What system would you use for a Nier Automata game? Ideally something with leveling

Legends of the Wulin

2B is NOT for lewd.

9S is.

Legends of the Wulin is my default for anything high action, including most platinum games. That is, if you can get past the huge barrier to entry that is the godawful core book.

The system is fucking great, but actually learning to play it is a huge goddamn pain.

I disagree.

This. 2B is just a mass produced model, 9S is special.

Secret Arts is likely a decent way of dealing with the various non-physical attacks like hacking.

It's relatively common for sci-fi ports to reinterpret Priests Arts into hacking/technological stuff, since it attacks with the Learning skill, representing general smarts and knowledge, so it decently fits.

Eclipse Phase?

I WAS WONDERING WHEN SOMEONE WOULD DO ONE OF THESE THREADS.

I was legitimately wondering if something about the metatextual nature of the game was stopping people from doing a "WHAT SYSTEM FOR X" thread.

And yet...

While you have a point, even without that self awareness which gives the game its most unique moments, there's still some fun to be had with the setting, themes and aesthetic.

I know, right.

>Ideally something with leveling.
I dunno man, I've never heard of a fucking RPG with leveling.

OP here. Would you REALLY use D&D/PF for Nier?

While it's aggressively stupid, there are people who would. You should've seen the raging morons shouting that D&D 5e was the perfect basis for a Pokemon game the other day.

Yeah. D&D is such a common name I thought I wouldn't have to say "RPGs with levels that aren't D&D/PF". You can't be a tabletop RPG gamer and not know about it.

>D&D/PF are the only RPGs with leveling
user...

But seriously though, why is "leveling" a requirement? Because it's something in the game?

If you're trying to do a campaign based around a game, worry about capturing the feel, the aesthetics, and the world, not emulating the mechanics. The mechanics of video games are meant to be handled by computers, they don't translate to tabletop.

There's Pointless Slaying and Looting from Pyramid #3/72 - Alternate Dungeons II. It's sort of levels, but not. You pick point packages and build a character out of those. I don't know of anything that does levels in GURPS. I could be wrong, though.

Why do you need levels, anyway?

>I've never heard of a fucking RPG with leveling.
WoD? Shadowrun? character progressing / getting stronger doesn't need to be tied to the measure of cracters levels.

That makes the point of the thread redundant then if you don't want to emulate or approximate any mechanics.

Not at all.

When adapting something between mediums, you need to look at the effects, not the causes.

Figure out what sort of experience the thing you're adapting creates, and then figure out how best to emulate that.

Theme and setting are more valuable things for adaptation than specific mechanics, by a long way. Trying to focus on translating mechanics just creates an unplayable mess.

>What is sarcasm?

...

...

Eclipse Phase maybe?

I'd totally use 4e for Nier.

Hell, 5e Mystic sorta makes sense too.

And Bo9S/PoW only 3.PF games.

>fucking RPG with leveling
Zettai Reido?
FATAL?
Pathfinder?

This.

You need:
-High-action combat
-Investigative mechanics (to simulate finding out info/conversing with friendly bots)
-Feeling of hopelessness

So, Wulin or Exalted.

This user likes penetration calculations.

It's a game with 2B in, every one wants them

>no system for bullet hell shooter segments
Shiggidty diggity, it ain't no Nier; Automata without a bullet hell shooter segment every ten seconds.

Bullet hell could be crudely simulated with Wulin, but in general there's no way to accurately portray IRL dexterity-based challenges in tabletop RPGs.

And again, your post concentrates more on form, than on function.

I'd like one that has calculations for determining how long that ass keeps jiggling after I smack it.

If players make certain decisions, have them tear to shreds then eat their own character sheets. Make sure to act sufficiently smug the whole way, perhaps making a point by taking a sniff from a vial containing one of your own glorious farts. If anyone objects, tell them they're clearly not smart enough to "get" your masterpiece.

Can spell mass-produced without BUTT

Nechronica

>the new Dungeon Fantasy that's meant to be standalone from GURPS?
For a given value of 'standalone'. It's just the DF series crossbred with its own specialised version of GURPS Lite.

Or you could just, you know, swat the bullets away

What i'm talking about is, the fanciest bullet hell attack in most tabletops will generally turn into:

>the boss is shooting a shitload of bullets at you
>uh i dodge i guess
>roll for dodge
>you dodge the attack, congratulations.

See

...

Using grid based 4e-like model:

A good way to do it would be to create a zone that has "entering or ending turn in the zone deals you X damage".

This effectively captures the "soft control" property of bullet hell patterns, as well as having interesting gameplay.

