Good RPG For Doom?

[Psyren]

I'd have to take your word for it on that, I've never played 40K in my life. What I can tell you is that Starfinder's rules (including classes, guns, power armor, and monsters) are OGL and thus available for free legally, so OP has very little to lose by giving them a try. It's also a famous enough system (and close enough to PF) that they can get advice for converting or creating monsters easily.

After reading this thread, I now want to do a Doom inspired chapter in my upcoming Starfinder game. If one was to use the Starfinder setting, what monsters would you use for the demons?

A big chunk of Doom's enemies are actually undead. For the ones that are actually demons, the creature type doesn't really matter so you can find applicable monsters fairly readily and just slap the label on them.

[noob]

"Cinematic?" It's Doom. You roll damage, things die, you move to the next room. The core strategy comes from properly positioning yourself, managing ammo and health, and finding keys to progress. Really, only the boss fights should come close to feeling like a traditional encounter.

it looks like if you did not read my post entirely.
I said
"And if you are ready to spend turns lasting a few dozen minutes each (You can reduce that a lot if you skip tactics and have training rolling buckets of dice but then it will not be very cinematic but with that you can reduce turns to a few minutes each) you can have a fight with 20 demons involved but it will be clunky and starfinder is not adapted to that."
emphasis on the fact it goes fast only if you skip tactics or else it becomes not only boring but very long.

Disagree, all the SF weapons have levels and a ton of them have AoE options. Mowing down hordes is the same in SF as it is in D&D and many other RPGs - be higher level than the things you're fighting, and be able to damage multiple things at once. It's safe to conclude that Doom Guy was much higher level than the demons he was up against given that (a) he was some kind of ancient legendary warrior and (b) he could storm Hell itself and survive.

I said the other dnds were as bad as starfinder for seeing that try to do a fight with 20 monsters and see how rolling initiative 20 times then doing a turn where every opponent try to move attack stuff and you see the game will slow down to a crawl.
I did try in dnd to make a horde fight and it took tons of time because making each monster move or attack takes tons of time especially when there is interactions that change the following actions like "bob is in range for charging and have a clear line so he does then dave wants to attack but due to bob there is no clear line so dave try to throw demonic plasma but since bob is in the line we need to check if dave can make his shot without hitting bob".
But if you skip tactics entirely and decide "let us say everything is at the same point and that everyone can attack the protagonist" then it starts being not too long and boring but that was what I mentioned in the whole "skip tactics"

For simulating doom I suggest either picking a system that does not involve tons of dice but more geometry or picking a system that care less about position because d20 is the worst combination of both having tons of dice and of needing placement.
We could do tactics minus the dice rolling and it would speed up things but then it would not be starfinder.

Also starfinder have utter inflation on dices of weapons so when you want to shoot you then roll 6 dices for mid end weapons and a dozen or more for high end weapons and then there is also weapons that inflicts conditions thus adding even more time spent adding bonuses and dice.

[Blazmo]

OK this isn't strictly an RPG but you might be interested in some of the miniatures games by Nordic Weasel Games, available at wargamevault.com. He's released a number of narratively-focused wargames that are mostly in the sci-fi genre including one that is based on an Aliens-esque premise

[Kane0]

That's... a more complex question than I initially thought.

You probably won't want something like D&D, the resolution mechanics just don't mesh with the theme and expected gameplay.
The core gameplay loop is about picking the right weapon for the enemies at hand, prioritizing which ones to shoot and staying on the move to avoid being caught by projectile attacks. Those three things need to be in control of the player for the same sort of experience.

No idea what system would support that, but the fast, chaotic tactical decisions of DOOM are quite different to the slow, methodical ones common to most RPGs.

[Psyren]

it looks like if you did not read my post entirely.
I said
"And if you are ready to spend turns lasting a few dozen minutes each (You can reduce that a lot if you skip tactics and have training rolling buckets of dice but then it will not be very cinematic but with that you can reduce turns to a few minutes each) you can have a fight with 20 demons involved but it will be clunky and starfinder is not adapted to that."
emphasis on the fact it goes fast only if you skip tactics or else it becomes not only boring but very long.

I did read your post. It was the cinematic part I was taking issue with, especially since you didn't do a good job of defining what that was even supposed to mean or why it would be desirable for a Doom game.

