Memes and autism aside, what system could you use to recreate the coziness of pic related...

Memes and autism aside, what system could you use to recreate the coziness of pic related? Which system would be the best for its out of the norm free-form encounters?

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GURPS

DO NOT

It's too dependent on the execution and very little on the setting that is just big enough for the game.

Mediocre game, terrible idea.

>autism aside

>I judge things by their fans and not by their merits

Also, have a good old high quality rip.

youtube.com/watch?v=KyNVRrHkwe0

Nah, disregarding the fans, the game is just an alright experimental indie game. Not bad. Not best game ever. Just alright.

>user says it's a mediocre game
>"you're judging it by its fans instead of its merits!"
Reading is key motherfucker. The game was interesting but its novelty wears off fast.

HeroQuest is the name. Do give it a look.

maybe both?
I'm thinking as SAVE like a resource, a thing that you can pick up a "sparkle" of, can only hold one of, and is used only in extreme situations. Maybe something thats also some kind of a very rare reward for a player to get their hands on.

yes, d4 for the ponty sides.
I really dont know about the combat.

on it

Will do, thank you!

BLUE SKY STORIES

>throw dice at the players
That's stupid user.
Use a bunch of 12 year olds armed with nerfguns.

Risus. Refusing to fight in a physical battle is Inappropriate, and therefore worth triple damage as long as it's described really entertainingly.

Mix that with weird, abstract "combat" (Undyne and Frisk fought Literally Just Making Spaghetti (6) and lost horribly).

>the entire game's novelty was just in subversion of expectations for a JRPG styled game. everything worth using is lost bringing it to tabletop
I suppose that begs the question how can you subvert the expectations for a TTRPG in a way that gives the same overall "feel" if not directly replicating the experience?

>what system could you use to recreate the coziness of pic related?
Out of curiosity are you trying to make a campaign specifically modeled after Undertale itself, or trying to come up with something that's in the same vein but not directly Undertale related?

I found some pdf, the game is pretty simple, but not what i was looking for in terms of mechanics.

This on the other hand, I read the manual in literally a minute, and I must say, that's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you user, you put a big smile on my face.

Thank you all for the contribution! I'll keep looking at this thread, it looks like people are still discussing, maybe they come up with something even better, or something funny in the worst case.

I'm trying to play a game with my friends where combat and encounters alike can be also resolved with "hugs" and other happy, non gorey sort of actions, but with still the randomness of some dice applied to them so that it might make things go bad and create tense moments. Basically not a soft-fest, but something that can be played in more cute and funny tones than "standard" TTPGS.

One thing to note about Undertale is that its combat system is highly focused on defense. A large part of the player's attention is focused on dodging the variety of bullet patterns created by enemies. This stands in contrast to most RPGs, where the gameplay mainly involves strategizing, measuring the numbers, and deciding which attacks to use and when, while the enemy's attacks are handled automatically with accuracy and dodge rolls. Undertale keeps the player's focus on reacting to enemy attacks while they figure out the solution to each encounter, rather than on their own offensive abilities, so it doesn't seem like you're missing out on much by not attacking. A tabletop game would want to a similarly reactive combat system where the players strategically select options for defense rather than offense.

It's also worth noting that the game's dialogue system is... not much of a system. It doesn't have Charisma ratings or Diplomacy rolls; each encounter is like its own little puzzle, solved through deduction and dialogue trees rather than numbers. Quite unlike the social persuasion systems in games like Exalted, this part of Undertale essentially serves the role of a more freeform sort of interaction which is easy to do in a tabletop game but more-or-less impossible for a video game.

>'m trying to play a game with my friends where combat and encounters alike can be also resolved with "hugs" and other happy, non gorey sort of actions, but with still the randomness of some dice applied to them so that it might make things go bad and create tense moments
Not to be a wet blanket, but couldn't you easily add that into your campaign regardless of what system you use? Just add NPCs that are receptive to that kind of stuff and have the players roll for the nonviolent actions just like they would for any other.

