Making Fallout for Tabletop

[Tokuhara]

I'm in a group that generally does 3.5 D&D, and I'm looking to make a Fallout game. What system would work best as a Fallout friendly system?

[Rhynn]

Most systems are going to require a bunch of hacking. Unisystem would work well, and some of the sourcebooks are helpful (One of the Living deals with post-apoc stuff; All Tomorrow's Zombies deals with sci-fi stuff). Unisystem can do cinematic and cheesy as well as realistic and grim, which is pretty much the range of style of Fallout.

Twilight 2013 could be hacked to work, but it's a very heavy system.

You could be all clever and go with GURPS - it can be customised for anything, and Fallout was supposed to use GURPS, originally, but the deal fell through.

You could probably make it work with the late-TSR SF RPG Alternity. Rules/guidelines for creating aliens can be used for ghouls and super-mutants, and the gear is mostly there (weapons, armor - including powered armor - and even cybernetics).

You could definitely do it all OSR, too - check my sig for links to OSR D&D retroclones. Adapting Basic Fantasy would be a walk in the park, because the system is so simple. Or you could get complicated and get Stars Without Number and adapt that (but really, you'd be wasting some of the best parts of SWN, namely the sector- and planet-creation).

Gamma World is an obvious good choice, and the free OSR retroclone Mutant Future would do the trick, too. Definitely check out MF whatever you go with, because it is highly relevant (as in IMO Wasteland and Fallout were obviously based off of Gamma World to some degree, and even if not, share the same spirit). This is probably the easiest option, requiring the least hacking.

And I expect somebody's going to plug Apocalypse World (not familiar enough with it myself to say anything).

[Alejandro]

You might be able to use West End Games' D6 Star Wars system. Character points become skill points, and so on.

[zorenathres]

there is a free Fallout D20 pdf floating around the web, though after some legal issues it has changed its name to Exodus, http://www.scribd.com/doc/62743518/Exodus-Post-Apocalyptic-Roleplaying-Survivor-s-Guide-v1-5-OEF

its been refluffed, but the rules are fundamentally the same, & its available for free, so you cant really complain. this, with D20 Apocalypse should be plenty & more than enough to run a Fallout game, I personally run a Fallout/ Zombies D20 game from time to time, though I prefer to use my own homebrews.

[Friv]

I guess the big question is, which aspects of Fallout do you consider iconic, and which do you consider to be imposed mechanics?

Obviously, the "living in the ruins of a fallen 50s science fiction world" can be assumed to be important.

But do you consider "scavenge for goods and count every cap" to be something that you want enforced by mechanics, or something that can be abstracted?

Similarly, do you want players to become one-man armies capable of taking on entire bands of roving raiders without fear, or do you want to stick with the feel of the early levels, where the world is actually a dangerous place and you shouldn't charge into every fight?

[Servbot]

Why not the Fallout d20? Link here.

Took so long finding the link, someone beat me to it, heh. I recall it's somewhat similar to the games, so I would recommend it.

[Rhynn]

Also, Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, or 3 and New Vegas? There's differences! (NO OTHERS EXIST! Except Van Buren, but it never really existed.)

[Elvenoutrider]

Avoid any of the published fallout rpgs they are either horribly broken or are not actually compatable with tabletop games. For instance the published fallout pen and paper will have you rolling triple digit numbers of attack die a round if your players get their hands on a minigun. Each of these bullets needs a hit location. Each of the hit locations need damage. Plus for every miss there's a ricochet chance. You get the picture

Gurps is great for tech level bending settings and for modern games. Just be careful as the pcs are rather fragile. Injury is very bad in gurps. That said I have bad a great amount of success running gurps fallout games.

[vulcanbardmoon]

Avoid any of the published fallout rpgs they are either horribly broken or are not actually compatable with tabletop games.

would this be the SPECIAL rules then? Because I found those floating around online.

[ngilop]

just use gurps.

becuase the SPECIAL mechanics the fallout series uses is really the GURPS rules, its just the company who makes fallout and steve jackson games had a fallout of their own but by that time the GURP rules were already in the game so they had to rename it, and presto SPECIAL.

[Hyde]

If you want the game to be horror-y and relatively lethal, a tweaked World of Darkness could actually serve pretty handily.

Otherwise, I suspect GURPS is the way to go.

[Rhynn]

just use gurps.

becuase the SPECIAL mechanics the fallout series uses is really the GURPS rules, its just the company who makes fallout and steve jackson games had a fallout of their own but by that time the GURP rules were already in the game so they had to rename it, and presto SPECIAL.

This isn't even remotely true, and you obviously have either never played a Fallout game or read GURPS rules.

SPECIAL uses seven attributes ranging from 1 to 10: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck. It uses percentile skills, ranging from 1% to anywhere over 100% (pre-Fallout 3). I have no clear idea how they're rolled, honestly, but I assume skills above 100% increase your chances of critical success and let you absorb penalties. You get hit points as you level up (with experience points), and start with ~30 (pre-Fallout 3).

GURPS has four attributes (Strength, IQ, Health, and Dexterity - ST, IQ, HT, DX), with the human average at 10, and a human range of 6-15, maybe 3-18. The lower limit is 0, the upper limit is there is none. The skills are "attribute -X" (X being 0 or higher), rolled against with 3d6, producing a bell curve of results, which means diminishing returns for skills above 10.5 and diminishing losses for kills below 10.5, but an ability to "absorb" bigger and bigger penalties for harder tasks without significant lowering of success chances for very high skills. Hit points are equal to HT, possibly modified (if you buy Extra Hit Points). There are no levels. You advance in skills by training and studying, and you are awarded character points (like the ones you create your character with) to improve anything with.

Like I already said upthread, Fallout was supposed to use GURPS, but it never did. Either they had not in fact built the system in yet, or they rebuilt it entirely to avoid legal trouble.

[Elvenoutrider]

Yeah the rules for the two are only tenuously similar.

Another reason to use gurps though is it truly can be applied for most settings. if you obtain the rules for it you are investing in a system that you can use to make countless other games. I have used the rules, for a spy game, a zombie survival game, a fantasy game, a terror on a spaceship game, and am now working on a single player hunger games adventure. All have been resounding successes and fun for everyone involved. it takes a lot of getting used to if all you have played so far are 3.5 variants but it is worth the time and money.

[Rhynn]

GURPS is a great game, and probably the best hard SF/post-cyberpunk RPG setting ever (Transhuman Space) is GURPS. I'm not sure it's the best fit here, though. It's a decent or good fit for everything, but almost everything has a better fit - IMO systems built for a genre or subgenre are usually better than generic ones. That said, Unisystem is also generic, just different (but similar in some ways) and simpler.

Both are worthy games with at least one great setting/sub-game (Transhuman Space and All Flesh Must Be Eaten).

[Fighter1000]

You could just create your own system for Fallout, Tokuhara. It might take some time and some brain energy, but it will cost little if no money at all, and be highly rewarding as it should fit your idea of the game perfectly.