I said the other dnds were as bad as starfinder for seeing that try to do a fight with 20 monsters and see how rolling initiative 20 times then doing a turn where every opponent try to move attack stuff and you see the game will slow down to a crawl.
...
Also starfinder have utter inflation on dices of weapons so when you want to shoot you then roll 6 dices for mid end weapons and a dozen or more for high end weapons and then there is also weapons that inflicts conditions thus adding even more time spent adding bonuses and dice.

SF heavily pruned the bonus sources and types. There is also no flanking and only 3 ways to provoke AoO total in the entire system, so positioning isn't as painstaking as you're making out. I think you're assuming it's just PF/3.5 with a sci-fi paint job but it's definitely not.

[noob]

Well there is the whole "can not charge through people even allies" and you can not move through opponents and it is hard to guess what is an opponent and what is not for the demons and possessed people in doom since they happily kills each other.
You see here just that restriction means that a turn is not going to finish in less than a few minutes (it will probably even take a dozen of minutes since there is also all the attack rolls to do) if there is charging creatures.
Also I never mentioned flanking nor even possibly imagined a demon could do something such as flanking: demons simply do not try to flank in doom.
I did not factor attacks of opportunity for demons either since doom have probably only 5 foot range with melee attacks and since the majority of the turns are demon turns they they would probably nearly never worry about opportunity attacks unless somehow they would like to flee from melee range but it happens very rarely since most demons when in melee range are glad to strike in melee range.

I imagined only scenarios of the kind "doom finished his turn now the melee demons all try to charge or run toward doom and all the ranged demons try to get nearer and shoot at doom" which is a quite complex scenario due to initiative and how each action can influence the next actions.

Oh and starfinder had the bad idea of keeping the range increments and it is one of the worst things to keep track off in time spend measuring distances between each ranged demon and doom.

I did not say it would be the worst system ever but it is a bad system for doom action.

I am sure we could make or find some system more adapted to doom.
For example if you want to start from starfinder then removing dice throw for damage would save time and make it fit doom better(damage is random only for the fist, the pistol, the chaingun, the chainsaw and the shotguns but with the chaingun, the chainsaw and the shotgun the firing rate is high enough that removing randomness would do no actual change(unless you are thinking about doom 5 in which case it is very different)) and attack throws takes a lot of time so if we can get rid of attack throws it would save more time.

Since doom have an insanely high touch ac and that most demons hits only on a natural 20 we can remove the attack throw and instead considers it autohits but deals 1/20 of the damage thus we removed attack throws for demons and still have the same gameplay.
Then since doom do not really miss in the videogame we can consider that doom have an attack throw so high he nearly never miss his targets and thus skip attack throws for doom.

[Mordaedil]

It is worth noting that the designers of Doom were pretty big D&D nerds back in the day, so there is a decent amount of overlap.

I think to get the feeling down with dice, you're going to have to make some concessions regardless. Consider Shadowrun rules with reduced complexity and increased intensity. Enemy fire should be easy to dodge, projectiles move at predictable patterns with easy to dodge speeds, but when it is unavoidable it starts to tick down your health.

Give projectiles travel speeds to allow the players to circle around them and fire their own weapons that have much higher travel speeds, but limited ammunition.

[Psyren]

noob, I'm still confused. So a game isn't cinematic unless you can always charge? Even if its combat is primarily ranged? You can move through allies normally just fine too.

And yeah, you're going to have some amount of mechanical disconnect translating a real-time game to turn-based, but that applies to almost every tabletop system. That isn't unique to SF.

The only guy with high AC (either kind) should really be the player. Again, the point is one badass mowing down legions of monsters. They should only be a challenge in numbers, not individually (except the bosses.)

[noob]

noob, I'm still confused. So a game isn't cinematic unless you can always charge? Even if its combat is primarily ranged? You can move through allies normally just fine too.

And yeah, you're going to have some amount of mechanical disconnect translating a real-time game to turn-based, but that applies to almost every tabletop system. That isn't unique to SF.

The only guy with high AC (either kind) should really be the player. Again, the point is one badass mowing down legions of monsters. They should only be a challenge in numbers, not individually (except the bosses.)