For very precise characters, add an "unless you shift" clause to represent dodging close to bullets.

That actually is how i wanted to do it when i was thinking about it. It could work, but on its own it adds more clutter than meaningful decisions.

I think a good way to modify it would be a dodge roll vs damage forced if you go through that square. This way it creates a "risk-reward" situation, which is better than binary "stay away or take damage".

The idea is not "stay away" but "move out"; the zone would usually be dropped on your (or at least someone's) head.

Combine this with some sort of marking and other position based shit for lose-lose situations.

Although, using a save works too, I guess, I just don't like extra rolling when avoidable, especially for a thing that can trigger often.

I was referring more to that awful hacking minigame or the flying segments

Hacking can probably work as skill challenges (yes, I know they were in-game shooting things but in-universe you are allowed to be a bit more flexible imo).

The flying segments are more complicated, not sure how you'd capture that feel, but I think it's worth exploring.

underrated post

>50 GB
Fucking disk requirement bloat.

It's an anti-piracy measure.

Someone sounds a bit mad they didn't get the point of Nier or Nier;Automata.

What? I thought 2B's job was just kill off 9S every time he got too smart for his own good. Did I get that wrong? Wouldn't there be lots of Nines?

Has Wulin become the new meme system to supplant GURPS? It's recommended every single time and it runs like complete shit in reality. Hell, when it comes down to it barely anyone plays it. I'm starting to believe that it's either just getting memed, or that it's just two fags that really love the system and lurk Veeky Forums 24/7 to post it in every thread every time. You can not get an actually discussion going because nobody played it.

Wulin's similar to Burning Wheel, in that there are a group of people who claim it's the best thing ever, but nobody else can be fucked with it.

As someone who plays Wulin, it's an excellent system for basically anything high action. I've never really seen it recommended outside of that, and if I did I'd be the first to say it was the wrong call. LotW is a very focused system, it does one thing but it does it well.

That is... If you actually get it running. The biggest issue with Legends of the Wulin is the editing of the core book, which makes it an absolute bitch to learn and play.

When it's working, it runs like a fucking dream, but the effort of getting there is enough to turn off a hell of a lot of people.

And with High Action, what is actually meant is "Fights with very few participants where a lot of things happen" because holy shit, the system is an exponential clusterfuck to run and slows down to a complete crawl if you have the group fight a group of worthy opponents.

A minor correction there.

>Fights with very few Real People participants.

You can do a fight with a unit of 50 soldiers being led by Lu Bu very easily but taking on a 5 man band with names and backstories is longer work.

Eh, arguable. Fights against groups of full Xia can be taxing for the GM and do take some time, but they're also incredibly tactically and narratively rich. Still, they aren't something I'd run every week. The system does do better with duels or all vs 1 boss fights, adding minions and lesser legends for mookstomping to taste.

Still, you're correct in that it's a weakness of the system. It's part of why I'm really sad the system died when the company behind it imploded. A companion book or GMs guide which included simplified rules for Xia tier opponents would be fantastic. I've tried working on some myself, but the ability to homebrew isn't an excuse for the faults in a system itself.

And I suppose high action is a bit vague. LotW makes a basic assumption that every PC is a total badass with a very high base level of competence, and the ability to achieve incredible things right off the bat. Although you can refluff, LotW isn't really appropriate for anything approaching gritty or low powered, it's built around the assumptions that the PC's are people of significant personal power.

Riddle me this, Batman: Why would I want to put up with Wulin's shit, when I could just run Feng Shui or HKAT! and not have the book try and kill me?

This kind of thing is very much a matter of personal opinion and preference. I can't tell you why you should, I can only tell you why the system appeals to me.

And essentially? The best combat of any RPG system I've ever played, plus a uniquely fascinating blend of crunchy mechanics with a narrativist design philosophy, defying the conventions that crunchy means granular and realistic and that narrativist means rules light.

I adore the combat dynamic in Wulin. The variety of options you can have available from the selection of Kung fu styles and Secret Arts, the choices presented to you with each roll of the dice, the unique interactions between you and opponent and how you're forced to adapt your strategy to the person and the place you're fighting in... I just adore it.

Not to say Feng Shui or Hong Kong Action Theatre aren't both fine games. I can't say I've played HKAT or the latest Feng Shui, but I had some fun times with the original. Still, the combat in that game wasn't particularly deep. It had a lot of flavour and genre fun involved, but when it came down to the fight itself it was nothing special.

And for some people, that won't matter. If you don't want complex, in depth combat mechanics and just prefer something lighter and faster to resolve, I'd entirely recommend staying away from LotW.