Unless of course I'm misunderstanding something. It's late and I'm tired.

yes, i know! that's why i think the risus system i just discovered might be cool for this, because everyone gets to use their clichés to respond to every different "offense" or also work their way around monsters and stuff, which i find pretty neat.

the problem i personally find with that is, for the most part, if i take a system like d&d, my players might try to take the short way and try to roll the few diplomatic stats they are as their justification around any problem, just because.. most people make the system work like that. And if i dont let them, they may just think I'm a bad DM for not letting them do what everyone else lets them do. And by not utilizing many fights at all, it kinda feels like wasting the tools and rules the system gives us, leaving maybe 40 to 70% of the RPG out just because most of the time it would not be needed. I feel like givig them the possibility to let them go into "frenzied rages", and shoot giant fireballs, will guide them into resolving much more stuff with violence, which would be easier, but might turn fast into murderhoboing, and so.. basically genocide runs. Risus solves my problem by giving players the ability to both fight and discuss using the same clichés, just rolling the same dice, but the fact that it specifically encourages the players to describe what they are doing with their rolls makes me feel like that's the right thing im looking for.

Starting point: 5e

You start with the system to subvert expectations, in this case *the* combat based game that's both popular and nostalgic. Now for what to homebrew.

You have to change the game so that there is an extreme advantage to staying at 1st level, and you have to give them a method of surviving against the strongest available bad guys. This means enemies can't just deal HP damage, because you would murder any player even accidentally.

So maybe set the game at levels 4-12, and keep CRs relatively easy instead of deadly. The goal obviously isn't to use combat to challenge the players, so letting combat be a bit of a slog isn't a bad thing anyways.

>they may just think I'm a bad DM for not letting them do what everyone else lets them do
That's fair. I do like where is going however. Is it understood among everyone what you're planning or are you just dropping them into it? Because playing into Undertale's themes of persevering to get the "good" ending versus traditional level grinding and killing shit because it's easier could potentially be an interesting gimmick to subtly give to your players.

Of course as you previously mentioned then you run the risk of them just genociding everything (Which could still be interesting depending on how you balance that with the more pacifist stuff). Then again, I have no idea what kind of players you have so I can't really say what the best balance would be.

If you're looking for cozy, just play Ryutama

Assuming you mean telling the same sorts of stories with the same sorts of tools in general?
Mostly just down to having a GM and players who are open to those sorts of solutions and the implications they carry. There's not a lot you can do in the context of a TTRPG to give formal structure to talking to someone. Even verbally-structured systems like PbtA and Fate have mechanics first and foremost that they happen to extend to interpersonal stuff, not unlike D&D or any other system. It's literally all a matter of expectation, communication, and how a GM structures scenes.

Though now that I think about it you could have a faithful emulation of the game mechanics with a PbtA system, where each combat option is its own Move.

>Because playing into Undertale's themes of persevering to get the "good" ending versus traditional level grinding and killing shit because it's easier could potentially be an interesting gimmick to subtly give to your players.
There's a problem with that gimmick. It only works in the context of Undertale because of the meta plot of saving as a power the player gets. In TTRPGs, death is (generally) permanent. You can't reload a previous saved game.

This makes the entire point of "persevering" moot, since if you fuck up you just permadie. In Undertale, you have the moral duty to do good because death has no punishment, and accidentally screwing up can be undone. In that context, any murder you do, you CHOOSE to do. In the context of a tabletop game, where you can't, having to break your morals in order to survive or make tough, on the fly decisions that may not always work out for the best is a fact of life, and something you only get one shot at.

