Fallout PNP additions and revisions

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Pyro4000

First time out of the vault
Lets face it, despite the excellent work that Jason Mical put into his Fallout PNP rules, his efforts weren't perfect and left room for improvement. For one reason or the other (whether that be because of dissatisfaction with the inaccuracies of various information, exasperation from incorrect data or whatever) I decided to dedicate a little time into making corrections of his material.. Before posting/uploading any content though, I realize that I should ask permission from him, and maybe Matthew Standley while I'm at it because some of my additions cross into areas where he has already tread. So, my question is how do I contact these individuals?

Some of my contributions are minute, others not so much. Oh, I also have a new Fallout PNP character sheet that I can make available for others upon request.
 
That's interesting. I have gone through the same process myself. I'm almost done with my own set of rules. I based it also on Mical's works, with a sharper, simpler rulebook. My character sheet is also ready (alas, it's in French, but I will post a pic of it in case anyone likes it and wants to use it).

What changes/additions did you do in regards to the Mical's 2.0 (or 3.0) ?
 
McCabbe said:
What changes/additions did you do in regards to the Mical's 2.0 (or 3.0) ?
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In going back over damages from the first two Fallout games, I came across quite a few inconsistencies and broke down the damages to be more canon. The same went for ammo and armors (some of which were so "cringe-me, get rid of" that I did.) Certain traits weren't as balanced as others, new perks fit as a trait better, or vice versa, or were scrapped completely because they were over-balancing or didn't have the Fallout feel to them expected of the series. As far as additional Fallout content that I mentioned - I've came up with my own campaigns situated in the area where I live (The Four Corners region, long before the Mojave interest that New Vegas created.) I've not really considered Fallout: New Vegas very canon, and even though The Legion is also a faction out of Van Buren, they should never have existed in the Fallout Universe as far as I'm concerned (and so they don't in my world.) The Khans, and other Slaver/Maurader factions serve in that respect aplenty, and I've added a sort of official, ever-expanding government to the Colorado area that could eventually challenge the NCR for resources and territory. This new faction is called the New Colorado Democracy (NCD.)

Some of the pictures of the various weapons and items looked terrible, so I compiled a bunch of real-world example-photos to include on the side and left the rules in straight-forward text files (much to the disappointment of those that love picture-books I'm sure. If anyone wanted to take the time to shrink these photos and add them to my content through .PDF or whatever, by all means feel free to do so.)

The thing is, if it feels canon enough in comparison to what the original Fallout games gave us, then it was kept/included. There's been a few added perks that overshadowed traits or other perks that did basically the same thing so they were gotten rid of. An example of what I'm talking about is Accelerated Healing. The Faster Healing perk already did this, and was already available at level 3. For the requirements of it, Pyromaniac always fell short when compared to other perks gained at Level 9 (Better Criticals comes to mind) and is the only perk that I felt the Fallout 3 version was more balanced and better justified lugging around a heavy Flamer and all that required ammo (it also gives the character incentive to RP being a flame-loving, burn your enemies, torch-everything kind of person.) So I supplemented the typical +5 damage it did in the original games to +50% damage like in Fallout 3. The other perks that addressed bonus ranged damage gave +2 bonus damage or so, true, but that can be applied to each round that left the end of a Bozar (actually dealing an added +30 damage.)

There are more things I changed around but it's a rather large bother to list them all out here. Maybe we could get together and compare our works? That might be something to think about since you've probably noticed other areas where Mical's work fell short of perfection.
 
I haven't re-designed the rules in function of the chosen feel. In other words, what I did could be used on a campaign based on FO1, FO2, FO3 or FONV.

My primary aim was to simplify everything. After years spent RPGing (I have translated RPGs, and even had a few materials published), I almost always gave preference to simplicity. To me, a GM should never have to read his rulebook during a gaming session. The rules should be so simple that between character sheets, the GM screen and his head, everything should be there. Also, an action should require a single throw of dice.

