that allows it to work in modern machines. You can check it out (along with maps, character sheets, etc) over here: http://tawmis.com/eqroll/

Cloudbuck wrote:

For an updated EQ game, I wonder if the new Fantasy AGE engine would be worth a look? I tried it out recently in the Dragon Age RPG, but they've also released a core version without any setting-specific details that's meant to be adapted to other worlds. It was quick and pretty easy to pick up, and we had a lot of fun without spending hours negotiating a whole new rules vocabulary.

Dragon Age did release a few things for the Pen & Paper... (I wasn't much of a fan Dragon Age Pen & Paper... I love the games that the RPG is based off of - obsessed with them, which is the main reason I bought the Dragon Age Pen & Paper stuff - just to have some more information on Dragon Age, with no real intention to play the Pen & Paper).

Woof! That does sound like a mathematical mess! Thanks for taking the time to put together a tool to help with that, I'll definitely have to download it when I get home just in case I get a chance to play! Love the hi-res map image, too, that's really nice.

Huge Dragon Age fan here, too. The tabletop game was more fun than I expected, actually, and like I said--very easy to pick up. I'm pretty experienced, but half the table was a lot less knowledgeable about pen and paper games in general and they still got things figured out very quickly. It's never going to be the same experience as the games, obviously, but it's fun. The Fantasy AGE core book that was released separately basically gives you the same basic rules and methods for determining stats and actions, but removes the Dragon Age world and character types so that you can replace the setting with your own.

I feel like one of the big things with an Elfquest game would have to be the difference between those with certain magical powers and those without. Most systems let anyone capable of magic use (which might be everyone!) do anything with it that they want. You would have to work out a way to separate different powers. Maybe everyone has the potential learn Sending (perhaps with variable difficulty, since obviously some tribes find it easier than others) but only certain characters chosen either by dice roll or by group agreement can start to learn about and use Shaping types of abilities. The magic would have to have a distinctly different feel from typical sword and sorcery games.

I haven't gotten super deep into learning the Fantasy AGE engine yet, but it shows some promise as far as customization options for your own game setups. I'll have to read more and report back!

(and Nibblet - Thanks! )

Cloudbuck wrote:

Woof! That does sound like a mathematical mess! Thanks for taking the time to put together a tool to help with that, I'll definitely have to download it when I get home just in case I get a chance to play! Love the hi-res map image, too, that's really nice.

That map took sometime. I had to scan it in "pieces" to make it as large as it is - and then paste all the pieces together in one larger file. All the work with the program and the scanning; even though I knew I was targeting a VERY small audience, I have always been VERY passionate about ElfQuest. So even if I made it easier for one or two people, and someone came and enjoyed the map - all the better! (It's interesting when I see my version of the map used - which I can tell because of how it's pieced together and I had to smudge and blur some lines when pasting it into one file) - where that map now turns up.

For example, down where it mentions Ice Holt, there's this map:
http://elfquest.wikia.com/wiki/Abode

Compare the smudges next to "Holt" and you can see it's the same one on my site that I scanned.

Cloudbuck wrote:

Huge Dragon Age fan here, too. The tabletop game was more fun than I expected, actually, and like I said--very easy to pick up. I'm pretty experienced, but half the table was a lot less knowledgeable about pen and paper games in general and they still got things figured out very quickly. It's never going to be the same experience as the games, obviously, but it's fun. The Fantasy AGE core book that was released separately basically gives you the same basic rules and methods for determining stats and actions, but removes the Dragon Age world and character types so that you can replace the setting with your own.

Heh. I have been playing D&D since... well, we're talking 1st and 2nd edition (2nd edition was my jam!) Played a ton of other pen & paper - Pathfinder, Boothill, Marvel, Champions, Star Wars (several versions of it!), Star Frontiers (another one of my james!), Spelljammer (which I wasn't a fan of!), Dark Sun (again, not a fan of)... I think I would need to find a group to play Dragon Age with (I simply read over the rules and such, not actually played it in a live setting). Currently I love 5th Edition D&D (reminds me of the glory and fun of 2nd Edition!) 3/3.5 was good - but there was something missing. I couldn't STAND 4th Edition D&D... that was so absolutely horrible. 5th Edition is what we currently play every 2 weeks.

Cloudbuck wrote:

I feel like one of the big things with an Elfquest game would have to be the difference between those with certain magical powers and those without. Most systems let anyone capable of magic use (which might be everyone!) do anything with it that they want. You would have to work out a way to separate different powers. Maybe everyone has the potential learn Sending (perhaps with variable difficulty, since obviously some tribes find it easier than others) but only certain characters chosen either by dice roll or by group agreement can start to learn about and use Shaping types of abilities. The magic would have to have a distinctly different feel from typical sword and sorcery games.

Well, one of the biggest problems when you have something that spawns from an existing universe is balance. For example, in Star Wars RPG - Darth Vader made for an insane imbalance if you based it off what he could do in the movie translated into a character; the same thing happens in ElfQuest when you try to transfer someone like Winnowill into a character. Both, technically, create a huge imbalance because of "magic" (one, with the Force, one with more "traditional" magic). So finding balance with any game that requires magic is always the biggest pain. (One of the reasons I hated Dark Sun and Spelljammer because was the insane amount of Psionics, which is nothing but "mental magic")...

Cloudbuck wrote:

I haven't gotten super deep into learning the Fantasy AGE engine yet, but it shows some promise as far as customization options for your own game setups. I'll have to read more and report back!

I'd like to hear about it. I love RPG stuff. In the current game I run, I have an entire world I built (maps, NPCs, cities, gods, regions, religions, etc).

Hello is anyone still here ?

If so would anyone like to rp?

Sharp leaf wrote:

Hello is anyone still here ?

Hello! There's some RP stuff - I am sure someone can direct you to!

(You wouldn't happen to be the one who emailed me 'Stonehowl' about my ElfQuest RPG site that I directed here?) Or perhaps you were already here and saw this thread?

Guess what I got for Christmas!

My wonderful partner, despite never getting into EQ, managed to track me down a copy of the box-set edition of the RPG! It's the second printing, with the full-image covers, and incredibly well-kept for its age. Better than my old DnD books for sure! Someone even printed out a simplified chart of how to calculate stats (although I plan to use your program, Tymber) and made photocopies of the character sheets, then tucked all those extras into the box with the original materials. I can't wait to try it out!

Cloudbuck wrote:

Guess what I got for Christmas!

My wonderful partner, despite never getting into EQ, managed to track me down a copy of the box-set edition of the RPG! It's the second printing, with the full-image covers, and incredibly well-kept for its age. Better than my old DnD books for sure! Someone even printed out a simplified chart of how to calculate stats (although I plan to use your program, Tymber) and made photocopies of the character sheets, then tucked all those extras into the box with the original materials. I can't wait to try it out!

Hah! So that's so awesome! Congrats on the incredible gift!

And that's so awesome about all the extra stuff in there. My site also has all the PDFs of the character sheets; so if you ever need to print off more you can do it from there! (It also has various sizes of the world map that you can print off if you want to kill off some trees and printer ink!)

I'll definitely be looking to print more! We're talking about getting the map from my set framed, actually, to go with our similar maps of Golarion and Thedas, so I may need to print a play copy of that, too!

Ah heh yeah that would of been me ><