Now, you could still live up to the idea of subverting expectations and turning genre conventions on their head, but you'd have to do it in the context of a tabletop game, not a video game. Think about what strange, possibly (though not necessarily) immoral things occur in the process of going through a tabletop game that players usually don't think about. No, murderhoboing does not count; any decent roleplayer can tell you it's weird. Think about things like how the players just seem to pop into an already existing world, or how campaigns often seem to revolve around the player characters explicitly, with the rest of the world in a semi-stasis when out of focus. These conventions are ever-present because they're useful, which makes putting a twist on them all the more surprising. Something like that, you know? These are mediocre examples, but I'm sure you might be able to come up with something better if you just spend time thinking about it.

>This makes the entire point of "persevering" moot, since if you fuck up you just permadie
You don't HAVE to get killed though. I'm talking less about fighting specifically and more in general.

Sure you could get into the city by helping out the gate guard by going to take care of whatever chore, or by taking the time to joke with him and learn more about him and convince him to let you in after becoming friends. Or you could just straightforwardly bully your way through and walk in over his dead/crying body.

This is of course just one example off the top of my sleep-deprived head and I'm sure there's plenty of other ways to apply it without violence at all, but you get the general idea. One solution that is more "fulfilling" even if it's more difficult or tricky and ultimately makes the player's journey more challenging (Like how you have less health the lower your level in Undertale) versus one that is more straightforward or beneficial to the player, but comes at a cost to NPCs or is otherwise morally questionable.

Also going back to murder-hoboing, one of the more interesting things about Undertale was how the game subtly "punished" you for going down the Genocide route (Have to take the time needed to finally grind every last enemy, the fact there's only two bosses you actually fight because you one-shot everything else, etc.) If nothing else it would be good strategy for discouraging murder-hoboing (assuming the players aren't hellbent on doing so) while making sure they don't feel like they're being railroaded.

>In the context of a tabletop game, where you can't, having to break your morals in order to survive or make tough, on the fly decisions that may not always work out for the best is a fact of life, and something you only get one shot at.

Also worth noting: This is only true if you make it true. While there are fights in Undertale that ARE "deadly" there's also plenty of monsters that aren't threats. Like Papyrus capturing you rather than killing you, or Toriel purposefully missing her attacks if your health dips too low.

Heck, you could even just set it to where if a player's health drops to zero they faint à la Pokemon instead of outright dying and make it so they can't get killed in the story, either from some inuniverse reason like Undertale's DETERMINATION or just you as a DM not letting the story progress that way.

The problem with that is that lots of TTRPGs ALREADY do that. You're the DM, players can do whatever they want to do. It's not like video games where the players are limited to interaction in whatever method the developers implemented. In TTRPGs you could ALWAYS talk your way into a city without fighting. That's not subverting any expectations, unless the players have previously had shitty DMs who only knew how to run muderhobo sprees.

Then again, take this with a grain of salt. I don't really have much experience with the typical murderhobo players, so I don't really understand the mentality in the first place or how you could subvert their expectations.

>The problem with that is that lots of TTRPGs ALREADY do that.
I guess it ultimately boils down to which you prefer: To tell a story that feels like Undertale, or to create a campaign that plays like Undertale. At least on a basic level the former is more a traditional TTRPG but with an Undertale coat of paint on it, while the latter is focused more on the subversion you're talking about it applied to it's own context rather than taking cues directly from the game itself.

The only problem with subverting a lot of stereotypical tabletop tropes is that there aren't many mechanics or archetypes TO subvert that don't just turn into playing an average D&D game but thinking outside the box like you already described. At least none that come to my mind, maybe some other user has a better idea.

>Think about things like how the players just seem to pop into an already existing world, or how campaigns often seem to revolve around the player characters explicitly, with the rest of the world in a semi-stasis when out of focus
Maybe like how when you "die" in Undertale the world keeps on going as if Frisk died at that point in the timeline until you reset, but like the inverse? The world ONLY goes on while the PCs are present, and without the players and DM it just becomes a static void? Of course that edges into 2deep4me territory so I'm not sure if it'd fit the tone for this kind of thing. Mostly just me spit balling anyway.

