So I want to run a Fallout game, and it strikes me that Shadowrun might be good for that kind of thing. Of course, some adaptations are necessary for such a thing, and thus, here is what I have so far:

--No magic.
--Yes hacking, no Matrix, no technomancers. (In other words, hacking ends up being a little bit more like decking. I'm working on this, but it's beside the point of this post.)
--Orks = ghouls and therefore have a ton of Social penalties to offset their awesomeness; trolls = super mutants and have similar penalties.
--No buying starting gear; it'll be awarded. (Very basic armor and an appropriate weapon or computer.)
--Karmagen, because I like karmagen more.

So here's what I need help with:

--Are there good canon Fallout equivalents for elves and dwarves? I want to give players more options, is all.
--How much karma should be offered if no one is buying gear but magic (the traditionally gear-light build) isn't legal?
--In this sort of game, would you feel comfortable relaxing quality restrictions?

Dwarves or elves could be a result of growing in a vault or one of the weird vault experiments.

Is cyber or bio going to be available? Or is everyone mundane? You might want to include a few options to account for this.

Without equipment (i.e. cyber) or magic, probably allow qualities up to 50 BP (100 karma). Include a few based upon the fallout traits. Some ideas (based upon the original traits):

Small frame- +1 agility, -1 strength, 5 BP
Fast Shot- Makes taking a shot a free action rather than a simple action. You can never take aim. 10 BP
Bloody Mess- Not sure what it should do, but it should definitely be a quality.
One Hander- +1 to use one handed weapons, -1 to use two-handed weapons or to attack with two weapons. 5 BP
Jinxed- Everyone has the number of 1's required for a glitched reduced by 1 (including enemies)
Action Boy- Gives you a second initiative pass but does not stack with any other form of initiative enhancement. 15 BP
Cult of Personality- Anytime you would gain notoreity for something you've done, roll an edge test (2), if you succeed it instead increases your Street Cred.
Medic- +1 bonus to first aid and medicine dice pools, 5 BP
Mysterioius Stranger- You can burn edge to have a mysterious stranger arrive to help in your time of need. GM's discretion of what this entails.

Cyber/bio is available--and canon; see Wired Reflexes in Fallout 3 and the implants available in New Vegas--but not at creation. I'm also not really interested in creating new qualities, though I might certainly rename some of the stock ones.

- I heard of someone allowing magic, but only to ghouls to replicate the effects of radiation and Glowing Ones.
- Matrix tweaking: good.
- Orks should not be ghouls because you have ghouls for ghouls. Trolls as Super Mutants definitely works. You could allow either as playable races but be aware that most of the rest of the setting would KoS ghouls/mutants.
- Awarded gear = . What you can do is give everyone like a basic set of gear and then run them through a tutorial-esque starting mission where they can pick up additional gear as loot.
- Karmagen: whatever floats your boat.

- If you want to give your players options don't play Fallout. You cut out major sections of the Matrix rules, practically all of the Magic section, large swathes of the gear section, and limit the races available to basically just humans. Not a whole lot of options there. You could, however, allow players to do AI's with Piloting Origins to simulate Mr. Gutsy/Mr. Handy/Protectron.
- Considering a normal game is 750 and gear is 1 karma per 2.5k , I'd say that maybe 650 points would work.
- I agree with thorya: increasing the Quality list to 50 BP worth would make it better. Also, be concise of what Qualities would be allowed and not; I don't expect SURGE or Dracomorphosis would make the cut, for example.

throya: It depends on which edition of Fallout you're playing, I guess. I wouldn't have One Hander giving a penalty to two-handed or dual-wielding, because as of F3 that was not the case. Also, having to burn Edge for the Mysterious Stranger seems really steep. For Bloody Mess, it could increase the DV of all attacks by 1 or 2 and cost either 10 or 15 BP.

Thanks for the thorough reply, Neraph! Some of these ideas are super-helpful.
I'm not interested in Glowing One PCs. Also to that end:
I'm also not interested in this because 1) dual-natured and 2) Fallout ghouls don't require flesh to survive. As for KoS, that's not true for ghouls in the timeline of the games and I've worked out a way for it to not be true for ALL super-mutants. (This is post-NV; it involves Fawkes and Jacobstown.)
That's actually the plan. So good call.

