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OT: >>43589946

A thread dedicated to discussion and feedback of homebrews made by /tg/ regarding anything from minor elements to complex mechanics, or even inviting people to test your system in Roll20.

Try to keep discussion as civilized as possible, avoid non-constructive criticism, and try not to drop your entire PDF unless your game is complete/near completion or you're asked to.

>Useful Links:
/tg/
http://1d4chan.org/

>Online Play:
https://roll20.net/
https://www.obsidianportal.com/

>RPG Stuff:
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/freerpgs/fulllist.html
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/

>Dice Rollers
http://anydice.com/
http://www.anwu.org/games/dice_calc.html?N=2&X=6&c=-7
http://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/troll.msp
http://www.fnordistan.com/smallroller.html

>Tools and Resources:
http://www.gozzys.com/
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
http://ebon.pyorre.net/
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/carto.html
http://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/maps.msp
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/demo.html
http://davesmapper.com

>Design and Layout
http://erebaltor.se/rickard/typography/
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4qCWY8UnLrcVVVNWG5qUTUySjg&usp=sharing
>>
I left the /hbg/ project list out of the OP in case it doesn't catch on and someone adds it to the next thread by mistake, but here it is:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/134UgMoKE9c9RrHL5hqicB5tEfNwbav5kUvzlXFLz1HI/edit?usp=sharing
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Well my mahou shoujo rpg is progressing, the ruls for despair got a little tweak and are now finished. Next I will go through rules for powers to see that they're still ok.

I realized though that I'll need to make a character sheet, and am now trying to decide if I should just put together something in photoshop that'll probably pixelate nicely when printed, or if I should try to make it with openoffice writer's shape tools which are sadly lacking.
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Homebrew.
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>>43669592
It looks to me like you're trying to make a simplified Final Fantasy Tactics tabletop game, what with the equipable passives and be able to choose your active powers freely. This also comes through in the attack mechanics, where all attacks hit by default, which is VERY JRPG. It's not a bad idea if that's what you're going for though.

It's an interesting start; one thing I'd suggest though is to watch out for pumping up magic users over conventional combatants. You're giving them all sorts of cool and useful abilities like creating food and water, generating dimensional doors and boosting armor and agility which there's no indication that non-magical characters can match with. The game has Active Skills, but those are only limited by your stats, not by your class for the most part, so magic users can still do most of the stuff that non-magical guys can, PLUS use magic. I'd suggest expanding the range of Active Skills that are as exclusive to Fighters and Rogues as magic is to wizards.

Can you elaborate as to what your eventual goal with this project is?
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>>43669508
Should I repost that executive summary thing?
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>>43669608
Well, I actually tried to make caster stronger, simply because my current group tends to avoid using them, resulting in terriboring groups of fighters, rangers and barbs almost every fucking time. the setback of wizards is that they gain a single spell OR a single skill per level, so its not really recommendable for them to take combat skills based on atk since its gonna be probably pretty low. the other thing I should implement is some sort of level cap, to avoid infinite numbers of hp or spells.
the goal with this project is making a system that you can learn in few minutes so lazy-ass players can't say anything, and manages to have some actual tactic to it. and also personalization, since the values are all pretty low its easy to create new abilities, races and whatnot and make it work without breaking everything
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>>43669731
The solution to players choosing boring fighters, rangers and barbs isn't to make magic users more appealing but to give the fighters, rangers and barbarians more interesting stuff to do.

The Skill-or-Spell thing does mitigate the imbalance a little, though.

What game have you guys been playing?
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>>43669871
Recently we played Mutant Chronicles, and the system was pretty awkward.
>give the fighters, rangers and barbarians more interesting stuff to do.
it would be the same. most of them have little or no patience when it comes to character options. I'm gonna keep that advice though, guess that making whizz too unbalanced isn't a solution either
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>>43670060
>most of them have little or no patience when it comes to character options

Don't expect passive agressive-ing them into playing casters will change anything then. They'll just switch from "I attack that guy" every turn to "I cast a fireball at that guy".
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>>43670060
Are these guys relatively new to tabletop? What's the story here?
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>>43670137
>>43670204
No, they're just lazy. its the most fun group I had until now though, so I'm not gonna drop them
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>>43670402
See what it sounds like to me is that they want their game to more like a video game. With that in mind what you put together is pretty good, because it cuts out a lot of wasted time by making attacks auto-hit unless they are actively avoided.

It also sounds to me like if they are really that lazy then even the amount of character design you've put in this homebrew might not appeal to them. What might work better is a fixed skill progression. Instead of making them choose skills or whatever at each level, say "okay at Level X the fighter gains this skill, a Level Y the wizard gets this spell."

Then to make things more compelling for you, play around with the skill progressions to create interesting character types. That way instead of needing to build a unique character each, your players can pick from a selection of unique character types that, again, have fixed skill progressions.

So I guess it would be like Final Fantasy V: the Tabletop.
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>>43670663

Maybe an X-Com like choice, where every level they can choose one of two or three options?
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>>43670663
>it sounds like to me is that they want their game to more like a video game
never thought about it, but actually it makes a lot of sense. the skill tree seems also a good idea, adding multiple specialization paths like >>43670790 says
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>>43670663
Why not just give them DnD 4e? It's basically the Super Nintendo Fire Ogre Tactics: The Tabletop.

Make sure to give them lots of bars and roof tops and dangerous dungeons to use their ability to chuck people into danger. Plus, the Character Creator means they spend more time picking what fits them than learning a whole new system.
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>>43670883
DnD 4e satisifies one part of their group need (martial action), but not another part (lazy character creation). 4e has a ton of options for all character types, which may not appeal to these guys.
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>>43670991
not>>43670883

Strike! could work, couldn't it? Haven't read the file yet, but could be good for ideas as well.
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>>43670991
The character creator is for that. Much easier to make a character when everything is provided clearly.

>>43671011
I want to try that one.
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>>43670883
>>43670991
Yeah, 4e could work too. gotta give it a try
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>>43671011
Strike! would work great. As it does for most thing.

4e would also work for the Lazy group if the GM charts out character progression for them so they really don't have to put much thought into it at all.

Strike! is better though.
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Hey y'all. So I've been a little sidetracked from my exploration focused game I've been working on, but I'm trying to get back at it. I've mentioned it a couple times before.

I come with questions again.
So a big part of the game is the dynamic of the group as they grow together during their adventures, and one of the mechanics that helps push that is, what I'm presently calling Unity, which you earn from good role-playing during camp/travel phases, and can be spent in combat or during challenges to give bonuses. However part of me doesn't like the idea that you're "spending" your bond to do things, so I'm thinking of having players track total Unity earned seperately from what currently available.

My questions are:
Would a regenerating pool of points be well served, or do you think it would just get insanely big and basically give them an infinite supply of Unity?
What are aome interesting applications I could use the idea of "total earned unity" vs "unspent unity" for? Experience tracking? Special ability unlocks?
What would you think of having traits that allow you to use unity in unique ways? Such as being the team mom/dad or friendly rivals or things like that?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, I can repost a more detailed explanation of my project if anyone's interested.
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>>43671662
The way I'd probably do it would be, the total unlocking personal and group-wide skills. But the big question in either approach is, what happens to the points when someone dies or leaves the group?
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New revision of my playing card based rpg. Feedback plox?
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>>43671849
That's an excellent point actually. Each point would probably be earned on a pet person basis, I'd probably allow either the person dying or the group to spend all the dying persons points to do something super dramatic or something like that. Combat is planned to be quick and punchy, but not super lethal, and not even the major scope of the system, but these things can happen, and sometimes they need to. So preferably when someone dies it should have some kind of meaning, raise the stakes in a way. Probably give everyone a chance to earn unity, and use the dying persons to do cool shit. Rarely in a book or movie will one of the Heroes die and it doesn't spark some kind of advancement or setting of resolve in the rest of the group.

The biggest thing would get finding ways to roll new characters in so they can catch up. Maybe give them some kind of bonus like double gains until they near the group average or something like that.

If a player leaves, then their character will probably just get put on a bus and leave without much pomp or circumstance.
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>>43671662
>Would a regenerating pool of points be well served, or do you think it would just get insanely big and basically give them an infinite supply of Unity?
The issue of infinite supply would solve itself if, as they progress, they continuously gain access to perks, abilities, or whatever that increase in cost. If you're okay with some innate power creep.

>>43672024
What if they die in a minor fight that doesn't have much significance? Maybe somehow have an option where instead of death, the character either finds reason to leave after that battle or is made to leave.

I think I'd need more context to answer the others. Do you have a write-up yet?
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>>43672198

>>43608401
>>43608274
Is the closest I have. And that tends not to happen, as characters are allowed to spend Unity to leave a character unconscious instead of dead outright, so rather than a minor fight killing someone, it'll just leave them with less resources for the BIG fight that might come at the end of the current putting.

And I would rather avoid too much power creep, i know it's mostly unavoidable, but I want to try and keep things always useful.
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>>43671662
This is the Camping game, yes?

>Would a regenerating pool of points be well served, or do you think it would just get insanely big and basically give them an infinite supply of Unity?
Personally I don't mind treating Unity as a resource, because it would encourage players to take the Unity-building part of the game seriously. If it regenerates on its own then it's just an action point system, but if it requires effort to acquire then it encourages them to follow through with the non-combat mechanics.

>What would you think of having traits that allow you to use unity in unique ways? Such as being the team mom/dad or friendly rivals or things like that?
Definitely a fan, especially when combined with the non-combat character roles.
>>
>>43671662
Regarding regenerating pool of points, there's the well mentioned problem of how erasing and rewriting stuff can become quite the chore. Also I honestly don't see how different this is to how it was previously, you're still spending your bond to do stuff, albeit you track it over a longer period and apparently regenerates (though bond regen could be a nice trait perk, like for family members, bffs, or something).