I can see it being done for individual encounters, but an entire campaign revolving around it just wouldn't work

>Memes and autism aside
WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?

Yeah, that's a big problem. Get too meta and you heavily risk getting into Autism Snowglobe territory, where the players feel like they got ripped off and you break suspension of disbelief. I dunno, I just come up with ideas, not evaluate whether they're good or think about how to properly execute them.

I really can't decide how I feel about the image. Part of me says it's a really interesting way to give Sans similar reality warping powers as he had in UT, the other says that an encounter like this would feel way too much like the DM actively trying to make the players fail (and we don't exactly want to reinforce the "DM as the player's enemy" stereotype).

In UT, Sans's battle is tough and blindsides the players with multiple mechanics that weren't used in the rest of the game, but as a number of Anons have said, Undertale's plot about [SAVE]ing is what makes the pacifist run work. Similarly, a fight against the boss in the pic would require the players to be given a similar ability.

I think it's doable, though. The DM would want to set up a series of patterns and rules for himself to use while running Sans, a routine equipped with if-then statements, to allow the players to learn Sans's patterns. Add in an alternative HP system or status effect, make sure that all of his attacks can be avoided or blocked with certain actions (like getting to an appropriate handhold when "You're Blue Now" activates) and I could see it actually being a satisfying experience for the players.

Ideally, the players would (over a number of attempts), learn all/most of Sans's patterns and at the end be able to go through the entire fight without being touched. Then at the end they get one last puzzle, one requiring the players to break the conventions of the game themselves.

Certainly fun to think about, though.

Not old Veeky Forums

OP here, just woke up. going trough the answers i missed!

Yes, before going to sleep, I also tought of that. Easing players into a different approach to combat because it might lead them to an easier time dealing with other NPCS (having them friendly instead of hostile on sight) with the NPCS being a tad bit more annoying tough cookies than normal old goblins, having more personality, too. I also tought of a balance like "Befriend enemy -> less exp, more info and maybe loot" and "murder enemy -> more exp, immediate loot, being left in need to find other people to proceed". But i still don't know how I would feel about 5e, or D&D in general. I feel like there might be too many rules and mechanics for the simpleness of game and play im trying to convey to my players.

Taking a look, I do love the art!

I tought about the concept of death in the campaign, like something a bit more complex than that.
Being a group of "protagonists", with the possible ability to SAVE, with SAVEs possibly happening at the end of every session per say, it would be way more impactful to decide to reload back the game (and anyways I probably would not give them the ability to reload more than a single session back, and with reasoning ad tought put into making the choice, that may or may not be decided with dice rolling.).
This because: combat gone violent does not necessarly proceed into bringing death. Maybe a NPC stuns the player, preventing him from battling anymore, and the combat ends there. Or maybe, it ALMOST kills the player, putting them at risk to die, but never killing them outright. This to give the player more time to decide: "two of our companions are KO, and the monster is still attacking us; should we reload to the beginning of the session and take a different approach but lose all the progress we've had till now?" (continued)

this, i think, would put them choosing between:
"do we risk it and keep going with the fight hoping we get where we want to go?"
"do we reload and lose all the progress we made in this session but we can approach this situation again in a different method?"
"do we just surrender and maybe end up somewhere we would not want to go?" (like, per say, a cell in a prison they will have to get out, but in the way, meeting more intresting npcs, that might make them want to not reload the situation, or save the reload for a later, more pressing event)

the "static void" thing is more like One Shot than Undertale, which, now that I think of it, would be a neat little game to strip little elements off to put into the game I'm planning..

I think a sans fight work in the setting of a video game waaayy more than it would work in a TTRPG.. hundreds of turns just to get rid of his stamina and dodges would get boring at less than half, and presenting players with an enemy that just seeks to stop them with any means necessary while being incredibly stronger than they are will make them lose the will to fight them into 10 turns, which would take the time of them rolling and deciding their course of action, to, at the end, probably him dodging and retaliating with a way cooler and stronger attack. If it had to last for a long time, i think i should present the players with similar experiences before to let them expect what's going to happen when they face such a strong entity, but then the game would feel grindy as HECK

>fans
Except Untertale was literally, and I hate this word, shilled for weeks by paid "social outreach" employees. Thats the only reason its even known.

