IJBM: Nobody seems to have made an Elder Scrolls tabletop conversion.

ClockworkUniverse

Seriously, I'd be all over that. I'm very tempted to try making it myself.

DYRE

I'm pretty sure there is one actually.  At least, there's at least one for Oblivion.

Though I dunno how good it is.

Ironweaver

Tamriel started as a homebrew D&D setting. /random trivia

ClockworkUniverse

^Yeah, I'm aware of that. Arena was originally about...well, an arena, before Bethesda realized their D&D game was more interesting.

^^Where? All my Googling just gave me "we're totally gonna do this, guys!" type stuff.

DYRE

Hm... actually, yeah, I can't seem to find anything now that I Googled a bit.  Still, I thought I remembered something.  It was probably just a WIP then, so... carry on.

ClockworkUniverse

Way to give me false hope, DYRE.

:P

DonZabu

I tried making one once. Got in way over my head, though, and ended up cancelling.

For some reason, I based the system on Fallout. :P

You can check it out if you like:

http://elderscrollstabletop.blogspot.com/

ClockworkUniverse

Not bad, though if I were doing it, I probably wouldn't use SPECIAL or an XP system. Did you ever get a chance to play/playtest it?

Malkavian

Conversions for vidya to neckbeard usually suck. (Hides street fighter game)

ClockworkUniverse

Well, stuff in general usually sucks :P

MadassAlex

I've been reading the Riddle of Steel ruleset lately, and while it has an associated setting, all its workings are very close to reality. With that in mind, it could be used and built upon within any setting, I think. It depends if you want the game mechanics of your TT game to reflect the vidya.

I'm probably biased, though, because the combat system is inspired by historical European martial arts.

ClockworkUniverse

^^I do like the d100+skill+attribute idea.

^I might have to check that out regardless of whether I'd use it.

I actually made a first page of the character sheet. Just the attribute/skill list. It's almost identical to Oblivion's, but not quite. I'm still not sure what to do for melee weapon skills. I'm leaning towards one-handed/two-handed, rather than blade/blunt like Oblivion had, but would both of those use the same attribute, or...?

MadassAlex

Any combat attribute is going to be a combination of skill, agility and strength in that order. If you're going for realism. D&D (and most RPGs) falsely use strength as the deciding factor of combat skill, which is ridiculous.

ClockworkUniverse

Hmmm...that's what I thought...

The difficult part, then, is to organize the skills without making Strength the obvious dump stat and Agility the obvious god stat.

All Nines

If you're going for realism, it might just end up that way.

Then again, Oblivion isn't realistic anyway, so what's one more thing? :P

MadassAlex

Have your combat effectiveness based on a skill. Agility should be the primary modifier. Strength can be a secondary modifier for when the outcome is even.

If you use grapples, strength can come into its own there.

ClockworkUniverse

Huh...

In that case...I might just wind up with more skills than I planned to have.

MadassAlex

Well, if you're going off TES, weapon skills are already part of the system.

I'd say one-handed/two-handed is a more realistic gap, although both inform one another. I'd have a system where your lower of the two skills is automatically buffed to a certain fraction of the greater skill.

ClockworkUniverse

Makes sense...Hm. I'm headed to the store for a bit. I'll redo the skills list when I'm back with that in mind. Thanks.

ClockworkUniverse

Still trying to spread the skills evenly between the attributes. Not easy.

Regarding Strength's role in combat, I think I might use it for the unarmed skill (which would involve punching, like in the videogames, but also grappling, kicking, etc.), the block skill (though that might be endurance), and as a determinant for how heavy a weapon you can use, Dark Souls style.

Also, I need to assign one more skill to both Speed and Agility, but one-handed and two-handed both seem to need to go in Agility...think there's a way to justify putting one in one and one in the other?

MadassAlex

What if Speed wasn't its own stat, but determined via Agility and Endurance?

Also, using Strength for block is reasonable when it comes to large shields (more of a passive defense), but small shields are about redirecting energy rather than stopping it outright -- much more Agility-based.

ClockworkUniverse

See, the problem here is that I'm trying not to make Agility a really obvious god-stat, even though realistically it probably would be.

I wound up replacing "block" with "shield." Blocking with a weapon would use the weapon skill.

Currently, as an extreme placeholder, two-handed is in Speed and one-handed is in Agility, just because I figured a knife-using backstabbing thief is more likely to have high Agility.

Also, Strength, Endurance and Intelligence only have three skills each, since they're also used to derive encumbrance, health and magicka.

DYRE

Also, if you're trying to make an Elder Scrolls tabletop game, it would probably make sense to not change too much from the games when it isn't really necessary.  A lot of the way attributes and skills work in the Elder Scrolls games isn't realistic, but it does at least make sense from a gameplay perspective, and doesn't seem like something that necessarily needs changing for a tabletop version, especially if you want it to still feel like Elder Scrolls.

Then again, I have no tabletop RPG experience whatsoever, so...

ClockworkUniverse

Well, see, one thing that would change about weapon skills in the conversion is that weapon skills in the videogame don't represent whether you hit, just how hard you hit. In a tabletop version, they'd represent both, so Strength doesn't make as much sense.

MadassAlex

What constitutes a god-stat depends on the perspective of the game. You can have Agility be the apex of combat, but then not everything in the game has to be combat, right? In any case, if you're using Fatigue, Strength could reduce the rate at which one loses it, whereas Endurance could cover how much of it one has in the first place.

So a high Agility character might be the best at using weapons, but a high Strength one uses them with greater energy efficiency, and a high Endurance character can fight for ages. You might also consider using Agility for the accuracy of bows, but Strength for draw distance and therefore damage. Heh. Kinda ironic that, in the real world, one's dexterous abilities define close combat effectiveness, but one's strength defines their deadliness with a loosed arrow.

ClockworkUniverse

Would Fatigue even work well in tabletop?

Yeah, I could have multiple attributes modify stuff like Archery, but...that kinda screws up my conception of how the game would work and how to organize everything.

Hmmm...I'm thinking about something. Might be able to squeeze 1h and 2h into agility, then use speed for something else...

DYRE

Well, see, one thing that would change about weapon skills in the conversion is that weapon skills in the videogame don't represent whether you hit, just how hard you hit. 

Not in Morrowind... >.>

MadassAlex

Well, if you've got two different factors to consider, those being 'to hit' and 'damage' rolls, then you can have a separate stat modify each.

ClockworkUniverse

^Yeah, that's true.

Might have Strength just modify all nonmagical damage rolls just as a general rule.

Anyway, 1h and 2h are now occupying the same quadrant on the skills chart, under "agility." Speed, in compensation, got a derived stat for how much you can move in a round.