Saints Row the TTRPG

[Prak]

So, my latest "Oh my god, this game is amazing, I want to bring it to the table" thing is Saints Row (specifically the Third, I haven't played one or two due to money. The Third was part of humble bundle).

So, the main question is, what would be a good fit for the game's style? Clearly, a system would have to handle firefights and vehicular combat. At the same time, it needs to handle melee, because smacking people with ludicrously sized dildos and punching them in the junk is part of the game. The game would need to track rep, and should track infamy, but those can be tack ons.

[Korgan0]

The only real problem here is that Saints Row is basically about driving around, playing minigames, and shooting people in the face, and every player is going to have to do all those things, and I fail to see how you could have meaningful character diversity. Like, you could have a Driver and a Fighter, but then one of them is going to be sitting out most of the time. I suppose you could just chuck the idea of player diversity out the window, but I don't know if that's a good idea.

[hogarth]

When I was a kid, we used Traveller for our proto-GTA/Saint's Row style games (even though there's nothing in particular about that system that supports that kind of gameplay). Good times!

[codeGlaze]

Character diversity would pretty much have to be summed up by Heavy/Medium/Light fight styles with a random specialty as your 'thing'. Take a driving specialty... every character would have basic access to "drive", where they could... drive and shoot, or something. But the specialist would be able to drive a car, truck, boat, motorcycle, plane, helicopter, skidoo, etc RELIABLY while leaning out the window to shoot something, flipping in the air (while on fire) and be able to land perfectly on top of one of the guys he/she is trying to kill as people in the car are screaming directions and such.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Heh, we used Cyberspace for it when we were kids. But then again, I grew up in the boondocks...

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I think you can probably use whatever modern-era ruleset your group enjoys, you probably don't need a lot of custom mechanics. Most of what makes Saints Row 3 batshit insane is setting and plot related.

On second thought, most of the beginning of SR3 involves prolonged firefights while in freefall, and skydiving through an oncoming airplane. So maybe I'm wrong?

[Schleiermacher]

I wouldn't be so cavalier as that, because most RPGs have really crappy vehicle/driving subsystems. In fact I can't think of one that doesn't, offhand, unless you go for a super-light game like FATE. Which might actually be what you want to do. It will certainly help character diversity. Plus the scene aspects should be hilarious.)

[Mask_De_H]

Something super light and goofy like Wushu or FATE would be the best for an SRTT sort of game.

[Prak]

Yeah, I was thinking FATE could work, especially the zone mechanic for stuff like falling through planes (with fate points spent to grab a new parachute).

Thinking about what the game would need, i think we're looking at, at base,
-reputation rules
-city control
-looting
-roles (heavy, techie, driver)
--Possibly operations specialties (prostitution, gun running, cyber crime, drugs)
-improvised weapons, vehicular combat and firefight rules
-looting (which means M&M and d20M would not work at all)

[Prak]

So, I've been looking through Spycraft 2.0, having heard good things about it in the past, and given that Superspy and Gangsters aren't entirely dissimilar genres.

Spycraft 2.0 fixes d20M's terrible classes (or at least provides potentially better classes), and the whole origin thing seems a better way to give an all human cast a bit of diversity than d20M's Occupations (Origins are customizable through two selectable aspects, one, talents, usu. giving a stat boost/penalty pair, and some minor numerical bonus such as a skill boost, or increased threat range, the other, specialties, giving a bonus feat and minor numerical bonuses, some of each will give boosts to class features, proficiencies, etc.).

The system also gives interests and subplots to round out modern action hero type characters, which also gives it a boost in the "better than d20M" area.

Does anyone have direct experience with Spycraft 2.0? I'm poking through it, but it'd be nice to know if it actually handles firefights and driving scenes well at all.

[rasmuswagner]

So, my latest "Oh my god, this game is amazing, I want to bring it to the table" thing is Saints Row (specifically the Third, I haven't played one or two due to money. The Third was part of humble bundle).

Inspired by your post, I checked back into my humble bundle and downloaded the game. So far, my impression is "Over-the-shoulder shooters still handle like pregnant cows".

[Prak]

There is that. It's a good thing that players get a boost to car sturdiness, because driving, especially with a keyboard, is really awkward.

[koz]

Prak: Read this very carefully. I suspect after reading this, you will not think of Spycraft 2.0 in any light that is good. I hope.

[Saxony]

I think Saints Row would translate to table top RPGs very poorly.

Saints Row relies on visual spectacle and gag humor. Much of the fun is doing something and watching all the insanity unfold.

And the things Saints Row describes are interesting visually, but not interesting from a text or speech based medium. "And then you slammed the person down, doing this funny and amusing flip (trust me on this one, okay?) and a wink to the camera" is, as far as I can tell the depth of Saints Row's appeal.

Nothing wrong with that. It just happens to be a type of video game that doesn't translate well to table top RPGs.

[Prak]

At it's core, Saints Row is a Kitchen Sink Modern-Sci Fi Gang Warfare Game which puts the player into outlandish situations, some of which wouldn't translate well (having to drive around with a tiger in the passenger seat) some of which might translate decently (falling out of a plane and having to shoot at rival gang members/anti-gang squads that have followed you into the hail of debris and cargo) and some which would translate perfectly fine (confronting the boss of a rival gang in his own ring in a luchadore mask, backing up the de-masked luchadore who joined your gang earlier; assaulting a rival gang's matrix-style network as the boss of that gang screws with your interface be fore facing off with him in the computer as he turns into a giant dragon warrior).

Seriously, I think Spycraft 2.0 would work quite well (Sinister, what the hell were you smoking that you couldn't follow character creation?), it just needs some weapons statted up, and some extra rules, like that vehicles explode when reduced to 0hp.

[Username17]

The best part of the old Spycraft discussion is where a bunch of people drop in to all tell us that Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life. It was like the Manchurian Candidate, which was ironic given the source material.

But Spycraft 2.0 is not a fucking game. It's a book, and it has numbers, but none of those numbers mean anything. You put all kinds of numbers and gadgets and shit on your character sheet, and it doesn't fucking matter because there is no objective difficulty. There isn't even level dependent difficulty. It's not even as divorced from reality as 4e Skill challenges, it's more dissociated than that!

At least in 4e it is possible to say whether your thievery or combat ability is high, medium, or low for your level. In Spycraft you can't even fucking do that. You might as well be playing D&DNext where the MC makes up a DC after you roll such that a 2-7 fails, a 14-19 succeeds, and an 8-13 involves arguing with the MC and 1s and 20s are fumbles/crits.

I have no fucking idea how they managed to write 475 pages of "game" without ever actually nailing down what the fuck any of the numbers meant, but they did and that book is one of the greatest pranks on roleplayers ever devised.

-Username17

[protocolfreak]

The best use you can get out of a Spycraft 2.0 book is cutting some of the pretty pictures out.

The actual word parts are only fit for the bin.