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Greyfeld85
2012-11-27, 02:32 AM
So, I had the idea to create a game where the players are demons, and have to claw, scrape, and backstab their way to the top of the metaphorical mountain, and win the crown to hell. I got the idea when I was talking to somebody about Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

The players will end up playing against one another, and against the NPCs. They'll have the chance for subterfuge, blatant force, building armies, and generally sewing discord among their enemies.

So my question: which roleplaying system would be best for a game of this scope?

Driderman
2012-11-27, 03:45 AM
So, I had the idea to create a game where the players are demons, and have to claw, scrape, and backstab their way to the top of the metaphorical mountain, and win the crown to hell. I got the idea when I was talking to somebody about Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

The players will end up playing against one another, and against the NPCs. They'll have the chance for subterfuge, blatant force, building armies, and generally sewing discord among their enemies.

So my question: which roleplaying system would be best for a game of this scope?

As for most queries for system, I'll advise Savage Worlds. The basic system is simple but very good, combat is quick,easy and deadly and the entire system is very modable to suit your needs. You can insert your own skills, edges ("feats") and other features with a minimum of work.

icefractal
2012-11-27, 06:03 AM
Does it do army / dominion play? That sounds like it may be needed at the high end, and a lot of systems don't support it or punt on it with a system that's basically just "have the GM make something up".

OP: What are your preferences in terms of light/heavy crunch?

Driderman
2012-11-27, 06:45 AM
Does it do army / dominion play? That sounds like it may be needed at the high end, and a lot of systems don't support it or punt on it with a system that's basically just "have the GM make something up".

OP: What are your preferences in terms of light/heavy crunch?

Well, it has rules for having henchmen and the rules lend themselves well to resolving conflicts quickly or creating new subsystems for what you need, but the basic rulebook at least doesn't have "Army Play" as such. Don't really know of any system that does.

NichG
2012-11-27, 08:12 AM
L5R has a little bit of army stuff, but like most systems its focused on how the individual characters influence events rather than detailed modeling of armies interacting.

The Black Company book for D&D 3.5 might be a good fit. It has rules for characters as well as armies, and the intended scope at least is meant to have a wide range of power disparity amongst them (e.g. Lv40 characters running armies of 10000 Lv5 characters). The quadratic caster problem is greatly diminished in that system as it is very time consuming and difficult to do big magic, so a Lv40 guy can't just wipe out armies every round (but give him 10 minutes to cast and he can).

You could take some existing system and refluff characters as armies. E.g. in D&D, healing spells are actually mass raise dead/reanimation that rebuilds a unit on the spot; hitpoints are how many soldiers are standing; power attack means a squad that uses brute force rather than precision engagement.

Greyfeld85
2012-11-27, 12:29 PM
Does it do army / dominion play? That sounds like it may be needed at the high end, and a lot of systems don't support it or punt on it with a system that's basically just "have the GM make something up".

OP: What are your preferences in terms of light/heavy crunch?

I think for this game, I'd rather go light on the crunch. The game is going to have multiple players doing their own thing all at the same time, so the less I have to worry about keeping track of numbers, the better.

Geostationary
2012-11-27, 06:09 PM
Not a system suggestion per se, but you should check out the project system in Nobilis.

Projects/destiny are the advancement system, and can provide mechanical advancement (character points), or more importantly in this case, story advancement. First, there's the Project itself, the story of what you're trying to do- in this case, "How I became the Lord of Hell". As you work towards this end, you gain destiny from Victories (things that help you towards this goal), Failures (when you screw up and things go pear-shaped), and Trivial Victories and Failures (as before, but not important enough to show on-screen). You can also gain destiny from Revelations ("You past self was the greatest of good paladins!"), Struggles (ethical/personal quandaries and how you resolve them), and Change (major life changes, like marriage or something). You put the Destiny earned from these into bubbles, and once they fill up, something happens that progresses your Project and affirms your deeds- however, this thing is influenced by and rooted in what lead up to it, so the effect of a bubble filled with Failures is very different than that of unmitigated successes. Once you fill enough bubbles the project resolves in some manner, and the goal comes to pass in some manner.

If you're interested, I can link some resources on how these work/provide more in-depth explanations, but they're useful for tracking progress and driving the story forward, and can give you a tangible way to show where people are in their attempts to conquer Hell, along with the general results of their actions.

Tl;dr: Check out advancement systems from Nobilis! They're useful for what you're doing, and provide clear benchmarks for the player's progress and ensuring that their efforts advance the plot!

System-wise, Nobilis is also rules medium-light and good if you don't mind higher-powered play in hell that can be leveled down early on, but even if you don't use it, the Project system is worth a look.

Arbane
2012-11-28, 01:58 AM
If you want to do something funny, RISUS might be a good choice. (You _did_ say it was inspired by Disgaea, after all.)

Grinner
2012-11-28, 12:11 PM
I remember seeing a game like this. It's d20, so I don't expect it to fill your expectations absolutely, but a little source material never hurts.

Link (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/2151/Infernum---Book-of-the-Damned?it=1)