tunglashr Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 In my successful iterations of PA games, scrounging has been one of the key components of fun for the players. I tend toward 'gritty' types of games, and as a GM any genre is at least a little gritty in my hands (even Star Trek). One thing I have always done is give players equipment that is generated randomly, with some choices made by them, in essentially a character creation mini-game. Under special circumstances I might allow a player to purchase equipment, but I never allow advantages like Wealth so they can buy equipment with monetary assets. During actual game play I have also used these equipment generation tables for random loot. I use a custom Scrounging skill to determine when players are successful at getting something useful from wherever they happen to be searching. In a way it works like foraging or survival, except instead of a binary value of finds food/doesnt find food, specific items are generated. This is where I am now running into my headache. Currently my list of items has 15 sublists (each with even sub-er lists appended to them) and has many thousands of potential items on it. I also use a custom set of equipment condition variables and reliability numbers so that you might rather have a nicer condition machete than a rusty old sword. In previous games, the scrounging mini-game often took 15-20 minutes for the player/players involved. The other players didnt seem to mind much, and the scrounging players really loved the surprise treasure aspect of rolling on tables. Now as the list is getting larger and larger, what I want to know is what is the 'best' way to handle this mini-game? I am trying to develop ways to allow good rolls/high skills to not only allow players to be more likely to find items, but to find better stuff. In the past each successful roll generated a number of successes based on how much it beat the target by, and each table had a 'value' somewhat arbitrarily decided by me based on relative utility of the items in the table, and these successes could be used to buy rolls. The player made the first roll, and either chose to keep that item, or move on to their next roll. If they decline an item, they could not return to it. I am not convinced this old solution is good any longer. I dont mind having a mini-game, but I dont want it to be too involved. I am open to any ideas you guys may have as to other ways to implement scrounging. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) My first thought is - if it's not broke, why fix it? Sounds like what you have is working. The only idea I have is to generate the loot beforehand - perhaps a combination of deliberate placement and random rolls - and use the Scrounging rolls to see how much of it the characters either find, or recognize. Lucius Alexander Searching a palindromedary's saddlebags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tancred Posted February 7, 2012 Report Share Posted February 7, 2012 Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) What Lucius said, plus my geek take on it. When I run into something like that, I usually end up writing myself a program to automate it. (It's good to be a programmer and a gamer.) It can take a LOT of hours to create but once you're done it saves a lot of time and makes it really easy to use your system during a game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glupii Posted February 10, 2012 Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) I can speak to the effectiveness of Tancred's programs. I have worked on a few as well both with him and on my own. They help. I would love to see your tables and see what it would take to automate them. I am particularly interested in that the next Hero game I run for our group will likely be a PA, gritty, PA Game (somewhere between Gen 0-2) and could see a real use for it in that. I would gladly help automate for you in exchange for your lists so that I co not have to reinvent the wheel to do this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunglashr Posted February 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2012 Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) The reason I asked this was actually so I could write an application to get data from an Access db. However, I am not a very good programmer. If you guys want to automate it, I would appreciate it much. I would be happy to provide my raw tables. It is still a work in progress. Where should I send them? If you prefer, you can email me at tunglashr@gmail.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glupii Posted February 14, 2012 Report Share Posted February 14, 2012 Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) replied to in email Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunglashr Posted February 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2012 Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) The discussion has begun! I am willing to share with everyone, so hopefully we can work together to create some great tools for all to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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