If you want it to be more subtle you could have the bonuses be directly related to the roleplay that happened. Like being nice to the team douche gains the bonus of him having your back in combat (+1 damage/armor) or equivalent.

>>43671874
Nothing new to comment on I think, other the Consequences section having a typo (One for each face up red card, two for each face up red card). Any specific in particular you want looked at?
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I'm not entirely sure if I should go with plain exp+leveling to make Vigor, Dexterity, Mind and Spirit grow or if i should go the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. route and leave it there unchangeable unless certain criteria are met and actions are done

How would you guys approach basic stat gain in a game centered around "doing rather than knowing" in terms of character growth?

Do i give the players a base number decided by dice, and allow them to improve the basic stats via training, exercise, socials, lifting, the same way i handle the traits? Should i reward them with points to gain a steady amount in all stats?

The only thing I don't want is making players decide on things that "may or may not help them in the future" like it happens with most systems i've played, which is why i started the whole trait-leveling-by-choices-taken thing
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Been working on rules for building Spacecraft. See attached PDF.

What I'm looking for is feedback on the Aspects part, primarily the Intrinsic Aspects. These are traits and abilities which make a Craft unique and don't fall into the category of the previous four Aspects (Quality, Size, Crew and Latitude). Things like, "does it have armor?" "is it a Mothership?" "Is it built out of some weird material?"

Only thing is that I feel like my list is kind of short. I'm definitely missing some major sci-fi tropes.

Here's the list (detailed on pages 8 and 9 of the PDF):

>Armored
>Exotic Construction
>Exotic Environment
>Manual Operation
>Mothership
>Superhull (think Borg Cube instead of Enterprise)
>Unusual Repair
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Hey HBG, long time no see. It's awesome to see how much these threads have developed over the past couple of months. I haven't been able to take part or even really work on my own homebrew after getting this dog. He's the cutest thing ever and he's monopolizing my time at home.

I added myself to the list of active brewers, and you can take a look at my project there. It's too long for anyone on /tg/ to care about but I didn't want people to think I had given up.

I'm trying to source some feedback from my current play group as well as slowly chip away at class design with my partner. If you do fancy a look, just keep in mind that the whole thing is a WIP and subject to change/copied from wikipedia for reference/not even written yet.

I will give feedback on the brews I can. It's good to see so many old and new faces!
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>>43672463
What's your core mechanic?
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>>43672529
a d20 roll-under, you add basic stat + current trait level and you get your success, success + consequence, and failure ranges

say you have Spirit 3 and (for example) Spellcasting 4 then you try to cast a spell then:
1-7: success
8-14: success + consequence
15-19: failure
20: universal failure (meaning that even if there's a 19 in 20 chance of success, you'll still fail when rolling a flat 20)

also player failure = enemy success
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>>43672470
This is the kind of work that makes me wish I had a local group so we could build a ship together and go have fun exploring the galaxy.
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>>43672643
Okay yeah that's what I thought. Just wanted a reminder.

What's the baseline stats? I'm asking because the breaking point for the mechanics informs how quickly players should increase their stats (if at all), which in turn informs what means should be used to do so.
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>>43672674
Yup that's what I'm aiming for. The final product will have rules for randomly generating alien planets (mostly done), horrible alien monsters (done), and alien civilizations (WIP) and maybe even entire adventure episodes.

I did some testing the other night with my wife and it was great fun. We generated the following:

-An oceanic planet dotted with paradise islands bathed in cosmic rays, with a seafloor completely layered in valuable coral, whose landbased apex predator is an armored, acid spitting grasshopper that can perform a rocket-assisted super jump and use adaptive camouflage.

-An otherwise diverse planet with a dual set of perpendicular rings inhabited by a species of seven-foot tall, intelligent, highly aggressive predatory starfish with razor sharp poison barbs on their arms.
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Card games ahoy. I'll be posting my rules again if anyone feels like looking into them. Also to lure in the guy who playtested the game.

I'll do the same as in the last thread and post the cards if the need rises. That reminds me that my next step is to make another set of hundred cards.
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>>43672470
Seems neat, wondering if there will be rules for GM-less plays? Suggestions for Intrinsic Aspects:
Battleship: More combat focused ship
Explorer: Geared for exploration, lower fuel consumption, wide sensors, etc.
Scout: Recon and scouting, stealth capabilities, etc.
Station: Less a ship, more a mobile space station. Differs from Mothership in that it's built with the intent of people living in it.
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>>43673403
>Seems neat, wondering if there will be rules for GM-less plays?
I'm not working on any but with the wealth of random generation mechanics it could be done.

>Suggestions for Intrinsic Aspects
That's not exactly the direction I'm going with Aspects. What you're describing is the purpose of a Craft, which is manifest through what it can do. The idea behind Intrinsic Aspects is that they define unique characteristics of the Craft, like its ability to carry other ships (Mothership) or the nature of its construction (Exotic Construction).

For instance, one of the Intrinsic Aspects I'm going to add is Divisible, which means that the Craft can seperate into smaller component Craft, the way that the Enterprise-D can separate its Saucer section from its star drive. Another I thought of is Non-Atmospheric, meaning it can't enter a planet's atmosphere to land (again, like the Enterprise-D, as opposed to Voyager which does have landing capability)
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>>43672428
>>43672328
Alright, seems like regenerating was something I was rightfully hesitant about. Plus if they are just one off things I can represent them with tokens or a single die.

>Camping game
That actually would be a good thing to tie the name too, since it conjures an image of togetherness around a fire and the camp system is one of my favorite mechanics. Maybe I'll name it something related to that.
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>>43673618
Ahh, I see where you're going with it now, don't think I can help with that then due to my lack of knowledge about spaceships. Good luck though.
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Not sure if this is the place to post about it, but I'm playing a home brew session right now where you control multiple characters but have to face multiple insta-death scenarios each session.
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>>43673798
This is definitely right place. Tell us about the system.
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>>43673944
Ok, I'll share.

It's essentially a modified Pathfinder system where you create multiple characters as you'd normally make just one, and why they're all together in-game is up to the player. The encounters faced in the game are determined like how one would make one for a large (12+ person) party, and the DM ers on the side of danger, usually making encounters even harder than that which would be expected for a party this size. RP side is also interesting as we have to contend with how some people might like one of our characters but hate the others we control, or conflicting interests within one persons group. The insta-death is a bitch though. In order to have a high stakes game our characters run into several roll high or die scenarios which has killed off maybe 1/3rd of our party so far. Still, it does kind of make things tense and fun, if not a bit frustrating. I'm also satisfied with the characters I made, but that's probably not as relevant to talk about here.
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>>43672703
I can't remember right now, but i think they started anywhere on a d6 but had a hard cap of 60 (every 5 points after the first 10 would give you 1 chance point, so the absolute maximum you could have is a 19/20 of clean success rate in very extreme cases, when added to the hard cap of 8 in traits)

but i was left out with a very awkward level progression

i was considering having a d4 base number for all stats (roll 4 times, let chance dictate your starting point) but i don't know it seemed pretty bad, you could end up with a muscle mage and a wimpy warrior
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>>43674147
When you say "insta-death" do you mean that everything in the game will kill a character in one hit? Does that rule apply to enemies as well?
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>>43674451
I mean every so often a scenario might get thrown at us (if we weren't careful to avoid it) where we would have to make some ridiculously hard check and/or take damage so high it's essentially an insta-death for any characters. We can't instant-kill everything and monster attacks don't (always) insta-kill us.
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>>43673017
YO! I'm here. Been busy/lazy as shit. I didn't get the huge turnout I wanted, but a couple friends agreed to play with me. I don't think we had that health tracker, which would have made things a good deal smoother, but the ones who would play enjoyed themselves. Everyone pretty much only wanted to play the jewelsouls and forgeers. One of them fielded a mask once but feign really doesn't seem to do anything useful, unless we were doing it wrong and it's supposed to be some kind of 'i get to act after the turn has ended' thing (two of us read it as 'effectively not involved in the game this turn' and it led to some disagreement). So he got discouraged and wound up just taking jewelsouls and forgeers (I didn't print enough for all of us, so we proxied a lot of stuff with magic cards). I'll answer any questions. We didn't really find any way to justify the 1-for-1 eyeholder, either, but I think the masks not seeming useful thing was some kind of oversight on our part.
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How do you guys handle the 'spamming' of spells in a system where there isn't a hard cap to the number of times you can cast a spell, or resources that have to be spent?
Shadowrun handles spells with drain, but I was looking for something compartmentalized into the roll for success.
Right now the game has a 'Heat' die that steps up whenever you cast spells; It gets added to your own dice pool when you cast spells, thus ensuring that your spells get more powerful as combat continues, but it puts you out of commission when you exceed your Heat threshold.
It doesn't seem to deter the spamming of particular spells very much though.
My playtesters have also expressed a desire for an overhaul of the threshold mechanic with more granularity (right now you just have Heat and Stress dice that get stepped up from 0 to d4>d6>d8>d10>d12 and you are incapacitated when a die exceeds your Heat or Stress threshold.)