I think the system's biggest weakness is the range of it's resolution mechanic. There barely is any, if you have a +1 in a skill, you'll succeed 90%+ of Difficulty 3 tasks and fail 80% of Difficulty 4 tasks, no Ifs and Buts. Using the River just makes it so that you'll know that you'll succeed one Difficulty 4 task of your liking (for example) and other than that, the game mostly devolves into trying to bullshit the GM into letting you have that bonus so you'll again be at your 90% mark.

You're somewhat skimming over a pretty huge part of the system though.

Chi Conditions are extremely important, and they're all about conditional bonuses to various things. Between Chi Conditions, Laughs and Fears, Specialities and other miscellaneous bonuses it's nowhere near as clear cut as you're suggesting.

The dice provide a reliable baseline, but rolling the dice isn't the end of resolving the check, it's just the start.

Or... Wait. What do you mean by +1 in a skill?

The way resolution works, though, in Wulin means that the roll is mostly irrelevant for the resolution of the first task, at least if you are rolling against a difficulty. While rolling against an equally skilled/penalized opponent, you are essentially rolling 1d10 vs 1d10.

Because rolling *a* double is incredibly likely, but rolling *a* tripple is hilariously less likely, most rolls are a foregone conclusion. You already know your conditions, you know what you want to do, the variance is mostly wether or not you can convince your GM to give you this or that bonus you want. The dice themselves have very little say in the matter, other than sometimes boosting your result by one or sometimes allowing you another action/effect. It made the games we played incredibly unexiting after a while, because you already knew beforehand wether or not you would succeed outside of some rare outliers.

What I actually meant was +10, so in short an automatic +1 to your set.

I guess that's a matter of preference, then. Some dice systems like d20 and have a large impact on the result, others like bell curves or dicepools tend much more strongly to averages and reliability.

I enjoy that LotW tends toward reliability and a 'neutral' result between parties, kinda like fudge dice, but does also have those moments where you roll a really big set that can provide a sudden upheaval.

But yeah, I can understand not enjoying it if you prefer dice rolls to have a bit more implicit tension to them. It's a fair statement to make.

I'm a big friend of medium-spread mechanics like dicepools or Roll and Keep and I was hoping that LotW Poker Dice Style would also fall in there, because it seems really damn interesting with how additional effects and actions are baked into one roll, but it just felt so much like bean counting and trying to bamboozle the GM in actual play. Which makes me sad, because I really wanted to like it. It boiled down to only rolling when you were sure to win (and rarely getting fucked by pure chance), or when you have absolutely no outs and go for a hail mary (and never succeeding). Having a bigger spread of results feels more exciting and engaging to me, Wulin just seems to lack those "Probably, but not Assuredly" grey areas.

I've not noticed a lack of them, but that might be different experiences.

If you have the ability to get +15 to a roll, through a +10 skill and a speciality or a relevant minor chi condition, you need a pair of 5's or higher to beat a DC of 40. It's cases like that which I think fall into the grey area, not just needing a set but a specific value of set to actually hit the DC.

These discussions would be a lot easier if there were a good way to calculate the odds, honestly

Roll anal circumference

9s refers to S types in the plural as soon as you get back to the bunker. "We S types are the best"
There are other 9 units, we just don't see them.

We see a couple. Only in sidequests tho. You need to look for them.

4e seems good when you want people to have very specific abilities and cooldowns on them. I ran a short lived card captors type of game where each player would occasionally receive these tarot cards that gave them a new ability or weapon, and they were just the cards from 4e. Without the cards their characters were pretty basic, but as they received them they got stronger etc. There was no real exp.

Really tho that's a pretty structured thing and the players didn't get much choice in abilities, though they were able to make requests in general at the beginning (I told them I'd make their characters and hand them out, without fully spoiling the card mechanic until it was introduced in game) Overall I think it was the best system for that campaign, and can really work well in a situation where your want to give characters extremely specific abilities like that.

So the boss has X number of Patterns, represented by cards arranged in a pile face down. Flip the top face-up and the squares are marked by whatever rules/effects the cards pose. So that it doesn't stay predictable, effects could bring cards back in, rearange the deck, etc

But wouldn't they all need their own 2B?

They do. Each one has their own assigned E Unit (not all seem to run under a false designation, as if the opening mission there was an E unit who got killed). Most likely all the E units look like 2B because she is designed after A2, who got noticed for surviving a mission by killing another infected android.

Anima, get rid of Psychic and Magic and just use Ki but fluff it as robot stuffs.

>but it's not like a video game at all

That sounds like an interesting way to do a Xenogears RP. Fluff Ki as Nanites.