That's actually the point: Since I'm cutting so much out, I want to leave as much choice as possible.
That's what I was thinking too. Anyone else have an opinion?
SURGE does, actually; it's my mutation catch-all. (Though what can be taken with it is going to be very tightly monitored.)

I consider this a major RED FLAG, and I would sit out the game after hearing this part, as it gives too much control over my character and what equipment he/she has to the GM. There is simply no GOOD reason for this.

...You... don't know a lot about Fallout, do you?

Sounds like there is a good reason, being as it's an idea for a game. Stop having fun the wrong way tsuyoshikentsu ! ALL CAPS is srs bizness...

On topic, I like this idea. Of course, the standard low-power ideas should apply, like cyberware should probably be limited to Avail 8 at the start (no alpha?). Definitely relax quality restrictions, for both positive and negative qualities. Maybe some free / reduced cost qualities, like Resistance to Pathogens / Toxins?

I would give some kind of Background traits.
Vault-dweller, Raider, townman, tribal and so on.

Modifing what kind of starting Gear you may buy and skills you may learn. A tribel with Cybernetic implants makes just no sense.

Isn't there psionics in Fallout? Magic could make an adequate stand in... come to think of it, a post apocalypse with magic (or caused by magic) doesn't sound that bad!
If you're deadset on leaving magic out there is probably better settings then SR to use. As you'd have to chop off large parts of the game... Up to you of course.

*dons bullet-proof vest*
Now I remember playing a d20 modern campaign in the Fallout setting. Even though the rules are a bit bland, it translated quite nicely.

I did not say glowing ones could be PCs. Dual-Natured ghouls means nothing if no one else has access to magic. As for Dietary Requirement - you can alter that for your game. Ghouls were faster, stronger, and more tough than humans in Fallout and they are in SR also.

Be advised that I've not played NV.


In that capacity I guess it would be okay-ish; but yes, you'd have to keep tight control of the options. Which, again, is limiting the players' options.

What you have to keep in mind is that in the Fallout series there's no magic, no wireless matrix, and no metavariants. You have a world of humans that includes mutated humans, known as ghouls and super mutants. That's a constraint of the setting you've chosen - there aren't any other options you can add, save for AI robots.

Chosing a setting doesn't mean you can't expand on it Neraph, unless ofcourse you're looking to publish it later on.

Right, but saying we're going to play Ghost and the Shell then adding elves and dragons isn't playing Ghost and the Shell.

Clever girl...
GitS with elves and dragons pretty much is SR.
However a setting is more then it's base assumptions. It's about the world it describes, it's about the history of that world, It's the people and places, it's the plots and intrigues. Adding something like magic to Fallout wouldn't make it not Fallout... It would just be Fallout with magic. The wonderful thing about tabletop is that you're not bound by what was set down before you. It's merely there as guidelines. Artistic freedom at it's finest omae.

Fixed it for yah.

I've often described SR as GitS with dragons and magic. That notwithstanding, dramatically altering the content of a subject makes it no longer the same subject. It's like taking water and making coffee or tea - both are still drinks, yes, but you wouldn't call them water, even if the changes are beneficial.

It's even more dramatic when you're talking about established settings. For example, imagine going to a Faerun campaign and as soon as the game starts you take off in your voidship through the stars firing lasers at enemy ships? That's additional content, artistic freedom, in your words, but it is no longer Faerun. Or imagine a Star Wars game that has wizards, spellbooks, scrolls, and no starships or blasters. Again, you're no longer in proverbial Kansas.

If you stay on Toril and explores aspects of Fëarun you would still be playing FR laserguns or not, enough arguing semantics although...

Now if you excuse me, I need to destroy something beautiful...
For Dragonborn, for killing mystra and helm, for destroying the elven pantheon, for the spellplague, for Waterdeep and Silverymoon, for destroying the Zhentarim and the Manshoon clone metaplot, for Thay and Fragging floating islands... Screw Eberron realms...

To be fair, Star Wars already has wizards (Force users), spellbooks and scrolls (written by Force users), and numerous primitive planets for characters to get stranded on.

Not the same in the least. The Force is more akin to psionics than it is to wizardry. You don't see Force users doing somatic and verbal components on their powers (lightning and compulsion notwithstanding). Also, I didn't say they were stranded on a planet, but rather Star Wars with no blasters.