Any suggestions?
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>>43675170
Oh man, this is exciting. Before anything else, I have to ask how you all ended up with jewelsouls and forgeers? I just find it hilarious that everyone went with the classes I marked as "heavy melee" in design. And yes indeed, the health tracker was made from a feedback in previous threads, for the sole purpose of making the game run smoother. Keeping track of health is still an issue, since its so numerous.
You did actually get feigned mostly right. Masked planning to use feign work like normal during the supply phase, but can't do anything else during the conflict phase. In return, they cannot be primary targets for enemy damage and such and give a benefit when they are "untapped", as it is. Feign actually has gone through many many design variations, so its actually a relief to hear that it seemed bit underpowered in its current form.
As a side question, how did you print out all the cards? One would think its a metric pain in the ass to print out hundreds of cards with a regular printer and paper.
1-for-1 eyeholder propably means the "third" one who deals damage, right? Poor bastard. It used to prevent one damage from itself instead. Atleast I get another excuse to pump up its power or even change its ability.

Either way, naturally my questions will about jewelsouls and forgeers since you played them the most. Were there any cards that rose up as especially powerful? Or alternatively, cards that were basically useless? Did either of the classes seem drastically stronger or weaker than the other in comparison? Were relics heavily in use? Did either of the basic actions (attack or defense) see way more play than the other? Did forgeers provide enough benefits for the cost of their tricks? Did minions or class neutral skill cards see much play?

Of course, general comments about the basic gameplay itself are interesting to hear, especially more simple stuff like how long the matches took.
Also did anyone do anything with glyphscribes and torchbearers?
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>>43672463

It's hard to say without seeing the rest of your game, anon. What's kind of feelings do you want to evoke with character advancement?
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>>43676900
Well yeah, if there's no consequences to spamming besides a KO later on, that's what it will encourage. Sounds like I could spam every round until the heat die says KO is likely, and the I'd full stop.

Maybe add heat meter table, fill it with consequences of increasing severity, with KO and self-inflicted damage at top, and then compare your heat die minus heat threshold (rename to heat resistance?) to it. Every result above zero has some inconvenience to the spellcaster.
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>>43677105
I was also thinking about increasing the difficulty of a spell increase every time you use it, and step down during a 'cool down' phase if you didn't cast any spells that turn. But then you would have to track difficulty dice for each spell individually, and some of the players feel that may be too much book keeping.
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>>43677105
I do like the idea of comparing heat to stress for effects. I dislike having to look up tables during game play, but it's a good idea...
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>>43677099
it was actually me sorry
>make a project list for quick referral
>forget to use the name
i'm retarded

dunno, traits (things the player knows how to do or handle, like certain weapon types or things like first aid or cooking) grow organically through their actions

but when it comes to what the player IS (strong, smart, swift, etc) i really don't know how i want to play it out or how to make it progress, if i want to make it progress at all

i guess what i really want to know is how other people would like to see those basic things grow, because i'm so lost i have no idea how to proceed

the only thing i know for sure is that i don't want to make players sit and "plan ahead" with what might be useful in the future, maybe instead have solid basic stats and make them work around them with the traits so the characters progress more dynamically
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>>43677248
The table doesn't need to be long, just a several escalating effects for specific result ranges. Give them enough bite to make players think twice of simply spamming and escalating the heat die size every round. maybe one of the effects is a forced downsizing of the heat die? That'll directly makes their spells less effective even if they continue to spam.
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>>43677067
Jewelsouls and forgeers just kinda seemed favored by the game itself, with jewelsouls being really powerful and forgeers having a whole side deck just for them. It doesn't hurt that we all like really streamlined, direct play (our mtg meta is mono-black (me) and straight burn fights (other two)) so jewelsoul was really appealing for that. Jewelsouls are basically 'the objectively best one on autopilot' so being new it seemed like the obvious choice, forgeers, well, i think they fed off my enthusiasm for those and it went from there. glyphscribes seemed like it was too much in the way of moving parts for us to care, because they seemed to need to put in real work and resource management to eek out the same kind of advantages jewelsouls were cranking out on accident.

Though, to my taste, while the first two jewelsouls were popular, that extra +1 tacked onto everything got kindof grating. That wasn't shared with the table, they didn't mind it at all, i think it's just an artifact from years wasted on 4e and pf's endless little tiny mods. Our compromise was that if anyone forgot to the something with their jewelsoul (like heal 1 damage from the first one) then they were shit out of luck, but we'd be nice about forgetting things as the other guys.

Health tracking was a pain in the ass, but those cards would have helped.

Yeah, looks like we got feigned right.

I bought a fresh ink cartridge just for the novelty of this, printed up on regular paper and just double-sleeved everything for rigidity. Yeah, the third eyeholder seems like a wasted party slot, it was recieved a bit worse than I predicted honestly (I thought it'd be sub-optimal, but the other two treated it as effectively repulsive, so, idunno, I feel it could have its place but we didn't find one).

Diamond Is Unbreakable got used tons, I wish Shattered Limits got used more but it really didn't seem to keep up unless the enemy forgeer had already gotten set up which is playing to lose. cont
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>>43677284
You do not want players to plan ahead. Have you considered random advancement? Or hidden advancement? So that players do not know what they might become? That sort of thing evokes a certain emotional response that you may not be looking for though.
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>>43677067
Awakened Soul Slash was kind of hilarious, no other cards really stood out to us on the jewelsoul front, though avenge the fallen did swing the second game in someone's favor, which they needed, because they seem really attracted to the 'plan to lose' deck building strategy even after a pretty nasty 3 loss streak. Nothing felt useless that we used. I hellmaw plateau'd into scroll of death and a few other odd trinkets I liked, but no one really seemed to care much for exploration, which is pretty dumb of them imo, they're powerful passives even just for card draw.

Jewelsoul really seems like the reason there's a 2-of-a-class limit, the game seems more about picking what characters will be in your 3rd and 4th slot with jewelsouls as a given, but I could see an advantage to be had from the jester mask helping get card advantage for the versing one (forgive me, I don't have all that stuff open right now, you know the one).

Basic attack did way way more play than basic defense, because unless you have the defend-to-damage jewelsoul with focused defense on-hand,there isn't as much around to empower blocks as there is to power attacks, so it makes more sense just to hit so hard and often that the other guy can't hit anymore. Offense really was the best defense here.

forgeers powers are costed really well imo.

the only class neutral skill card I even remember seeing was that 3 action: kill 1 minion thing to deal with a battle golem.

Council tutor is fucking sweet for the healing jewelsoul btw. But yeah, we played with minions a lot more than relics. Honestly though, I don't know why they didn't use relics more. To their credit, they''re decent enough at MTG to know what's worth their time, but at least 1 in the deck is a huge boon and feels necessary.

Playtime was an hour and a half, a good deal longer the first game while we were learning stuff, and we played 3 or 4 games.
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>>43678100
I'm super thankful for your playtesting. I mean it. You guys noticed in just that time how powerful jewelsouls can be, and I had not even seen the possibilities. This feedback results in either the nerfing of jewelsouls or buffing every other classes. Funnily enough, I did plan on making everything number+0 at the end to make the numbers more exciting, but I ended up with using mostly single digit numbers to make things easier to keep track of. But this is a card game after all so powercreep will happen for sure, in three years characters have 500 health. I have to ask about forgeers having their own side deck, you mean the relic deck?
Feign will absolutely get buffing either way however. Survivability and tiny bonus just isnt enough in comparison. Same with the third eyeholder, either it gets huge buffs or just redesigns into some other direction.
Diamond is Unbreakable being heavily used doesnt surprise me after hearing the other comments.
>>43678763
>I hellmaw plateau'd into scroll of death
Just seeing that phrase made me giddy inside. Just a satisfaction of terms forming up around the game. I have been thinking about making exploration more beneficial however, either by making relics more powerful and more worth it in general or perhaps adding an alternative win condition over emptying your relic deck fast enough.
Yes, the two of a class limit is one thing I dont regret at all, especially after these news! If the limit wasnt there, I feel all of your matches would have been 4 jewelsouls vs 4 jewelsouls.
I am not sure how I could make basic defense more useful, perhaps I will just make cards that use it more powerful, or just take it out entirely, which would be a shame.
I take sick pleasure from Fate Removed being used a lot since it is one of my personal favorites. I assume Battle Golems were noticable threat then? Continued ->
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>>43679281
You guys even got a new ink cart just for this, I honestly cant state how thankful I am. Because of you and your friends, the game will be better. And of course, as the designer for the game, I am very happy you still enjoyed yourself despite the flaws that were in place.

Playtesting is omni-important, that is my biggest lesson here.
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So, I'm working on a system that handles verbal combat (negotiations, threats, bargaining, debates) in a similar way it handles combat, with various traits and skills associated with it. Presently I have an armor system which is broken down into 3 "styles" and weapons have 3 different weapon "styles"
Weapons
>blunt
>edged
>pierce

Armor:
Soft: -e, +p
Hybrid: -p, +b
Hard: -b, +e

Likewise there are 3 types of "drives" and 3 types of "arguments"

Arguments:
Intimidation
Logic
Sincerity

"Drives" (still looking for a better name)
Logic: +logic -sincerity
Emotion: +sincerity -intimidation
Fear: +intimidation -logic

Thoughts?
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>>43679873
Oops! Got those +'s and -'s flipped for the "Drives". Just assume if it's a plus, that works better against it.
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>>43672470
Have you looked through the traveller rules? Really detailed rules for space craft construction. very easy to play with as well.
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>>43676900
Reminds me of another Heat mechanic in an upcoming video game, though in that one you're encouraged to spam attacks, then do one specific attack which locks Heat for an amount of time. You could do the exact opposite where having more Heat is beneficial up to a certain, easy to reach point, then Heat begins to give negative effects. If Heat only increases if a spell is cast, so maybe have an option to buffer spells while waiting for it to cool down?