With that in mind, here are the current differences between my thingie and Mical's :

- Skills
I decreased the number of skills to 14. I took away all the ones that were unimportant in a PnP RPG. What was left was : Tribal Weapons, Modern Weapons, Military Weapons, High-Tech Weapons, Athletics, Speech, Thievery, Barter, Medicine, Pilot, Awareness, Repair, Sciences, Survival. As you may notice, I made some cuts in the fighting area, and reorganised them in a different fashion. (They're organised by cultural framework, rather than by similarity of items : for instance, now, tribal weapons gathers HtH, melee, throwing, etc...)
Skills may have bonuses or penalties, ranging from +40 to -40 depending on various factors. Since things were unclear in Mical's system, I decided to have critical hits always equal to your luck, and critical failures always equal to 10-luck. That can be changed by perks or traits of course, but that's the basic system.
I have kept the Tag! concept, and I think that I will adopt FO2's system for skill points per level. There's no way I will adopt the skill book system. I think it's a ridiculous idea.

Hit Points
I haven't yet decided how to calculate them. My main problem is that I will not use at all a localisation system, nor will I allow HP/Level. You'll start with a set number of HP, period. It can be changed with perks, but that'll be it. So, I need to review everything in the weapons/monsters lists to see how to create a reasonable formula.

Action Points
FO2 system

Sequence
Unsure, but that's not a real problem.

SPECIAL
Not much to say here, I'm using the 7 SPECIAL characteristics. The only thing is that I think that Strength and Charisma are far less important than Agility or Intelligence, so I shall create or modify perks to give more importance to S & C.

Perks.
I decided I would allow perks every two levels (note that I plan to have a cap at Lvl 20, and that getting a new level will be slow, very slow). I design campaigns so that my players live a story, not a Hack n' Slash lootfest orgy.
That said, Perks is what is giving me the most work. There is absolutely no coherence (to me) whatsoever in all the existing systems (FO1, FO2, FOT, FO3 or Mical's). Level reqs, characteristic reqs, results, etc, everything seems to lack coherence. So, I made a list of ALL the ones that already exist, and will start working on all of them.
Perks are (to me) what makes FO's system so cool. They give substance to the character and are fun. So, this will be where I will eventually spend the most time. For the moment, my characters are Lvl 1, so I have some time to finish other things before perfecting what already exist.

Combat.
That'll be for another post, I'm running out of time. Btw, my character sheet is done, I'll post a pic of it in the next post.
 
Ah, you can simplify things or study them obsessively to know them better. I do the latter. Changing a system almost feels wrong personally. I'd rather expand my understanding of how the actual game system worked and incorporate that into the PNP rule system. Setting up your own system to fit is alright, keeping to some of the official system even, as long as people know that's the case. I all but idolized the original games enough when they came out that when I heard about the Fallout PNP rules in BOS I got excited (and disappointing as well when they didn't include any combat system or game mechanics, well - not to my satisfaction when looking at the original games.) When Mical came out with his material, I was very pleased but still felt it was lacking. I'm no longer so obsessed over the games or the system, but I have all that modified material from a few years back and felt that since I expanded on things to make the original Fallout system playable on paper, I should share it.

You know that saying, "If you don't know it, fake it" doesn't apply to me. I figure things out. Calculating exactly what dice, how many, and then the added damage for many of the weapons kept me busy for about a week. But I feel it was worth it. If you're going to play by the rules, play by the rules. If you want to play by house rules, do so. If you want to play by your own system, by all means. Share it too. As long as everyone is having fun it doesn't matter. Glad you're interested in what I came up with. Feel free to include things in your system if you like. I'd be interested in seeing that Character Sheet too.

As far as how to contact Micals, would you know how to go about doing that?
 
as for contacting Mical go to www.jasonmical.com

Hi I'm using modified PnP 2.0 rules.

Skills - have 19 of them, basically the same skills with 2 or 3 differences. Knowledge covers everything the Science and Medicine don't. Medicine is First Aid and Doctor in 1 skill. Traps also are Explosives and Survival is Outdoorsman and stuff like skinning Geckos and other. The Skill cap is 150, but in 3 campaigns no one ever had more than 110. Skill test vary form -80 to +80. But I also do a lot of STAT test for things that are not covered by Skills like climbing or jumping ;) .