There are Force traditions that view the Force as magic, and use incantations in precisely the manner of the "classical" wizard, and my point about primitive planets is that it is completely possible to have a Star Wars game with no blasters or starships.

While verbal generally isn't needed, somatic components seem to be used more often than not. Telekinesis is a good example, aside from the ones you mentioned.

I don't see why using the SR rules instead of a Post-Apo themed game.

Suppress magic, gear (no cyberware/bioware), most hacking (it's way less central in fallout than SR), rigging.

The differences seems so deep that it would be better to pick up something else or build from scratch IMO.

@Neraph
A Jedi derives his powers from an outside force not from the power of his own mind... That's distinctly magic.
Also with many real world occult practices, incantation is optional. (for example Wiccan white magic)

Midichlorian!

Basically, I like the rules engine. (Dice pools, Edge, character building system.) I also think that the way weapons and armor are handled in SR translates very well to Fallout--especially with NV allowing weapon modifications. The Lifestyle Quality/Safehouse system also makes sense to me in a world where everyone has to scrounge to survive but still has some centers of civilization.

Note also that I'm not removing cyber and bio from the game; I'm just removing access to them at creation. (Barring certain qualities; I'm considering changing Restricted Gear to allow access to them.) The setting makes them very rare, so I want to showcase that.

All of the rules you've mentioned, in other words, are rules I'd classify as setting-dependent. Take them out, and you have a pretty versatile generic modernish game system; that's what I want to use for this game.

I like the theory that they're some kind of bacteria that is attracted to the Force, rather than causing it. Thus the stronger you are with the Force, the more midichlorians your body will sustain. A measurable metric for the strength of Force users, without it being completely stupid.

Right, but I'm talking about the standard perceptions of things, not the nuts-and-bolts. The standard perception of the Force is that you can will things into being with your mind, although the animating force is an energy field created by everything. The standard perception of wizards (I said wizards, not magic, and even specifically stated spellbooks and scrolls) is that they incant their spells after memorizing them from spellbooks and can even inscribe effects into scrolls that can be used later. Those two things are not the same in the least.

Yes, Force users often use somatic gestures, but thrusting your hand at an object and performing an exact sequence of movements in time to chanting specific syllables are also two very different things.

Neraph, I'd suggest branching out beyond D&D wizards for the archetypical wizard. To give examples of other types, Dresden Files wizardry doesn't need anything but will to use (though words help focus, as does a physical movement), and Harry Potter magic can be done wordlessly as well. Both of those are also without spellbooks and scrolls.

Magic in the Eragon series was performed through words. Sorcery in the Belgariad was performed with the Will and the Word. Lord of the Rings has Wizards functioning with magic so subtle that most times you don't even notice it's been used (and no human can use it). In the Riftwar saga, it is used with chants and symbols. In various anime, spellcasting is always done with somatic and verbal components. The Sword of Truth series has wizards performing great feats of power using intent and knowledge.

The Elder Scrolls series has scrolls, staves, and spellbooks. Two-Worlds (it pains me to bring it up...) had spellbooks and scrolls to learn spells. Fable had none of it.

For your examples: the Dresden Files has wizards that need words, foci, and ceremony to solidify and focus their intent in order to control their magic. "In the Harry Potter universe, a wizard can only perform weaker magic without a wand and only a few can control their wandless magic, and in battle taking away a wizard's wand disarms him." Not very good examples of not needing words, motions, or other things to help magic.

Common themes: verbal components, somatic components, spellbooks, and activated magical items (scrolls, wands, or other miscellaneous objects) or foci. The Force, on the other hand, has very few of those. Even fewer when seen through the lens of the 6 movies. You see some hand-waiving and finger-pointing, but very little else.

You're confusing the normal way of doing things with what is required to do it. The Star Wars universe mostly focuses on the jedi/sith, who have evolved far past primitive force manipulations, but force users who use specific movements and words still exist, and similarly there are powerful magic users in all kinds of literature/games that don't need verbal and/or somatic components. For that matter, take Shadowrun itself. Mages don't need any geasa to throw magic around, but there are mechanical benefits to doing so (in the form of extra build points).