>>43679281
Do try and cast away this perception, and try to make every card unique and is always in a 'may or may not be useful for my deck' state. There'll be favourites, sure, but every card should be a viable option, regardless of when it came out. Netrunner is a good example of this maybe? Don't know enough about the cards to say for certain.

>>43679873
Logic in both Arguments and Drives may become confusing. Maybe replace one of them with 'Reason'. Looks good otherwise.
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>>43681931
>Reminds me of another Heat mechanic in an upcoming video game, though in that one you're encouraged to spam attacks, then do one specific attack which locks Heat for an amount of time. You could do the exact opposite where having more Heat is beneficial up to a certain, easy to reach point, then Heat begins to give negative effects. If Heat only increases if a spell is cast, so maybe have an option to buffer spells while waiting for it to cool down?

Interesting.
I am currently using a heat-lock mechanic for sustaining ongoing spells.
Hmmm... Here's an idea:
Exceeding your Heat threshold doesn't knock you out of the fight completely, but it drain a 'heart', and lock you out of casting spells until you cool down completely.
Spell casting classes get a 'Climactic' effect that triggers when they exceed their Heat threshold.
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>>43682117
Sounds nice, though I'm not too sure how I feel about forcing players to not cast spells until cooldown ends. On the other hand, it is a pretty severe penalty and could discourage people from going over the threshold, at the same time dangling the dangerous fruit of a Climactic spell. Balancing the Heat gauge progression is key I think, the threshold should be filled quickly enough that, should the player spam spells right at the beginning of battle, the battle should still be going on even after a Climactic spell, with the spell caster now effectively useless.
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Here's an observation for anyone interested in hacking FATE:

Adding +1s or -1s to rolls has exponential results. It makes the number space available to bonuses small.
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I've been sitting on this one for a couple days. It's got a couple experiments in one system that I wanted to try.

>Stats are based on your character's personality, approach, outlook, attitude, etc rather than the traditional Body, Mind, etc
>'Classes' are playstyles, not aesthetics or roles
>Optional Rules

>>43682634
Strange timing...
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>>43682693
I'm good at things.
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>>43682709
Savvies could use a more extensive list of examples to choose or create stuff from, as does Conditions. Does Disposition refer to Virtues? Otherwise the core system seems pretty solid, and optional rules that can be tacked on later are always welcome. The GM turn rule could especially be a fun way to make encounters interesting, though there's potential for abuse as well. (While you were debating the price of beer with the tavern owner, a dragon landed outside.)
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>>43682693
>>'Classes' are playstyles, not aesthetics or roles
If you check Jadepunk, it works like FAE using the approach mechanic, but replaces them with six professions: aristocrat, engineer, explorer, fighter, scholar, scoundrel.
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>>43682978
Hm. I think I should just rewrite the whole section to be clearer in general. I don't think I'd have noticed, thanks.

>>43683235
I'm not sure those are totally divorced from an aesthetic as you've named them, but I will read through it anyway.
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>>43683369
Oh, I think I misread something somewhere. The Jadepunk classes are pretty much areas of expertise. FAE's default approaches on the other hand are pretty much like styles.
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>>43680149
Not especially, I don't own a copy of Traveller.
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Bumping with the latest version of Aegoe: SS.
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>>43686293
http://www.mediafire.com/view/p4zit7urpa7k8uw/Traveller_-_Core_Rulebook_%28mgp3800%29.pdf

Have a look, the ship design is pretty solid.
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>>43679873
Maybe "Motives" rather than Drives? Drive I think implies action, whereas Motive gets to the concept of "this is the character's prevailing mental state".
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>>43686452
I think "Intent" would work too. Also, I think the listing lacks a fourth argument as it already covers being sincere: lies.
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Maybe not exactly homebrew, more of a worldbuilding question: why do so many tectonic plates have edges close to the shore?
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>>43686776
I'm not a geologist but as I understand it it's because continental plates and oceanic plates have different compositions, so generally oceanic plates remain submerged and continental plates stay above water. It's mostly about density.
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>>43687011
I'm making a map generator (or at least I'm trying to gather some theoretical info on how to make it) - so, after I create polygons for plates I should designate which ones are continental and make them mostly above water with sharp shorelines where they crash onto oceanic ones?
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>>43687011
Yes, oceanic plates are denser material, which causes them to subduct when colliding with a continental plate. Also, it is mainly the American plates where their western edge is at the shore.
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What kind of programs do you guys use to create character sheets? I only have MS Word and Adobe Acrobat.
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>>43687593
I'm interested in this too. I've been considering photoshop or GIMP and just drawing in large enough scale so it still looks good when printed.
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>>43686452
>>43686656
>>43681931
I like "Motive", it sums up what it's supposed to be, the source of the conflict: either Fear, such as not wanting to die or being afraid of losing something; emotion, being blinded by rage or grief or passion; or logic, thinking that this MUST be the best course of action because it's the only one that makes cold calculated sense, regardless of the implications.

Still thinking of a better name for one of the logics, either argument or motive.

And lies are covered under sincerity, which is giving the impression of sincerity, not so much actually meaning what you say. So you can 100% mean that you are sorry for someone's loss, but if you don't SEEM sincere, they won't believe you and vice versa. Most of the talking skills are mostly giving the impression of something rather than actually meaning it, you can intimidate even of you can't back it up, you can spout logic that's not technically true and you can seem sincere when you truly don't care.
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>>43687669
Yeah I just wasted most of today screwing around with a design sheet for spacecraft and coming up with basically nothing. Super frustrating.
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>>43687593
Adobe illustrator or indesign
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>>43687593
I use adobe indesign for the black age, and google docs for smaller projects. Have not tried with MS Word.
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>>43691215
Can you post the character sheet you use for Black Age?
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I am torn between two autofire systems. This may sound unimportant but it actually has bearing on what core mechanic I choose for the system (stupid as it sounds).

I am torn between 1d12 and 2d6. I like the idea of 2d6 because it only uses d6, but d12 is also cool. The difference is, of course, that d12 is a slightly larger number range and does not have a "bell curve" to the probability. That said, d12 is a small enough range compared to, say, d20, that

So the two autofire systems I am considering are: either some kind of single-roll thing that uses MoS to determine additional hits. This would be nice for 2d6. The other is rolling 3 to 4 attacks at a -2 or -3 penalty, kind of like Savage Worlds' autofire system. This is okay for 2d6, but it fits a d12-based (or d10 based, I guess) system better, because it's just rolling a single die. I was also thinking of structuring autofire to be a suppressive fire thing, almost like an Apocalypse World move, but without the narrativist stuff; basically, you roll 2d6 + shooting - range penalties, on a 7-9 you suppress, on a 10+ you actually hit.

Also, 2d6 is annoying because even a +1 makes a big difference. A base roll against TN 8 with 2d6 has a 41% chance of success. A +1 raises this to like 50%. But then a +2 or +3 makes it end up around 84%. Those numbers are off, but the point is that the bellcurve gets awfully steep in the small number range.

This leads to my second problem with my system, which I will outline in the next post.

Oh, and if you want a critique on your pdf, send it to [email protected] I will give you a legit critique

YES I AM OFFERING FREE CRITIQUES OF PDFS IF YOU EMAIL IT TO ME

To catch the eyes of people scrolling past.

Anyway, continuing below.
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>>43691694
Oh, character sheet. My bad, haven't started that yet. I intend to use Indesign though. In fact, I will go ahead and get a start on that today and share what I come up with.
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>>43691732

Second post:

So my first attempts at an RPG were to make a 1d6-based generic system. The idea sounded really cool on paper, and I banged my head against the wall for over 2 years before realizing it didn't really work.

The closest I came was a 1d6 that exploded "both ways"; if you rolled a 1, you rolled again and subtracted. If you roll a 6, you rolled a 1 and added. So you could get a result between -5 and 11, with the most common being between 1 and 6. Actually, it was reroll and subtract / add 5 rather, to avoid the "number skipping" you get in most exploding dice systems.

So I gave up on that. The biggest thing I liked about a 1d6 system was that you could roll 3d6 and have your autofire result right in front of you; each attack, using 5 bullets. It was fun to do.

So I started making the system in 2d6. One thing I learned from my 1d6 RPG was the concept of number ranges and what I call "end behavior" (i.e. the extreme cases of what you roll on the dice.

1d6 has a very small number range. Thus, the traditional "stat + skill" system was useless; there was no room for it. So I made the system skill-only. This transfers over to 2d6 well; I kept the system skill-only.

Now the problem is, skill-only doesn't work well for 2d6, either; it feels oversimplified. Even the characters feel a bit boring. And trying to model strength as a skill, or fortitude as a skill, is awful.

So the result is, I am trying to think of a way to make a game where stats and skills interact, but the game is not stat + skill. Think something like Savage Worlds: you have stats ranging from d4 to d12, and skills ranging d4 to d12. Raising a skill costs 1 point up to its linked attribute, then 2 points past that.

Any ideas? Any other games I can look at?

I have also considered stat-only games, like Apocalypse World. Thoughts on that?
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>>43691732
Waiting on you to finish your post before I comment.
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>>43691992

I appreciate any help / thoughts you have. Again, you can send a short-ish pdf to [email protected] for critique. You will get it. Trust me, I have banged my head against the wall pursuing simplicity and elegance for a long time, I can definitely help you trim the fat / improve your RPG system.
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>>43691993

All done. Comment away. And thanks for your help, because I will probably not see this thread again until it archives, due to the fact I won't be online for a couple days.
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>>43691992
Bad timing I guess!

Question for you: when you're conceptualizing your autofire rules, why do you think it's important for your weapon to roll multiple attacks? Are you using hit locations for combat, such that having one attack hit an arm and another a leg matters?

