Assassin's Creed Pen and Paper Game

[ArturiusRex8]

Hello GITP forums,
I am a moderately experienced GM who is looking to design a d20 type RPG set in the Assassin's Creed universe. I have already designed the skill system (for the most part) and am trying to finish the system. I would like to keep it as close to the feel of the games as possible. If you have any ideas, comments, questions, etc., please, feel free to post them.
Thank you!

[Critical]

...Why not use another system and just use the setting?..

[elpollo]

...Why not use another system and just use the setting?..

Seconded. D20 does not really hold the feel of an Assassin's Creed game. I'd advise Mongoose Runequest 2nd Edition what with all the combat manoeuvers and grittiness and generic awesome.


edit - to elaborate:

A setting can be ported to any system, so the "feel" of AC in that respect is provided through the setting. However, AC is a gritty game - ok, you can certainly take a beating, but that's not actually Altair/Ezio taking a beating. It's rather Desmond misremembering what goes on, hence desynchronisation. Hit points certainly can model this, but to me that's not the feel of AC. The combat (especially in the first one) was dull, and tended to be "block-block-block-counter". If you use D20 you will end up with this feel as everyone has a metric crapton of hit-points, so fights become a slog.

If you use a system such as MRQ2, combat is lethal. A hit is a hit, and you're going to feel it. To survive you want to not be hit, and good fighters can do that (a la Altair and his dodging/blocking). It also allows experienced fighters to use a dagger to punch through fullplate (if you roll better than the opponent you can ignore armour [or do a bunch of other stuff] allowing a hidden blade to slip in between the gaps in the plate mail of a knight templar and kill in one). Overall I think this conveys the feel of experienced fighters in a realistic fight much better than d20. D20 certainly has its niche, don't get me wrong - it's just that AC is not high fantasy, and Altair never took on no dragon.

Of course, since you've already started and are unlikely to suddenly change your mind on the words of a few forum dwellers I shall also ask:

"So what's this new skill system?"

[ArturiusRex8]

Well, I was trying to design a d20 type system because that's really all I'm familiar with. I've played D&D 3.5, Star Wars (Revised Core Rulebook and Saga Edition versions), and an attempt to use d20 Future as a campaign in one of the Gundam universes. That last one didn't go so well, but that was more the players than the system. As for what I did with the skill system, I tried to group some of the skills together in more 'general' skills (i.e. there is no search, or spot, or listen, just perception). I have no idea if that would work as well as I was hoping, though. As for your system suggestion, I might need to look into that. One problem I foresee, I wanted to also incorporate the animus system (reviewing genetic memories of ancestors, gain their skills, etc.), and I need some way to balance it out, otherwise the people in the present timeline could effectively gain abilities of level 15 characers at level 5 (or some such uneven distribution). Maybe if you can only gain so much from each session, or something, and the higher level they become in the present, the more skills they can acquire that way (exponential function kind of thing). If anyone has ideas for this aspect of the game, I would love to hear them. Thank you to the people who responded.

[elpollo]

Ok, I assumed you were focusing on one timeline.

How are you planning to run the game?
If you're doing two timelines how are you dividing up the play time?
Why can't the animus leak simply be levelling up?

The first MRQ has a SRD thing here (http://mrqwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) which also seems to have links for MRQ2 which don't actually have anything on (I guess they're not openly available). Still, gives you a idea of the system.

[ArturiusRex8]

How are you planning to run the game?
If you're doing two timelines how are you dividing up the play time?
Why can't the animus leak simply be levelling up?


I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'planning to run the game.' Do you mean single GM, players switch being GM, or what?
Most of the play time is going to be 'flashbacks,' at least at the beginning when they're learning the skills to be Assassins. Later on, I figure I'll reverse that-they'll only use the Animus for story reasons (like Desmond hunting for locations of other Vaults/temples in his ancestor's memories).
I didn't want to just have the Bleeding Effect be level up, because then it would take forever to level up, but then they'd level up really fast (reverse exponential growth). If you have an idea for making it work, I'd be happy to hear it.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I hate to continually recommend this, because it feels fanboyish...lol.

But what about Wushu Open? It's a system based around stunts, essentially. You add interesting details to your actions, and that makes you more likely to succeed.

I definitely think something d6-based might deliver what you're looking for: snappy action, not based around piling on stats, where everything is always on the line.

EDIT: Thinking farther, what I'd really suggest is a dice pool system, and not one which relies on the roll of a single die. World of Darkness might actually be a really, really good fit. You roll a pool of d10s, and hope to get dice that roll above a 7.

[Knaight]

As I don't really care whether or not I look fanboyish, I'm just going to recommend Fudge for this. Lightweight, combat can be brutal, and it gets the feel of the setting over by preventing the rules from being a focus. Otherwise, GURPS, for a bit more weight to the whole thing.

[ArturiusRex8]

I appreciate that everyone has systems they enjoy and think would be good systems for what I want do for one reason or another. However, I'm only familiar with d20-type systems (a fact I mentioned in an earlier post). I might try the d% based system, just because percent of success chance and stuff like that appeals to me (I am mathematically/statistically inclined). I have no problems with you guys using other systems, I just want to stick to what I know, or maybe try one new thing. I appreciate any comments you guys make, though, and I would particularly like comments giving me a better idea of how to make whichever system I use work better as an AC RPG. Thanks to all of you!

[Knaight]

The way you get out of only familiar with one system is to try another. Wushu can be learned in about five minutes. Fudge, maybe half an hour. Burning Wheel might take a bit longer, but it works perfectly. It isn't free though, unlike the two above.

That said, regardless of system, there are a few key points to keep in mind. You should not be trying to imitate the specific mechanics and gameplay of Assassin's Creed. You want to imitate the feel, nothing more, nothing less.