So... do you guys understand how truly unhelpful this argument is to me? Like, not detrimental except inasmuch as it's distracting from the thread, but this line of questioning has gone long past the point where it's actually useful to the actual game I want to run.

Does 650 Karma seem like a good number to everyone? Only Neraph has weighed in on that so far.

Yes, with a lack of equipment buys, 650 Karma will be enough, as long as you are allowing the standard 375 Karma for Stats.

I apologize, I was only trying to make the point that adding things abnormal to a setting is not like playing in that setting. If you add elves and dwarves you'd have to say "We're playing Fallout using Shadowrun rules, but with elves and dwarves." You're not playing Fallout if you add things that are not Fallout into them, just like some of the other examples I've given.

I also think that some of the contention comes into being when arguing the canon of Star Wars. How many writers have there been in that series? I remember reading a book where lightsabres had dials on then that altered the blade length and width, and Luke had a red sabre and Vader's was blue. Not all writers are canon, and not all canon is known to people (how many clones did Palpatine have after all? How old was Boba Fett [in his upper 70's, like the Bounty Hunter book, or in his twenty/thirties, like the movies would indicate?]?)

EDIT: MY brother had an interesting idea: Super Mutant Behemoths having adept powers to replicate how difficult they are to kill and how dangerous they are. Mystic Armor, Improved Senses, Improved Reflexes, Natural Immunity, Pain Resistance, ect.

From my personal experience Tsuyoshi, taking out the matrix, ware and magic from the SR setting makes character progression very bland. You might want to look into ways to amend that. Like raising the skill limit, expanded quality options, adept power like perks earned in gameplay for example? Allowing them to earn mutations simulating bio/nano ware/surge, radio based technomancy?

That's basically the idea, yeah. Cyber/bio is definitely going to come up in play; if they're common enough to have a street doc selling them in NV, then they're going to be around. Likewise, there are a few "supernatural" perks in-game (especially in FO3); I'm looking at SURGE for that but I'm not married to the idea.

I like your Adept idea, Neraph, though I'm currently thinking I'd probably just build a Behemoth as a critter. I'm not planning to add elves and dwarves unless there's something in the setting that would already equate--but I'm not sure there is, which is why I asked in the first place.

Ahh... I thought you were looking for justification for adding them. You are familiar with the Fallout wiki, yes? If there's anything obscure in Fallout about elves/dwarves, it'll be there.

There's no need to specifically have elves and dwarves. The main thing that's attractive about the two would be their modified stats compared to your standard human. It could be they come from a vault that had genetic modification over the generations via air/water/food additives, direct tampering in the womb (doc giving 'vitamin shots' to the moms) or something similar. That way, you're ending up with faster, better looking humans (elves), or stronger, heartier humans (dwarves) who both happen to have excellent night vision.

I agree that 650 karma is probably a good number to toss out to them, since that extra 100 karma is typically used by folks on spells/gear anyways, yeah? I think providing what would essentially be history qualities based on where their character is from wouldn't be a bad idea. Supers and ghouls, well, they're fairly obvious. A bonus to Survival/starting gear or something. Human from the Enclave? Better with laser weapons, have the option to start with one, free restricted gear for a piece of cyber, etc. Vault dweller? Better social skills perhaps (result of being in a "civilized" environment), healthier in general (+ to one of the physical stats) or something similar. Wastelander? Bonus to resisting radiation, immunity to it in food perhaps, bonus to survival/weaponry skills. I'm sure other DSers can come up with better things than me, but might be nice as a "free" quality that you can give to their players that helps them define their character.

I might have to do something similar for my players once we finish up their current arc. That, or convince one of them to put on their GM hat and run a game for a while.

Also, not to de-rail or anything, but does anyone know a good, generic D100 system? Playing with creating a steampunk based game for forum play, and I don't quite feel like reinventing the wheel.

Oh, that's SUPER cute.

...

Vault 317: Vault comprised entirely of models. Produced elves.

Vault 4: Vault comprised entirely of miners, equipped with functional brewery. Produced dwarves.

See, I'm okay with that, as long as the lifespans and features are still standard human ones. You've gone and found an in-game explanation for introducing a little option, and they're not literal elves and dwarves.

It also makes sense in Fallout logic. Which is not anywhere near normal logic, but hey, that's part of the charm.