As far as alternatives to Stat + Skill, you could give John Wick's (loath as I am to bring him up) stuff a look, especially Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea. It uses an interesting d6 mechanic where you roll a pool of d6s, and then you hold onto a certain number of them for use in your roll.

Apply this to an alternative to Stat + Skill, you can roll a pool of dice based on your Skill number, and keep a certain number of them based on your Stat roll. That's another way of doing that.

Another idea that I've tossed around is a Roll-Under system where you roll a pool of dice equal to your Skill, and any dice that come up under the Stat that you are using count as Successes.
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>>43692108

> Question for you: when you're conceptualizing your autofire rules, why do you think it's important for your weapon to roll multiple attacks? Are you using hit locations for combat, such that having one attack hit an arm and another a leg matters?


Good question. I'm not using hit locations per se (but called shots are a combat option). Part of the reason is, it makes targeting multiple opponents with autofire easier. You can say, I shoot autofire, I get 4 attacks, I do 2 on each bandit. Or I do 4 on each zombie. So it's easy to do without splitting up attacks.

It also is a simple way to incorporate gun stats. Each gun has recoil (penalty) and a rate of fire (# of attacks) so you can have different guns with different stats. Not a big deal unless you're a gun nerd like me.

The third reason is it just "feels" right. You roll multiple dice at a penalty, to simulate firing a bunch of bullets, but your gun is rattling all over the place so they are missing more.

It kinda doesn't work outside of single-die system, though, it just feels slow. And in savage worlds, you just read your result off the dice at -2 for autofire penalty, so that also makes it faster. So a single-roll autofire system would be nice. The Margin of Success thing is okay. It would be a lot like GURPS' system if I chose to do it that way.

Thanks for the John Wick suggestion. I don't really like his games either, roll keep is a relatively interesting idea. I was hoping for something more Chargen-related. Like, having a +3 in Strength makes it easier to get a +2 in Climbing, but once you are playing, you roll 2d6+2 for a climbing check and 2d6+3 for a Strength check. The modifiers are as-written on your sheet. No extra math.

Although I have a dice-pool-ish damage system idea that would fit better if the whole game was dice-pool based, so I will definitely file that one under consideration as an option.

Anyway, thanks.
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>>43692108

I guess I should also elaborate on my Stat-only idea, since I hit character limit before I could say more about it above. Some day I will learn conciseness.

I finally gave Apocalypse World a read, and while it didn't really impress me a huge amount overall (I mean it's a good game and I love the writing style, it's just not my type) two things stuck out to me; the harm system (which is basically, PCs have 5 hp, mooks have 2, and guns deal 2 to 3 damage) which was just fun because it's simplistic and doesn't require much bookkeeping. And the fact that it only uses stats.

Apocalypse World makes up for it's lack of skills by having the equivalent of classes. So an Angel (the medic) would have a "move" to be able to help heal people. This is fine for a genre-focused game, but for a generic game you kind of need skills to some degree.

I would be fine with stats ranging -1 to +3 (not -3 to +3 because that makes "dump-statting" overpowered in terms of point buy) and having something Strength related, something Dexterity related, something Smarts related, and something willpower / inner spirit / ego / charisma related. Those are the "big four" in my mind.

I just don't know how to incorporate skills. Or explain why someone with Dex +3 can shoot better than a soldier with Dex +1, who has years of training.

That paragraph, actually, encapsulates my other real problem with stat + skill, is that it trivializes training, especially in a small number range where the modifiers are small. Think like 1st level D&D 3.5 characters. Someone with an 18 Dexterity can shoot a bow better than someone with points in Bow Shooting, because at that level, the skill and stat modifiers are close together.

Continued below, because I hit character limit once again.
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>>43692606


So overall, it's a frustrating mess of a game. Which is partly my fault, because my "design goal" is basically a simple generic RPG with lots of options (you can build anything, think GURPS but making a werewolf just means taking a Werewolf trait rather than a ton of advantages and disadvantages). The other big reason I was making it, was a 1d6 system, because that felt cool. Honestly I might still try to go back to that somehow.

So yeah. That was a really long ramble, if anyone reads it, you are more than entitled to a critique from me, so feel free to send one either way. Thanks to SpaceOperaman, and anyone else who happens to read it. I'll be checking in in a couple days to see what you guys have to say.
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>>43692376
Have you ever played anything using the One-Roll Engine? It's the only system I think I've seen that handles automatic gunfire with any kind of elegance, but that's mainly because the system itself is exceptionally elegant.

>>43692606
How about this: ignore Stats altogether, and purely build your character out of the Skills that he has. Skills add to your roll or indeed subtract if you are particularly bad at it. There are no overarching stats running things-- your Skills are the pure expression of where your character has focused his abilities. A character doesn't have a Strength Stat but he does have a Heavy Lifting and a Climbing and a Hand-to-Hand fighting stat that modifies his roll.

You'd end up with every character having a huge list of skills, Call of Cthulhu style, but they'd be more representative of that character than a list of stats.
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>>43679281
Me again! I wouldn't get rid of basic defense. It needed some skill support, that's all
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Here's my crappy attempt at something. I'm sure if I had more time it would look worth a damn. My partner is pretty good at making sheets, and he uses Excel of all things.
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>>43693939
You made this with Indesign you said? Or is this MS Word?
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>>43694774
Indesign, but I'm by no means good with the program. I started teaching myself the basics in February as I started my system.
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Are there any good sorcerous origins based on fiends For 5e?
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>>43691732
I'm partial towards a single roll thing just because I've experienced how tedious rolling multiple times to represent each shot can be in my own thing, especially if you also have a 'roll for hits, then roll for damage, repeat for next shot' thing.

>>43691992
>I am trying to think of a way to make a game where stats and skills interact, but the game is not stat + skill
Maybe have skills let you pinpoint the numbers when rolling to let you deal more damage? High skill level let's you choose more numbers, thus making more damage more likely. Plus you can declare the numbers as you like and not have it just be 'roll 3 or less to get bonus'. Stats could maybe determine the number of dice you throw?

There's also the AGE system where you roll 3d6, and when you roll doubles, you get an amount of points equivalent to the number on the off-coloured die to spend on extra things. Maybe you can modify it to suit your needs.
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Working a bunch on Hard:Suit

Tried to figure out skills and abilities and am a little worried that the core mechanics just might not be suitable for the game. That is, 1d10 roll under

I'm sure there's a lot that needs to be changed and edited so feedback and critique is appreciated
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Hello /tg/, I posted my rpg a week or so ago, and now I've done some changes and playtestings.

I know Symphogear isn't the most popular anime ever, and the average fa/tg/uy hasn't watched it, but I really liked making this system.

Thoughts on it? Additionally, I want to work in resistances somehow, since I have elemental attacks. I was thinking of a pentagram showcasing which element is strong against what, etc.
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Bump for safety
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don't you die on me
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Besides cannons, gatling guns, flamethrowers, mortars, artillery, tesla-style beam weapons, and various melee options, what weapons should my dieselpunk mecha trench warfare game have?
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>>43700691
Gauss guns?
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>>43700804
Huh. Turns out they were proposed in 1918 or so, so they're period appropriate. Might make them a midpoint between cannons and teleforce beams.
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>>43700691
Always a fan of her harpoons. In my irl mecha table my current rig is harpoons I use to zip around pierced enemies. Every downtime everyone else is trying to figure out what to buy, I'm trying to figure out what to pawn off to be lighter
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>>43700956
>irl mecha
You live a far more interesting life than I do.

Same time, some sort of tangling option might be nice.
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>>43700956
>>43700983
[A-wing at Hoth intensifies]
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>>43700691
How advanced dieselpunk are we talking?
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>>43695454
I see Proficiencies, but I don't see Abilities? Also, more Proficiencies for Vigour and Morale might be good, maybe break down Strength to more things, like Brute Force, Lifting, etc. Morale could be something like Cheering other squad members, Rallying them, etc.

>>43696608
The elements are probably the weirdest thing to me, since the Gear users almost never use an elemental attack, opting for bigger, faster, stronger, flashier attacks instead. Though you could just reinterpret how the attacks are related to the element I suppose (Fire attacks are explosive, Lightning is fast, Air is accurate, Frost has secondary effects, and Earth is plain brute force).

A pentagram of resistances would be fitting due to its relation to alchemy. For Summoning, Alca-Noise seems odd, since it's likely to be only Carol's thing instead of something all Alchemists do.

>>43700691
Probably worker mech weapons that are usually associated with digging the trenches themselves. High-powered shovels, iron net dispensers, etc.

>>43700956
>irl mecha table
You're doing that on purpose aren't you. Fine, I'll bite. Please elaborate on this. Pleeease.
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I'm trying to differentiate between 'a unit' - a group of similar military types, eg: a Land unit could refer to Infantry, Tanks or Artillery, does not matter - and "a unit" - groups of different military types, eg: two Land units and 3 Air units make up a single "unit" - and I have no idea what I should rename them as. A 'unit' is usually represented by a single thing, a mini, a cardboard standee, etc., while a "unit" usually has a multiple of these. I've considered replacing "unit" with 'group' or 'squad', but they don't roll of the tongue as easily. Any suggestions for a different term to use?
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>>43703036
Oh, I am also trying to figure out a way to differentiate bases - a hexagonal base where 'units' of a "unit" is placed in when "units" are deployed - and Bases - places where "units" are deployed from. The capitalization might be enough, but I'd rather something that's less ambiguous. And doesn't make describing things feel as silly.
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>>43703061
I would avoid that. Even if the rules make a difference, its still too confusing in conversation between players. You may have to bite the bullet and go with 'squad', or depending on the number in each grouping, you could go with something like 'fireteam' or 'platoon'.
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Anyone got a blank map of the ninth world? From numenera,?
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>>43671662
>What are aome interesting applications I could use the idea of "total earned unity" vs "unspent unity" for? Experience tracking? Special ability unlocks?
Total earned unity could be the power of friendship while unity in general could be spent on team work stuff. Not sure how your game plays but Coordinated Sweep (reduce time/increased chance for loot) or better flanking manoeuvres. You could even include "unity penalties" for accidentally stabbing a team mate or disruptive arguments. You can scour many rpgs for their team work rules and adopt them to your game.

