For the record, I’m a Modi Conan and John Carter fan, own both rulesets and 2d20 has won me over with the design. So, this is much less a ‘sell me’ and much more a ‘tell me’ about the setting and the similarities and differences in 2d20 iterations (clearly, I know JC is much, much lighter than Conan and suspect from Infinity so feel free to only contrast with Conan).
For more context, I’ve gone back and finished my long languishing Titanfall 2 solo campaign. Really enjoyed it and I’m itching to game in a sci-fi setting with competent early PCs and, of course, mecha.
From my cursory research into Infinity, the setting checks many of those boxes - 2d20 PCs, sci-fi, and plenty of gear (and, I believe mecha?).
I’m in and will likely pick-up the pdf soon. However, wanted to hear from the boards things I should look for, areas of potential trouble and/or areas of awesomeness. What do you like, what don’t you like? Do you think it would fit for a Titanfall campaign? Are there areas where it would be hard to divorce the setting from mechanics? General thoughts?
Not really had time to look at it too deeply but it ticks most of the boxes for me too so i’m slowly buying it all, part of the inspiration being the Netflix TV series Altered Carbon
The fact Fallout and Dune both have 2D20 systems in the works helps to
INFINITY is probably the ‘crunchiest’ of the 2d20 system games - I’m not sure that it’s as far above Conan as Conan is above JCoM, but it’s definitely complex, and uses what I believe is a slightly earlier iteration of the 2d20 system than Conan.
It does indeed tick the ‘2d20’, ‘sci-fi’, and ‘buckets of gear’ boxes. I haven’t seen any ‘true mecha’ so far (speaking as a Battletech player), but there are powered armour suits (called Tactical Armoured Gear in the setting - aka TAGs). The setting has admitted to being inspired by Masamune Shirow’s manga, so Appleseed and Ghost In The Shell, but with added space travel and competing factions.
As for the factions, that’s one area where the history of the setting as a background for skirmish games comes out - there are a bunch of different human groups poking each other for pre-eminence, each with a different background spin (and two groups of aliens, too). Although with the default setting being a bunch of operatives from different factions working (mostly) together to carry out secret operations, it’s also a touch Le Carré, and is referred to as The Wilderness Of Mirrors, where PCs might have separate secondary mission objectives handed down by their personal faction handlers.
Part of the complexity comes from the fact that ‘combat’ can occur on three levels - actual combat, Quantronic (i.e. hacking), and psy-war - so you can defeat opponents by shooting them, shutting down their gear, or just breaking their morale. And all three can happen at once …
(That’s off the top of my head, but I hope it helps - sure that others will provide more!)
I also play various 2d20 games (Conan and Star Trek Adventures), and what weirds me out about Infinity is that the combat dice are different. You only get an Effect when you roll a 6, not a 5 or 6. This makes it difficult do switch between the games.
But I do really like the setting. It’s kind of Hard Sci Fi but not a depressing future. And the factions are very different and all of them have their individual appeal.
I would say from the complexity, take Conan, remove magic, add hacking (which has much clearer rules than magic), add social combat. The weapons and gadgets are a little bit more complex, but I’d say that’s about it.
That’s a legacy of when it was designed - by the time we decided to make the change in Conan (which we’ve stuck with since), the dice for Infinity had already been designed and it was too late to change those too.
If you want to use the newer style of Combat Dice in Infinity, I recommend adjusting weapon damage as follows:
Reduce static weapon damage by 1, then convert the remaining static weapon damage to dice.
Reduce the weapon’s Vicious quality, if any by 1, removing the Vicious quality if the rating is reduced to 0.
So, a weapon with 1+4d damage stays at 4 dice. A weapon at 2+6 dice becomes 7 dice. Vicious 2 becomes Vicious 1.
Those changes should keep damage totals roughly the same while changing the dice. Or, you can just replace the dice and change noting, with the acknowledgement that everything’s going to get deadlier.
That’s very good advice, thanks! I actually find the static 1+ damage kind of weird and don’t like it since it makes weapon damage rather verbose, but with this conversion formula I get to actually kill two birds with one stone.
Awesome stuff, folks. Really appreciate the responses.
Nathan - definitely appreciate the clarification on weapon damage. I will use your rules modifications as I begin to play test the system. Might I suggest someone pin that response and/or tag it to a system errata or clarification meta-thread (assuming it hasn’t been done before, probably has)?
It sounds from everything I’m hearing that the system will work well for a Titanfall campaign. The one question I still have is on mecha - one poster mentioned there are body armors (TAG) but does anyone know specifically if there are mecha, either in Core or in campaign sourcebooks?
Not above cribbing my own, just wanting to avoid reinventing the wheel.
TAGs kind of cover the borderline between “big power armour” and “small mech”, so they should be a solid basis for something akin to Titanfall’s Titans, and the Geist virtual assistant/personal AI each character is accompanied by can cover the kind of automated operations Titans perform - you could easily set up a Geist to pilot a TAG, operate a weapon system while the PC pilots the TAG, or similar.
There are some in the core, I believe (it’s been a while), and expanded vehicle rules in the GM’s Guide. There’s also a dedicated TAGs sourcebook in the pipeline but I don’t know where it is in the release schedule.
Yep, there are a couple of TAGs in the Corebook, and most of the faction books contain a couple more specific to that faction. I suspect that the TAG-specific book is some way down the schedule.