Hit Points - base amount is the same as in PnP, but You don't gain HP as you progress, You have to buy them for XP, so if someone doesn't want to buy them and focus on skills or perks he can do that.

Action Points - are the same as in Fallouts 1,2.

Sequence - is PE x 2 and it works great for me.

SPECIAL - is special I use the original thing.

Perks - In my game perks can be bought for 20XP (I reward from 10 to 18 XP points pers session), also You have to have the requirements met (Skill level or STAT) to be able to buy a perk.

And here are the character sheets

http://www.4shared.com/photo/ngyM0wKI/FaLLoutCharSh.html
http://www.4shared.com/photo/D7RuZ7FY/FaLLoutCharShRr.html
 
Absolutely brilliant. Thanks a bunch.

I think my last issue will be with resistances, I'll come back a bit later with some questions.

In the meanwhile, here's a sample of my character sheet. This one is Arkady, now 17. I think he'll be the less Falloutesque character. He'll probably become some sort of high-tech spy. Sorry for the sheer size of the pic, but otherwise it would be utterly unreadable.

ArkadyZaitsev.jpg
 
So for now, because what I really did all those years ago when I was GMing my campaign was supplement some of his rules, I will be making a zip file of my rules and a separate file that gives credit where credit is due. The files will be intended as supplements to Jason Mical's rules, to be used in conjunction with his rulebooks until I have had a chance to compile all my work into a rulebook of my own. I'm going to make up the credits readme real quick and it should be uploaded today.

These files (well, besides my adventure material) were all that I ever needed to GM. I printed these out and that was sufficient for my Fallout campaigns. If there were enough interest, I will type up all my adventure material too. This material includes stats for main characters, motives, new locations, factions, quests, plots, the works. But I need feedback about making the material on my campaigns available otherwise its a lot of work to type out two full workbooks of notes, ideas, all that. I always made most dialog up as I went while sticking to the storyline but I could make up some sample dialog too if interest were high enough.

This material was never really intended for others to see because, well, I was always like a dragon guarding it's hoard. It's secrets, haha :P Now that I don't care as much about all this, I feel like I should share it. It can make the job of somebody wanting to run their own campaigns, a new GM (and not so new), much easier and fun.
 
The files have been uploaded (waiting for them to be approved/made available for download) but looking over some of the content, like the optional robot attacks, I realize they were in an incomplete state and the damages and whatnot should be as follows:

Robot Attacks (Optional)
Hand-Attached Taser (Melee Weapons): Dmg. (1d10+5)+MD AP S: 3 T: 4 B: N/A
Forearm-Attached Weak Beam Laser (Energy Weapons): Dmg. 6d4+4 AP S: 4 T: 5 B: N/A
Forearm-Attached Strong Beam Laser (Energy Weapons): Dmg. 5d4+15 AP S: 5 T: 6 B: N/A
Forearm-Attached 40mm Grenade Launcher (Small Guns): Dmg. 5d4+20 AP S: 5 T: N/A B: N/A
Forearm-Attached Flamer (Big Guns): Dmg. 9d6+20 AP S: 5 T: N/A B: N/A
Forearm-Attached Rocket Launcher (Big Guns): Dmg. 6d12+14 AP S: 5 T: N/A B: N/A
Shoulder-Mounted Net Cannon (Big Guns): Dmg. N/A AP S: 5 T: N/A B: N/A
Shoulder-Mounted Rocket Launcher (Big Guns): Dmg. 6d12+22 AP S: 6 T: N/A B: N/A
Shoulder-Mounted Plasma Cannon (Energy Weapons): Dmg. 5d10+25 AP S: N/A T: N/A B: 6
Shoulder-Mounted Gatling Laser (Energy Weapons): Dmg. 4d6+16 AP S: N/A T: N/A B: 6

I made note that it was just a beta version while uploading, and you can all count on updates.
 
Where did your campaigns take place, what areas and which fractions were included. I'm in the process of writing a new campaign and looking for new ideas. I'm thinking Florida...
 