>What would you think of having traits that allow you to use unity in unique ways? Such as being the team mom/dad or friendly rivals or things like that?
Probably a good thing, it could help define the relations the characters have to each other beyond "I know this guy. We adventure together."
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>>43702880
Thanks for the input friend.

Gear Users can use elemental attacks, as seen in GX with Tsubasa's Fire attack. And it doesn't seem too far fetched that other relics could give a gear user some sort of elemental attack.

Additionally, Alca-Noise was decided on summoning because thats the only summoning an Alchemist done in GX. And because I thought "Why not?"

My problem with the elemental resistances chart I proposed is that I don't know which permutations I would like to make using the 5 attacking elements (Fire, Water, Electricity, Physical, and Air) and the graphic to make it would be out of my skill set.
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>>43695454
Are you married to random stat generation? It's totally cool that it's an option but most modern games also allow for either point buy or a stat spread along with it.
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Need some ways to fluff out limited magic. Already got vancian magic in as something stolen from bonded spirits or drawn fron particular locations.

Was thinking of including 4x5 as 'high speech', but it's so damn inconsistent.

What are some solid alternate magix systems you've seen?
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>>43703735
REIGN uses a magic system where Magic is just another skill that anyone can learn, but at the cost essentially of their humanity. Like anyone can learn to control fire, but at the expense of turning themselves into an infernal being the further they develop their skill.

Magic can also be blocked with Countermagic, which is another skill that anyone can learn. So even then it isn't the end-all be-all.
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Here's my first attempt at a partially complete character sheet, though it's not actually for a character-- it's for spacecraft.

The way that it works is you draw or insert a picture of your Craft in the space in the center, and then draw lines from its key parts to the Location boxes, which you use to detail the various systems and how many hit boxes that location has. A Craft can have between 2 and 10 hit locations, hence the 10 Location boxes.

As a default, a hit location can only have a maximum of 10 hit boxes, though that maximum can be extended, which is why I've provided room for 12. Most locations will have fewer than 10, as the total number of hit boxes you have is based on your Quality Aspect.

The final product will have two pages. The second page will include details on specific weapon functions, any special systems that are designed for it, and an area to draw an internal layout.
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>>43703118
For now I've been avoiding sentences which would use 'unit' and just use Military instead, while "unit" refers to the whole thing. It's fine, but hopefully I can find a better solution later. For bases and Bases I think I'll use hexbase to refer to the component and capitalized Bases for the other, hopefully that'll be a good enough distinction.

Eg: 2 Air Military and 3 Land Military make up a unit, and are placed on a hexbase to be deployed from a Base.

>>43703506
Considering the in-universe reputation of Noise though, wouldn't it basically set any Alchemists with a Summoning ability as the bad guys?

For the chart graphics, I can see a template for making an alchemical pentagram in Google, you can probably spice it up using actual alchemy symbols if you're willing. Element relations wise, there probably isn't really a way to infer it from the anime itself, since they're used more as 'cool looking attacks' than 'attacks which are strong against specific element'. Maybe use the thing I mentioned in the previous post and use elements to dictate how the attack happens (accurate, explosive, etc.) instead?
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Does /tg/ do Iron Hearts anymore?
I also liked a certain scientific rpg
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>>43700691
The missing ingredient here is poison gas.
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Thread Question:

How do you feel about unified Athletics skills?

The system that I'm using for my homebrew, One Roll Engine, has several manifestations. In the earlier versions, the one used by the superhero games Godlike and Wild Talents, running, jumping, climbing, lifting stuff, etc, is all covered under the heading "Athletics".

However, a more developed version of the ORE used in the fantasy game REIGN has Run, Climb and Athletics as separate skills.

On the one hand I like the little bit of extra crunch that offers, but on the other hand it does seem kind of arbitrary. Why is Climbing broken out from Athletics but not Swimming? Why Run but not Lifting?

An idea I'm considering for my work is splitting Athletics into two Skills that are essentially Upper Body (so Lifting, Climbing, Swimming) and Lower Body (Running and Jumping). Not sure what to call them but that's the concept.
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>>43707196
I think that would depend on how nuanced rest of the skill list is. Does keeping everything under athletics turn it into a powerful skill that has many more applications that the average skill? Or does splitting atheltics make its component parts weaker than the average skill?
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>>43707196
I don't think Athletics should be unified, but I also think there's a limit to the number of skills you could break it up into. Breaking it up makes sense because not everyone is going to be skilled at all physical activities. A sailor can be skilled at climbing but awful at swimming. I don't know how the ORE handles strength and movement, but those are the kinds of things lifting and running would be tied to in my mind. Not separate skills.

At least this is how I'm handling things in TBA
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>>43708194
Strength and movement in general is a factor of how many dice you have in your Body Stat, which is what governs Athletics.

Pic related, it's the Chart that Wild Talents uses to determine how stronk you are based on your Body.

My thought might be along the lines of what you're proposing, where Athletics is broken up into Strength and Movement skills.
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>>43703283
This is right on my train of thinking. At the risk of sounding cheesy, the power of friendship goes a long way in most stories. Presently unity is earned through good roleplaying during things like camp scenes and the like, and spent to help in combat or during tasks that would logically be the purview of the entire group. One person doesn't usually sweep a room while the others sit on their asses. Unity can also be lost during camp scenes, as the basic way checks work is "Roll, DM gives result, roleplay out what happens" so if you are trying watch check and you botch it, someone sneaks in on your watch, you'll lose a little unity, however, other can spend their unity to either help you never fail in the first place, or find the words to help the group either forgive you or just give you theirs, depending on how much they want to spend.

And I'm thinking of calling it "Investing" Unity instead of Spending it. That way it seems like it's being used to strengthen a bond. Not just disappearing after you use it.
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>>43707196
This is a question of the general game tone in my book. Another question is how much it costs to buy into an ability. Extended explanation:
a) If your game features lots of athletic endeavours (like most classic fantasy games or even Shadowrun) you should probably split it. On the other hand, if it's a modern urban game where the main purpose of athletics is once in a while getting away from something or getting into a location, you should probably keep it as one skill. Also, if nobody ever needs swimming, nobody will buy swimming, and when you suddenly need to swim over a pond in one adventure in a huge campaign, everybody's fucked.
b) About buy-in cost: If it is very cheap to get a basic proficiency in a skill (without becoming overly great in it) you may still keep that shit split, because an average character will still be capable of some basic athletic feats.
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>>43708703
>a.)If your game features lots of athletic endeavours...
I'm thinking the answer to this is yes. The overall approach that I'm taking is Space Opera, and a lot of the game is likely to be set exploring uncharted planets with unknown dangers, so being able to run and climb, etc is a valuable asset.
>b.)About buy-in cost
Skills are cheap to buy into. ORE uses a point-buy system, and while I haven't dialed down the average point budget for players yet for my work, the existing games typically start at around 100, and skills only cost 2 points per die. You can have 5 dice in a skill, plus you can upgrade your dice to more reliable types at increased cost. So buy in cost isn't really that much of an issue.

I'm definitely leaning towards splitting Athletics between Movement and Muscle, but I want to figure out how to express that well.

And I know Swimming is useless. I played Deus Ex.
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>>43708833
>The overall approach that I'm taking is Space Opera, and a lot of the game is likely to be set exploring uncharted planets with unknown dangers, so being able to run and climb, etc is a valuable asset.
But if it's a Space Opera, shouldn't the chars just be flying around in a small craft and shit?

>I'm definitely leaning towards splitting Athletics between Movement and Muscle, but I want to figure out how to express that well.
That's a good split, as long as Muscle actually ends up doing something besides breaking stuff. Because breaking stuff isn't that important and even less so when you have blasters and similar.
Even more important, the split should be clear to your players. Because nothing is as frustrating as thinking that climbing is covered by Movement and finding out ingame that you should have taken Muscle.

>And I know Swimming is useless. I played Deus Ex.
The terrible thing about Swimming is that it's useless 99% of the time and then you need it to survive. And then, obviously, never again.
(except it was a joke, I know next to nothing about vidya, sorry)
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>>43702880
Thanks for the feedback! I'm currently writing skills so probably shouldn't' have mentioned them originally. Skills will be things like specialisation in weapon types, combat techniques, squad buffs etc.

>>43703700
Interesting, how might a point buy or stat spread system work? Starting with an fixed number of points that can be spent in starting stats?

I've added a few more Morale and Vigour based proficiencies.

'Endure' based on Vigour being a pilots resistance to environmental damage e.g internal fires, stuns from rattling around inside.

'Muscle' based on Vigour being a pilots physical strength

'Empathy' based on Morale representing a pilots psychological understanding of others

'Motivate' based on Morale being the ability to encourage yourself and others.
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>>43708994
>But if it's a Space Opera, shouldn't the chars just be flying around in a small craft and shit?
It's both. The oldest space opera stories, like Doc Smith's Lensman and Skylark books, had as much planetside action as space battles.

