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Giving up on OVA

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 5:15 am
by sniffycrab
Though I love OVA as a system, I think I must give up trying to use it. People are just too stupid to play it. Seriously, I spend more time explaining character creation and you do not need to take gear as weapons as gear to players then actually playing or running OVA. How can the game be o easy for me to grasp, yet so hard for everyone else?

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 8:47 pm
by Clay
RPGs have a long, long history of clearly delineating what facets belong to a character naturally and what belong to them because of their equipment. It can be a difficult mode of thinking to shake, so if your players come off of things like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, it’s completely understandable.

Probably the best thing to do is print out some copies of the various Sample Characters and let them see firsthand how it’s done.

...Or just let them buy Gear. There’s not an explicit disadvantage to doing so, it just limits their options a little. (It would be harder to create someone who is good at martial arts AND fighting with a sword if you slice Attack inside and outside of Gear, for instance. But depending on the character you’re trying to make, that might be exactly what you want.)

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 6:17 pm
by Joe_Mello
sniffycrab wrote:How can the game be o easy for me to grasp, yet so hard for everyone else?
Who are you playing with?

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2015 5:35 pm
by sniffycrab
BESM 3rd, D&D 3.5 and VtM players. I believe they have the inverse rule of ninja strength when it comes to rules comprehension. The more elaborate and complex the rules the easier they grasp it, the more light the rules the more they struggle.

I also tried doing FATE and PDQ which are both pretty rules light and they hated it.

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:50 pm
by Zealot Vedas
That's unfortunate, I sympathize. I've been intending to run a OVA one-shot or campaign for my gaming group, but anxiety and difficulty coming up with plot is hindering me. By the way, I'm fond of FATE, but what's PDQ?

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:51 pm
by Clay
PDQ stands for “Prose Descriptive Qualities” and is used to power a number of different games written by Chad Underkoffler. A stripped down free version can be found here: http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com/freebie ... q-core.pdf

An updated version of the rules called PDQ# (sharp) was used by the Evil Hat-published game Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, so if you’re already into FATE, it’s not a big leap! The way it handles Qualities is not all that dissimilar from OVA’s Abilities and Weaknesses, either.

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:25 am
by sniffycrab
Yes, and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies is a very fun setting. I wish you luck Zealot Vedas.

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 4:19 pm
by markodude
I think that the "problem" is the freedom that OVA gives: game system is simple but you have a lot of freedom.
To tell the truth I never head problema creating characters with expert players (we played a lot of different rpgs) but were have to spend a whole session to do that (mostly to convert the ideas into characters..or even making conversions from other systems)
Anyway since I also play a lot of one-shots with less experienced players, I find that creating some pregens is really useful. For my fantasy horror game I created a drunken monk, an alchemist, a scarred mercenary, a seductive thief and a crazy gladiator. It worked really well since the rules are simple and easy (like in Over the Edge), I just made them a bit weaker just to fit the genre.

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 4:24 pm
by markodude
Oh and about PDQ...I loved Jotss (jaws of the six serpents), the Sword and Sorcery setting and rules... buuut I still prefer how Ova handles combat: my players find it more realistic than in Pdq (they hated the "damaged abilities rules... and prefer using hitpoints...after all it's odd losing your "poison knowledge" aftera being wounded...)

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2017 8:13 am
by sniffycrab
Try running the setting in OVA? It is an easy conversion.

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:26 pm
by markodude
I did that and worked very well! It was even the first time those players tried the Ova system (I used pre-generated characters, of course). I used just a little modification: heroes and villains were slightly weaker and started with 30/30 instead of 40/40 (still heroic anyway).

Re: Giving up on OVA

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 10:46 am
by sniffycrab
Well another GM is running OVA and I shall try to play it. I hope it works.