My campaigns took place in the Four Corners Area. Mainly Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona but some parts of Utah and Nevada too.

This area didn't have it as bad as other more metropolitan areas of the U.S. following the great war but life sure didn't get any easier after the bombs changed the way of life for the entire world. Fallout New Vegas tried to portray the region as the Mojave desert. It is in the Mojave vicinity but everyone in the area here knows it as the Four Corners, Midwest, or Rocky Mountain region, but whatever.

Because the area was home to nuclear bomb tests and subjected to mill tailings dumps and tailings-contaminated materials long before the bombs fell, the indigenous people to the area have a higher tolerance to radiation than other regions of the U.S. and were able to better survive what befell the world.

The Denver area was hit so bad that only ghouls and glowing ones could be found within a ten-mile radius after the dust settled. Volcanic activity trebled after the bombs. Hot springs and molten lava eruptions are common, earthquakes are a constant occurance and the rockslides caused by them are an unavoidable hazard within what remains of the Rocky Mountains. Things get better after you get out of the mountains and onto more flat stretches of the region.

The Western Slope of Colorado is full of places to discover, secret facilities to explore, and towns/settlements to visit.
 
1badmotha said:
I'm in the process of writing a new campaign and looking for new ideas. I'm thinking Florida...
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Well, if that's the case I'd be very disappointed if you didn't include Disney World in there somewhere lol. Of course.. If the whole water world situation were to be incorporated into your campaign then that would sit somewhat under water and be beachfront, highly irradiated and harbor lots of Pirates of the Carribean robots who's programming grew corrupted and whom took over the park, yeah.

Lets not get started in on Universal Studios and the T-rex and Raptor robots. I've already had something similar in my campaigns for the California locations of Universal Studios and Disneyland parks.

Florida has a multitude of Sugar Cane Factories. Wineries and Breweries. Fruit orchards.. Weapons/Ammo manufacturers (Diamondback Firearms, Spike's Tactical, etc.) Any number of which can be in working order, or even still under production if they had automated assembly lines or packaging departments. The capitol could have been home to a couple vaults with ulterior purposes. A new Cuban Communist Dictatorship could be trying to take root and an opposing Factor could be making a push to rid the wasteland of such a government.
 
Muaha I'll definitely use that thing with pirate robots :mrgreen: , I'm also doing a ghoul (Zombie) themepark thing in my current Kentucky campaign and KFC food processing factory ruled by the mighty colonel. The idea with the post Castro regime could work also.

Here is a link to the equipment Manual for my edition of Fallout PnP:
http://www.4shared.com/document/_TJEYKmc/FaLLoutEG_398.html

Also a question:
Do you have any particular repair rules and rules for creating herb medicine and poisons(like healing powder) ?
 
Repair can be done for almost everything... Restoring advanced tech items like Energy Weapons and Technical Armors are the exception, that requires a perk. Manufacturing guns (AKA Gunsmithing) also requires a high repair and science skill and have a perk for.

Advanced Chem Manufacturing is kind of like what Myron in Fallout 2 had. High Science and Doctor skills are needed for that perk. They're included in my Supplemental Rules, hopefully they're available for download soon.
 
So You done it via adding new perks. Thats one way to do it ... . I didn't want that my players would have to "pay extra" for that with perks, so I used skill levels. So if You want to repair/create something You have to have a correspondent skill level, also If You are repairing things You can only partly repair them.

What about the parts for repair? Do You have something like a jury rigging perk?
 
Well, Vic on Fallout 2 and his daughter from Vault City got into a discussion when they finally met up. Apparently Vic was sloppy for needing all the parts to repair things.. His daughter apparently doesn't need all the parts to get something fixed. I'd say that requires like 150% in repair without some sort of perk.. And the perks for these aren't exactly purchased, it's like the gecko skinning perk.. It's just taught to the character as a special reward if certain criteria are passed (the GM can be generous like that every so often, when they feel the character has earned a treat for being put through hell.)
 
You know.. I PMed two administrators about it. I heard from one, saying I should get ahold of the other. The other has yet to respond. But I don't think it should take this long should it? To be messaged back and to have the files available for download...
 
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