It's also balanced out by the fact that GMs are encouraged to provide a seperate pool of character points dedicated towards Flight Skills if their setting is highly dependent upon spaceflight. That way having a character whose a musclehead or an athlete doesn't make him ineffective onboard a ship.

>That's a good split, as long as Muscle actually ends up doing something besides breaking stuff. Because breaking stuff isn't that important and even less so when you have blasters and similar.
Even more important, the split should be clear to your players. Because nothing is as frustrating as thinking that climbing is covered by Movement and finding out ingame that you should have taken Muscle
That's definitely the plan I'm going to pursue.
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>>43709335
Disclaimer: not saying you do something wrong. I just try to understand.

So, why are your characters climbing when they could take a (really) small craft to explore. You know, like a speedboat/fishing boat vs the cruise liner their spaceship is.
You know, like in Cowboy Bebop they walk around very little, they have the bebop, but most planetside action is done with their small fighter crafts.
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>>43709426
No problem, welcoming questions and all.

First off, what I'm going to do is have two skills: Muscle and Athletics. Muscle covers anything that involves pure strength or strength training-- lifting, pulling, pushing, carrying, bending, etc... Athletics is more about speed, endurance and flexibility-- running, jumping, swimming, climbing.

To answer your question, what about if your characters have infiltrated an enemy space station and the only way to reach the inner core is to scale a 100 foot wall of asteroidal rock.
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You guys ever need to intensively contain yourselves while working on your creations?

I already gave in on adding lovecraftian shit on my thing, but I have fought super hard against adding necromancy and mecha things in just because I love them. The temptation is just so high.
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>>43708425
>And I'm thinking of calling it "Investing" Unity instead of Spending it. That way it seems like it's being used to strengthen a bond. Not just disappearing after you use it.
A wise wording choice. Unfortunately Power of Friendship have a cheesy factor, but you could possibly spin it into a cosy wording instead if you want to avoid the cheesyness.

For my own I will have Party Leader rules which will be not unlike yours I imagine. I got my inspiration mostly from Deathwatch and cohesion was what I was gonna call my team work points like they did. Invest is a fine word which I will use as well.

>>43707196
>How do you feel about unified Athletics skills?
I have Approaches, which can be thought of as similar to a skill group. Finesse, Skulduggery and Survival are some examples. I still have a somewhat standard stat-line called attributes; str, tou, dex, int plus some more and those two work by combining them. Due to the setting and setup of the mechanic Survival covers most things athletic, but depending on what it's combined with different attributes; strength/survival covers D&D athletics while dexterity/survival covers acrobatics. Intellect/Survival on the other hand is foresting and navigation, just to illustrate the combinatorial nature. With 8 including combat and magic attributes and 7 approaches granularity have sacrificed, but inbuilt skill synergy is gained.
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>>43711833
Glad I could help with the wording, and cozy I can live with. I can't believe I didn't think to look at Deathwatch again! I should probably look into Only War as well I think.
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>>43712160
DnD 3.5 DMG II have some team work rules and pathfinder have some team work feats to adopt as well. I dont remember any others, but they are out there, just gotta find them.
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>>43712316
You are a good person, this is greatly appreciated.
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>>43707196
Swimming is full body, not just upper.

Depending on how your brew is set up exactly, you could have both unified and separated. Athletics as a whole could be more expensive, but translates to every sub-skill underneath Athletics. Swimming, Running, Climbing ect could be individual skills that are cheaper. By buying both Athletics and Swimming you become Michael Phelps while buying just one means either you swam in highschool or you're generally an athlete. Depends on how granular you feel like getting.
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>>43712894
I'll keep that suggestion in mind. Like I said above, my current plan is to have physical exertion as two Skills: Muscle (for things that require pure brawn like pushing, lifting, carrying, etc) and Athletics (for things that require more finesse, like running, jumping and swimming). But you're right, doing an Upper/Lower Body Athletics kind of fails to really be representative of the kind of granularity it's claiming.
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>>43711619
the obvious thing is to just make other games that revolve around those ideas
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>>43711619
I have a hard time containing myself. Its why I went from 4 initial factions to 6.
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>>43711619
I don't think I've needed to contain myself, but then again I've already made the my thing to be about the stuff I like, so maybe it's already too late?
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Bumping for today

So I'm thinking I need to go back to the drawing board with regards to the setting that I'm going to use for my homebrew. The one that I've been putting some work into just isn't moving me anymore.
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Iv spent alot of time "fixing" games like dnd and pathfinder, as well as making homebrew classes and so on for those games as well as the various 40k games. After being part of the hobby for so long iv become quite interested in making my own game since iv not really found anything that fits exactly what i want. iv had many thoughts about how things should work and have put a number of thoughts down on paper (none i intend to share here as its obviously all very work in progress) but iv hit something of a wall.

So iv come here to ask, how is it that you all started with your works? Whats the 1st step to take? How is it that you managed to take your concept and disconnected thoughts into the beginnings of a game?
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>>43722606
>So iv come here to ask, how is it that you all started with your works?
Pretty much
To start yourself, make clear design goals.
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>>43722606
Don't be overambitious. Start small-- don't jump in trying to make a 200 page player's handbook and and a 200 page DM guide because you'll never finish and it will inevitably be filled with problems.

I messed around with several aborted projects before settling on what I'm working on now, which began purely as a supplement for an existing game but is gradually expanding into more of its own thing-- but by baby steps.

The best way to sink your project before it even gets out of the dock is to take on too much at once.
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>>43722187
My advice, from someone with setting ADD, is to put it aside but don't scrap it. Work on something else for a bit. Eventually you'll come back to your first setting with some new eyes and work from there.
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>>43723330
Yeah I think what I'm going to do is an old fashioned darling murderspree. I'm going to take another pass on my backstory write-up and mercilessly cut it down from five pages to two. It's just too long and too detailed right now. I need to add some gray areas to give it, and the players, some room to breathe.
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So, I've been working on a skill list for the system, I'm torn with the length of it, and whether or not there are some needless redundancies or missing skills. Keep in mind, travel and exploration are the major focus of the game.

Any questions about the specifics of skills will gladly be addressed.

Power
Constitution
Focus
Presence
Stability
Will
Composure
Dexterity
Senses
Nature
Sincerity
Tact
Logic
Religion
Insight
History
Small swords
Great swords
Blunt
Polearms
Spears
Mobility
Stealth
Protection
Medicine
Arcana
Athletics
Reflexes
Chance
Pistols
Rifles
Unarmed
Survival
Cooking
Alchemy
Crafting

Right now I'm thinking of dropping:
Dexterity
Tact
Chance
Power
And Polearms

Due to redundancy.


Thoughts?
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>>43724936
Keep in mind my Attributes are
Might
Endurance
Finesse
Agility
Knowledge
Perception
Wits
Poise
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>>43723468
Is it 5 pages of just notes? Because that's not really a lot for a setting. I think I have about that for Hellsgate, and that's the one people thought wasn't fleshed out of for my settings.
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>>43725016
Five pages of long form description of the backstory. I want to whittle it down to two. I also want between 1 and 2 pages of description for each of the major factions (probably 1) and probably a few more pages explaining various aspects of how the universe works.

My personal approach to this kind of stuff is to keep it brief and pithy and to leave plenty of room for creative intepretation on the part of GMs and players. I don't want to cast every aspect of my setting in concrete. That would make me feel self-indulgent.

I'll post my edited background document when I finish, hopefully today.
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>>43724977
How are Wits and Poise different?
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>>43725544
Wits is mental speed and conversational flexibility, basically being able to point a conversation in the direction you want it to go.

Poise is first impressions and visual signals, body language and the like, LOOKING sincere or powerful or confident or even vulnerable. It's used as kind of the physical-charismatic counterpart to the mental-charismatic Wits, just as Knowledge is the Mental/Fact-Intellegence vs Practical/physical-Intellegence of perception (which covers not just spotting things, but also being able to figure out how to use them to your advantage)
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>>43725639
Do yourself a favor and separate out the weapon skills from this list.

>Also how is Chance a skill? Is there some explanation for how a character can improve his personal luck?
>What does Crafting do?
>What does Protection do?
>What does Power do?
>Composure seems synonymous with Poise, and therefore is probably redundant.
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>>43724936
Stability sounds identical to either Constitution or Composure.
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>>43726148
>separate out weapon skills
Good call, this is just a list of all the skills, including advanced skills that require training to use properly
>chance
Mostly why I'm thinking of dropping it, sure a person can find ways to tip the odds in their favor, but overall I don't like it.
>crafting
Crafting is a catch-all for the various crafting skills. Right now the difference between WHAT you can craft and HOW WELL you craft is linked to Traits and Skill respectively. Might separate it out between Smithing, Woodworking and Mechanics respectively.
>Protection
Protection is Blocking, shields and armor. Blocking and Parrying are represented in different ways, with Blocking being a flat number and Parrying represented with a roll, they interact differently as well, parrying getting more active traits like repostes, and blocking getting passive ones like braces and stability bonuses.
It also effects how good you are at fortifying encampments and protecting your friends.
>Power
Power is exerting physical strength against something, I'm thinking of dropping it because it is basically Might as a skill.
>Composure
Same as the power-might problem. I wanted to give them a skill equivalent so that they could be tested like skill checks, but they are very redundant as a result.
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>>43726274
Stability is being able to stand on uneven ground or avoid falling over
Composure is keeping face when someone's trying to scare you or things are going to shit
Constitution is actual physical wellness, like not getting sick, surviving poisons and the like
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>>43726331
Add this to Mobility.
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>>43726366
Good call. It can represent both avoiding falling in the first place and also falling but immediately rolling back to your feet.
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>>43726413
Glad to be of assistance. Btw, what's Sincerety?
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>>43726458
Sincerity I explained a bit earlier in >>43688749 basically it's a mix of Diplomacy/Empathy, it's seeming friendly/kind/understanding not necessarily BEING sincere. It's what you use when you want to convince someone of something not because it's the most Logical choice or because you'll hit them if they don't, but because it's the Right Thing To Do or because You're Friends.

