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Beta Maxx System

A topic by Halfling Caravan Games created Mar 16, 2019 Views: 1,775 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(+7)

Hey Everyone,

So I created my own system after getting frustrated with a well known cyberpunk game brand and it’s spinoff. And after a chat with Bebarce (who you might know from his Kids Game targeted RPG “Power Outage”) the names Beta Maxx X and Beta Maxx were born.

The system itself is meant to be easy to handle at both ends, pulpy, and depending on the work you want to put into details relatively easy to reskin. 

It runs on a d10 die-pool system where your Traits increase the die-pool, and Skills reduce the Target value needed for Successes; both Target Number and Successes float. Each of the Cartridges of the system are then hit with “genre trope sauce” to get each to live in their own space.

Beta Maxx X being the pulpy Space Opera/Fantasy game, has magic, cybernetics, and special rules with Action Movie tropes such as “The Blue Wire”, “Battlecry”, “Bad Day”, and “There Is No Plan B”. This is in addition to spaceships, a considerable number of puns hidden in plain sight, and camp suggestions for antagonists and plot (at least one NPC is suggested to be a disgraced sports player who established a sporting goods company selling wooden bats and is actually a several thousand year old vampire who has been hiding behind changing names).

https://halfling-caravan-games.itch.io/beta-maxx-x

Beta Maxx Death is the Slasher Horror reskin of the game with mundane people, like sexy teens going to spend the weekend in the woods by the lake, who are then attacked by either a mundane or supernatural Slasher (which could be the building!) and their objective is to make it out alive. The mechanics of the game are very similar but include genre tropes for “slasher horror movies” such as a mechanism for Players losing control of their actions and in a panic.

https://halfling-caravan-games.itch.io/beta-maxx-death

Beta Maxxthulhu is the Victorian Adventurer in Weird Tales reskin of the game system riffing off movies such as The Mummy, and Indiana Jones (but backdated 50-100+ years). Now the players can become exposed to the surreal or occult having their world view shatter, and potentially giving them Psychoses that they have to manage during their downtime to mitigate the effects OR which can crop up during their adventures causing them to possibly enter a fearful panicked state, or a kind of “blind rage”. Lore already includes French speaking overly large spider monsters who speak French because it is more comfortable on their fangs than English, German, or Latin.

https://halfling-caravan-games.itch.io/beta-maxxthlhu

(+1)

Is there a quick rundown on the resolution system that we can peep before deciding whether or not to buy it? 

I can give one here.

I’m going to use Beta Maxx X stuff but the other games have the same setup)

You hit a situation: you are trying to escape through a crowded marketplace on a motorcycle with another player. You are driving, they have magic ready to help.

Your character is going to use the Traits Agility, and Perception with the Skill Land Vehicles. You have 3 Agility, 2 Perception, and 3 Land Vehicle Skill; you will roll 5d10 and reduce the Target by 3 for you. Your friend has Enchantment 3 Trait and Combat Magic 2. They are going to try use these to make the crowd part in front of you both; they will roll 3d10 and reduce the Target by 2 for them.

Target & Successes are described to be a two part way of figuring out how hard it is to do something. High target = difficult to get any progress, high Successes = lots of steps to completion. The GM looks at what they know, and lets you know the Target and Successes. They tell you you two need Target 7s and 4 Successes to get through the market unscathed and at full speed.

You roll 5d10 and look for (7-3)=4+ on your dice. Each one 4+ is a success. Your friend rolls 3d10 and looks for (7-2)=5+ on their dice. Each of those is a success. If you get 4 between the pair of you, it is all good. If not then something might go wrong, somehow, and if you roll badly, things could be much worse.

Did that help?

(1 edit) (+1)

Beta Maxx is a good name, I enjoy that. That alone gets me going.

Thanks