I said it would not be cinematic if we skipped tactics which would involve considering everything is at the same point.
when there is monsters who charge and/or move and shoot and a doomguy who positions itself and moves around and shoot it is more cinematic than if everything is at the same point and attacks the opponent side until one force disappear.

And I looked in starfinder rules charges are the only form of movement that can not go through allies however you can run though charging allies for getting to a square next to your opponent fine.

[ImNotTrevor]

What part of the Doom experience do you want to recreate? Order them in your head from most to least important.

If you want action to be fast-paced, steer away from TRPGs in general. They are not, generally speaking, fast or reliant on quick reflexes. Fast in TRPG time means IRL round lengths below 3 minutes. Try playing doom in 15 second bursts with even a one minute break between and tell me it's still fast-paced.

If you want combat to be brutally onesided in favor of the players, you could do that in most systems by making the players OP on purpose.

If you want Man vs. Horde, look to games like FATE and the Apocalypse World Gang Rules for things that allow you to compress many things into functionally one entity to deal with while still allowing plenty of Rip and Tear.

If what you want to emulate is a setting where science and occult magic have blended and spawned horrifying cybernetic hellspawns, well... that's not terribly hard for MANY systems to do.


So it depends entirely on what you want to emulate. But do bear in mind the limits of the medium and where its strengths lie. TRPGs are not great at breakneck pacing, but are good at depth and breadth of possible action.

[Bohandas]

In terms of tone The setting from the movie adaptation could be plunked right down into Raveloft with minor modifications

[Wraith]

With a little bit of thought, I came up with SLA Industries as a potentially interesting system for DOOM.

Gun-play is hugely important in SLA Industries; there's a huge shopping list of pistols, rifles, shotguns, grenades and various things - each with different types of ammunition for different situations. Swapping out between several weapons/ammo for different situations is quite viable. Kind of "Cyberpunk Lite" in a way.

That being said, melee combat has a lot of options available.... including stats for at east 2 different kinds of chainsaw.

Hitpoints are easily restored with "stimpacks". Armour/Damage reduction is quick to resolve and is destructible, like the armour power ups in Doom.

There's a variety of enemies ranking from hordes of fodder, to nightmarish "bosses" which are usually more than a match for an average team of PCs. Enemies also vary between feral monsters who bite and claw in melee, to well-equipped humans and humanoids with equivalent weapons and armour to the PC.... and occasionally, WAY better.

The existing setting is even Doom-esque, in that it's typically happening in a ruinous, post-apocalyptic city-scape.

I also find the combat to be quite cinematic, in that there's a variety of melee and ranged options to choose from (different fighting styles, sniping/supressive fire, etc) and also players soak more damage and tend to act more often than enemies which makes them feel highly competent without being overpowered.

[JNAProductions]

Can you link me to where I can buy SLA? It looks good, but I’m struggling to find a source.

[Wraith]

For a hard-copy of the book, your best bet is probably somewhere like Amazon or eBay - the SLA IP has only had a very limited reprint run in the last decade or so, and the first editions aren't cheap to come by.

That said, it's definitely on DriveThruRPG if you don't mind an electronic version, which is cheap enough as far as I recall. Maybe try that and see if it's what you're after, before committing to finding a book?

[Telonius]

Important question ... are we talking Doom with or without iddqd/idkfa?

[GloatingSwine]

Dunno as I'd do an RPG for Doom.

Some kind of dungeon crawly board game, like Space Hulk but less lethal for players, would be better.

[Bohandas]

"Cinematic?" It's Doom.

There was a Doom movie

[The Glyphstone]

There was a Doom movie

We do not speak of that abomination...

[Psyren]

If you want action to be fast-paced, steer away from TRPGs in general. They are not, generally speaking, fast or reliant on quick reflexes. Fast in TRPG time means IRL round lengths below 3 minutes. Try playing doom in 15 second bursts with even a one minute break between and tell me it's still fast-paced.

While I agree, I think some level of this needs to be accepted if we're going from a real-time to a turn-based medium.

I think the essence of Doom encapsulated two key experiences:

1) A one-man army in power armor with a variety of inventive futuristic weapons facing down a horde of monsters.
2) Map management that rewards remembering where to find locked doors and stockpiles of consumables.

You can do both of those in a turn-based game and it would still feel more or less like Doom imo. The more complex stuff like rocket-jumping and circle-strafing can be abstracted.