It really is a mediocre game.

>Social Outreach employees

What the fuck are you talking about?

lmgtfy.com/?q=social media outreach

...

Bitch, that doesn't explain shit.

...if you cannot understand the basic definition of words or phrases then you need to go back to primary school

Truly, the god of >inb4

Are you some new, never before seen form of stupid?

Fate Core with skills and stunts homebrewed to reflect the game

If you want to go even simpler, use Fate Accelerated and change the approaches to suit the options during combat in the game

This, OP.

SAVE is represented by fate points

Physical and friendship are represented by stress tracks

Fate is a perfect fit IMO

Not him, but you really must be trying not to understand. I'm not even a native english speaker and I understand paid social media outreach.

Were you on the internet when Undertale came out? The very sudden extreme saturation of 'fans' that popped up suddenly was VERY suspicious. The game looks like utter amateurish shit (not even in a charming way) and the gameplay is just standard 20-year-old JRPG fare. I was immediately suspicious when the game got a million 10/10's and people saying it was literally the best game ever.

...Did you play it? Or even just watch a playthrough of it?

None.

The whole idea of Undertale is that it cuts expectations, and turns them inside out, or all over your head.
That's the exact opposite of a system.

Both, but naturally not through the whole thing.

I've learned that 'it gets better' is utter BS, and by playing the start of the game and skipping around through various letsplays I feel confident in saying that the game is bad, actually even very cringy.

I think you're wrong and/or broken as a person.

Or I'm not an emotionally immature manbaby that cries when he kills a cowmommy in a game.

>Memes and autism aside

Well that doesn't leave much left, but try Chuubo's

holy heck, man! that's like, a hundred bucks on drivethrurpg.. are pdf's easy to find?

Ironically the characters were my favorite part for that reason. They felt less like they were written by a Tumblr autist and more like they were themselves actual Tumblr autists, which made the genocide route incredibly satisfying.

Now whether that speaks to Toby Fox's credit as writer, or was a lucky happenstance is up for debate.

I'll admit, I did feel bad and knew there was a moral choice system, so I reloaded the save and spared her.
Then the game mocked me for murdering her and then taking it back when I felt bad, and I was like "Huh, fair enough, that's kinda clever".

And that kinda sums up the game for me. Kinda clever. Not groundbreaking or anything, but hey, not bad.

>Memes and autism aside
But there is nothing left.

you can probably find it in da archive (tm) threads.

Play the fan made polybius. The playstyle of this game barrows heavy from it.

If the monsters are harmed by the intent behind a weapon rather than the weapon itself, does that mean they could shrug off artillery fire if the crew wasn't aiming at them specifically?

Golden Sky Stories.

What's the verdict OP?

Combat would have to be minimalist, and every encounter would have to have a solution that doesn't require violence.
I'd imagine that dice rolls would be kept to a minimum. You'd have players roll for damage, with the dice being determined by their weapon with a modifier determined by their LOVE. Dice rolls would also be used to dodge attacks, and hp would obviously be influenced by LOVE as well. Having only one player with DETERMINATION would be unfair, so it would probably be best to treat it as a resource. DETERMINATION is inherit to all players, and can be used to power through attacks, alter the world, or reset to previous points, but doing so lowers their DETERMINATION and can be detrimental to their abilities. It'd be far more rp based than mechanics based, with encounters potentially playing out more like group riddles than actual fights. Adding a degree of character customization, with some sort of skill system, might help with diversity and encourage multiple solutions to a single problem, along with making the game more engaging on a mechanical level.

>Claims not to be immature
>Gets off on killing fictional characters
Man you guys are the edgiest i've ever seen

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