Just an idea: Wastelands are Toxic domains. Super mutants are toxic adepts ( not evil toxics). Players can be adepts or mystic adepts. Places where backround count is near 0 are rare and places which have positive domain are very rare. That would give players good reason to try search places where they could use magic to heal and rest.

Explain some more please. What it sounds like you're saying is that there's almost no 0 or positive BC, which means a net negative for everyone. Keeping with Fallout, most places would be BC 0 and irradiated areas would be BC 1-4, Aspected for Toxic (specifically radiation).

All this talk is making me want to cheat on Skyrim with F3...

I mean, aside from not wanting magic at all, the radiation rules already use the same levels as Fallout. I don't see a reason to change them.

A lot of SW Books are so bad, because they try to emulate stuff found in StarTrek or bring up something which just does the same thing as in StarTrek but bigger. Beeing more StarTrek with light sabers than StarWars.

And this is exactly the same problem I see with magic in Fallout. On the first thought it sounds awsome. On the second thought the fallout world lives from the lack of resources. If you have any kind of regenerative resource it kind of beats the point.

I even found it annoying in the game, as soons as I had hundreds of stimpacks and thousands of bullets. The fun is praying for another 10 shots you found in the dumpster in the next room. For another snack not to starve etc.pp.
Having the most awesome weapon but only three shots left, so better make them count, thats Fallout.
So I agree with your: No magic in Fallout perspective.


Well, I would say fallout in general would be -2. Few things alive and because of those nuclear blasts in the bast. If you find places with a lot of vegitation, as an example take the DLC "Honest hearts" I would but it to 0.

The next issue here is, that the BC rules are kind of silly to begin with. Minus means low on mana, but positiv numbers do not mean more mana but "impressed" mana.
So those too should not be able to cancel each other out. But they also can't exist at the same time by the rules. Fluff wise you could just say, everytime just the higher bonus counts.

1) Magic in Fallout could simply be glowing one ghouls - strange powers by irradiated ghouls. You know, like the ones that regen in radiation or the ones that shoot blasts of radiation at you in F3? It should be restricted to ghouls only (with possibly Super Mutants being able to be adepts to replicate some of their abilities - throwing weapons, harder-than-human skin, ect; and possibly also deathclaws - adepts with Critical Strike and Killing Hands) though.

2) Killing off the biosphere may actually create a positive, aspected BC to Toxic mages only, like how in the books currently it talks about radioactive sludge creating BC for radiation mages (Street Magic, page 121, Domains example). I doubt much life could exist in a "sludge field produced by the runoff from a local chemical company." This would restrict the mana for everyone else while giving a bonus to toxic mages only.

3) If you really like the grittier gameplay either leave most of your stims/ammo at home or play LV on Hardcore. For SR-FO conversion, just ration the amount of supplies you hand out.

@Neraph
1) But that more emulating "natural" effects of fallout with "magic" of shadowrun
2)Like I said, the rules for BC miss a lot. The logical way of doing it would be to have lower mana (liveless, dead) but this mana is "charged" with toxity.
For example: -2 and charged +3.
That would mean that every mage would have to deal with BC 5 and toxic mages would get a bonus of +1.
3)Of course I played LV on hardcore. Thats a must coming form Fallout 1&2+tactics. Still adds up to silly amounts. (Had three storage areas with around 10.000 rounds of ammunition, several dozens weapons hundreds of explosives (granades, rockets, nukes) each.
Enough medical supplies to stock up a hospital and enough "ressources" to start my own repair shop. (Weapon repair kits in the dozens as well)
And lets not talk about food. Having I guess several hundreds of bottles with purified water alone. (But alright that was thanks to the sink and the sunset capaerilla factiory with pack rat)

1) When a glowing one shoots a ray of radiation at me that seems more like "magic" than it does "natural."

2) Looks like someone doesn't remember how BC works at all. You take the highest BC in the area - they don't stack. So in your example of -2 and at the same time +3 (which itself doesn't make a lick of sense) you'd default to the highest - a +3, aspected for Toxic.

3) Fair enough.

EDIT: Look at the example BC in Street Magic, page 121 (which I've referenced twice now) - it clearly lists a toxic sludge field as a R4 toxic domain. Further, the sidebar on the same page lists a nuclear meltdown as a R5 BC - quite the opposite of the mana ebb that you're proposing.