There was a Doom movie

Indeed there was, thanks for proving my point

[ImNotTrevor]

While I agree, I think some level of this needs to be accepted if we're going from a real-time to a turn-based medium.

I think the essence of Doom encapsulated two key experiences:

1) A one-man army in power armor with a variety of inventive futuristic weapons facing down a horde of monsters.
2) Map management that rewards remembering where to find locked doors and stockpiles of consumables.

You can do both of those in a turn-based game and it would still feel more or less like Doom imo. The more complex stuff like rocket-jumping and circle-strafing can be abstracted.

I did list a few specific potential emulations that you'd want from the system. It was specifically outlined after this paragraph, even. Apparently this paragraph is where you stopped.

As I said there and repeat here, it depends on WHAT PART of the Doom experience you want to emulate. Defining what makes Doom, well, Doom is going to be exceptionally subjective. The "Core" of Doom will shift based on which title we're talking about, what level, who's playing, and what their definition of a "core element" is. Hell, there's even a Doom comic they might be wanting to emulate. And as mentioned, a movie.

The question is: "Of this multifaceted experience, what elements are the most important?" And make system decisions based on that heirarchy of relevance and importance. If I were to attempt Doom as an RPG, I'd focus more on the narrative, aesthetics, and world. But that's the part I find most interesting to explore via TRPG, moreso than emulating gameplay from the videogame (which I won't be able to do as well as the game already does, and does smoother, with fewer interruptions, faster.)

So I'd choose to play to the strengths of the medium that Doom doesn't do as well. But that's an entirely individual choice of mine. What aspects others deem most important will likely differ.

[kyoryu]

The question is: "Of this multifaceted experience, what elements are the most important?" And make system decisions based on that heirarchy of relevance and importance. If I were to attempt Doom as an RPG, I'd focus more on the narrative, aesthetics, and world. But that's the part I find most interesting to explore via TRPG, moreso than emulating gameplay from the videogame (which I won't be able to do as well as the game already does, and does smoother, with fewer interruptions, faster.)

So I'd choose to play to the strengths of the medium that Doom doesn't do as well. But that's an entirely individual choice of mine. What aspects others deem most important will likely differ.

I agree with this and would like to sign up for your newsletter.

[The Glyphstone]

The most important part of the Doom experience is the ability to RIP AND TEAR. Everything else is optional.

[Scripten]

We do not speak of that abomination...

What? Event Horizon wasn't that bad.

[Psyren]

I did list a few specific potential emulations that you'd want from the system. It was specifically outlined after this paragraph, even. Apparently this paragraph is where you stopped.

As I said there and repeat here, it depends on WHAT PART of the Doom experience you want to emulate. Defining what makes Doom, well, Doom is going to be exceptionally subjective. The "Core" of Doom will shift based on which title we're talking about, what level, who's playing, and what their definition of a "core element" is. Hell, there's even a Doom comic they might be wanting to emulate. And as mentioned, a movie.

The question is: "Of this multifaceted experience, what elements are the most important?" And make system decisions based on that heirarchy of relevance and importance. If I were to attempt Doom as an RPG, I'd focus more on the narrative, aesthetics, and world. But that's the part I find most interesting to explore via TRPG, moreso than emulating gameplay from the videogame (which I won't be able to do as well as the game already does, and does smoother, with fewer interruptions, faster.)

So I'd choose to play to the strengths of the medium that Doom doesn't do as well. But that's an entirely individual choice of mine. What aspects others deem most important will likely differ.

I read the whole thing and I actually agree with you that you need to pick the specific facets of the experience to translate that you feel are important. I was merely listing mine.

[ngilop]

Literally the only time I played mythender My sole thought about the game was: Is this an attempt to transpose how a first person shooter or a computer action RPG would be played as a table top RPG?



Oh.. and it is toally free.

[Kyrell1978]

You could try the d6 system that the old West End Games Star Wars had. It could be manipulated to make combat super lethal fairly easily, and thus keep the mowing down hordes of monsters feel. You could also use some thing like the top secret hit charts where the better your skill level in a particular weapon the better your character could manipulate the aim of the shot. Head shots take away from a smaller pool of hit points than shots to the torso and shots to the arms/legs don't kill right away they just maim.