But it's also getting someone to believe that what you are saying is true, because someone who was lying could never seem so sincere.
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Backstory condensed. Managed to trim out three pages of this thing. It's a now a lean, mean storytelling machine.
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>>43726601
maybe call it something like Trustworthiness? Clanky word, but makes it easier to understand.
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>>43726301
Are skills meant to be used alongside specific Attributes, or is it free form?
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>>43726801
I will consider that, it is clanky though. >>43726831
Presently skills are used on their own, simply given a baseline based on attribute scores. I'm thinking of cripping the traveller method of adding your skill to the most applicable Attribute, but the Attribute-Skill relationship is one of the more erksome issues I've been dealing with. I want something elegant, but that makes sense and works well for a d10 system.
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After doing some random shit for fun, I finally decided to make a "proper" class for DnD: the Lithomancer, who is a druid-type character focused on rock-themed spells. It probably needs some work as I'm not really all that good at this. I'll make changes along the way based on criticism and upon noticing some problem or error I've missed.

http://pastebin.com/qb41xCYz

And yes, I'm aware that it's essentially a gimped druid with less restrictions to what he can wear but also less spells and shapeshifting abilities.

I also made a body horror based villain class (intented more for BBEG to use than for PCs) for a horror-themed game, but I don't think that is fitting for this thread, despite me making it as a more or less "serious" class.
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>>43726801
Maybe Ardor? It carries the idea of you trying to convince someone of your sincerity (even if you aren't) by being really enthusiastic for your position.
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>>43727293
I feel like ardor would be a word people aren't really familiar with.
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>>43727330
That would be correct.

Sincerity is probably your best bet to be honest.
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>>43727351
Okay, thoughts on skills that are redundant to attributes? Things like Power being basically the skill representation of Might? Or should I just find a way to let Might be used AS as skill?

Also do you have any thoughts on skills I'm missing? Or skills that don't seem useful or too general?

And do I have too many skill?

Is the divide between "basic" skills and "advanced" skills a thing I should do?
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>>43727506
>Okay, thoughts on skills that are redundant to attributes? Things like Power being basically the skill representation of Might?
A Bad Thing® in my book.
>Or should I just find a way to let Might be used AS as skill?
Doable. Not aesthetically orgasmic to me, but doable.

>Also do you have any thoughts on skills I'm missing?
Missing skills are hard to tell. Basically I consider Savage Worlds to have a good skill list for classical adventures. (wait, do you have a Perform skill?)

>Or skills that don't seem useful or too general?
Cooking seems… Very specific, especially with Craft being a thing. But maybe it makes sense for a camping and friendship game, your call.

>And do I have too many skill?
You have quite a bit. For me, all skill lists are too big, so I'd better say nothing.

>Is the divide between "basic" skills and "advanced" skills a thing I should do?
Normally a Bad Idea®. Shit needing special training to do can be a GM call, Differing XP costs ist almost always a terrible, terrible idea, unless you have one or two uberskills.
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>>43727710
>perform
Holy shit I don't.
>cooking
Yeah, cooking is a system that, hopefully, will be a deep as the Alchemy skill in terms of both usefulness and depth.
>advanced skills
Mostly I was thinking of it for weapon skills and the like, just like a -5 to checks if you aren't trained in it, like swords or medicine or history or crafting.

If I broke crafting apart it would be like, 4 skills (Woodworking, Smithing, Mechanics, Scribe) I'm not sure if it would be worth it.

So Perform is a thing I need, maybe split crafting. Drop chance, I'm gonna drop pole arms and just have them use either spear or the closest other skill. Power and Dex are gonna go, probably composure too and tact simply because I can't find a neech for it.
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>>43727330
Or they can open a dictionary once in their lives or figure it out based on context. This is elementary school shit. That's like saying "Don't make up words for your setting, nobody will be familiar with it".
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>>43669608
>where all attacks hit by default
Which is really how it should be. Misses should be an exception, not the rule. Otherwise people end up wasting their turns.
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>>43727904
Crafting is always a pain in the ass. Splitting sucks, but Scribes being great smiths make no sense either. I really don't know what to advise in this point. rest sounds golden.
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>>43727953
This is a fair point. I will look into it, or
Other word options. I got Sincerity from... Somewhere, I don't remember, but it was another RPG and I thought it was a good name for what it's supposed to be.

>>43727982
That's my issue as well, it's an issue of granularity vs elegance. My goal is to have all of the crafts be equally useful, as they all make use of each of the 3 gathering types (mining, hunting and gathering) and, in fact, require all 3 to use fully. Maybe I'll just have "Foraging (Type)" and and "Crafting (Type)" and have the players pick either at character creation, or as a trait what they want to link to their skill.
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A couple of weeks ago I started thinking about making an Etrian Odyssey Fan-Made TTRPG (I am aware an official game already exists, but is untranslated, so is pretty much useless to me).
I've settled on having a d100 system inspired by Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

I want to stay as true to the original games as possible, but accept that some things are going to need to be tweaked, edited removed or added to make the game work.
So I've got a couple of questions about how best to make the gameplay from EO translate onto a tabletop, I'd appreciate any feedback really, but especially by people who've played EO or similar games before:
Is it possible to get mapping involved somehow? It's a pretty integral part of the game and really drives home a sense of exploration, something that is a high priority for me to capture.
The stat-list is: STR; VIT; TEC; AGI; LUC. I'm having a hard time coming up with Skills for each of these, I want each to be as useful as the other to encourage PCs to coordinate their party so that together they form a unit.
Considering that exploration is a centeral theme would social skills be a waste of time? I was thinking of having one social skill per stat, but ended up scrapping them since I wasn't sure I'd ever find a use for them.
Pic related is a brainstorm I had about the elements I want to capture in the Homebrew and my thoughts on them.
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>>43728467
Also, forgot to add:
How viable would a Front Row/Back Row combat system be, like the one from the games? I'm thinking a grid based system is probably better for a tabletop, but like I said, I want to keep things as true to the games as possible.
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>>43728490
Quite a few JP TTRPGs use a row placement system so it is workable. Usually they're in order of something like home rear, middle, front, enemy front, middle, rear, and actions and ranges tied to the row you stand on.
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Hi guys.
Working currently on a system for a homebrew world that I use mainly in writing. Thus I have plenty of worldbuilding and shit already done for the setting; the only stuff I need to do with it is mechanical. There is some lore-specific stuff in the ruleset I haven't included - namely races and the magic stuff - but the first isn't really important here and the second is very much unfinished anyhow. I'll be summing it up in a minute.

I'm a faggot who works in .txt files so I don't have a .pdf to give you. Fight me.
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>>43728935
I'll fite you: get openoffice writer (it is free) and export as pdf.
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Alright so I'm trying to do one of these one page executive whatsits for my game since it's such a long document on it's own. What sort of stuff should be included in it?
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>>43728989
I have libreoffice already and can't be fucked right now. Perhaps later when I have something less ramshackle to show.
Seems like the thing cut off the last part of the trained skills section for whatever reason, so repostan.

The skills are d100-based off of multiples of your ability scores, similar to (i think?) DH and the like. Most every interaction in the game uses a skill.

Now I have a few questions that need asking. First, the magic system. At the moment the system has been adapted toward the lore to some degree. Its outline is a set of skills: Spell Lore and Ritual Lore (for casting small and big magic respectively) along with, at the moment, five skills that govern their respective magic discipline used to fuel casting. There's a Focus skill that gives bonuses to these rolls and others, as well. Casting is soft limited by a magic pool and the fatigue system. I haven't written in the fatigue system yet but it essentially boils down to having your PHY in Action points for every individual battle, and using these for every action you take; double actions in a turn cost extra, expending your action points make you Fatigued and take penalties, and so on. Most magic uses the pool system (some is fully material and doesn't); the magic pool is essentially fatigue for magic, except you have a separate stat for it and you use varying amounts of power depending on what you cast (element affinities make certain things cheaper to cast, or if bad, impossible to cast at all). Exceeding your magic pool incurs a lot of fatigue and special penalties for casting, though you can still cast if you're lucky (though you may fuck yourself up badly trying). Bear in mind that the setting is quite low magic for the most part.
((cont))
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>>43729366
Now my main question is how to do progression. I've been thinking of doing something similar classes mainly because I lack good alternatives, but lore-wise there's really little reason to justify this; magic and people don't work that way in the universe, simply. So my question is mainly how to make a sort of freeform class system work. Talents/Feats/whatever that you buy with XP, with prereqs from skill level/ranks and ability scores? Total XP (level) prereqs? You will be using XP to rank up your skills, and perhaps train your ability scores, but that's about all I have for now.
halp pls /tg/
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>>43728935
small detail on armor and hp: I'm using a HP system right now because I'm more used to that than a Wounds system, but may be subject to change. Armor is Absorption/DR. Armor class is not a thing; you use your choice of Defensive Combat skill to avoid becoming ded.
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Hey guys, maybe someone could toss me some ideas. I am trying to redesign the first card in the image more exciting, the "Charmer", to be precise. I put in other cards that belong to the set and my rules were up here;
>>43673017
Basically I am trying to come up with very traditional ideas for a sneaky spy/assassin type who uses seduction as their weapon. It's current ability is simply not too exciting so it won't get used in any situation. Thanks beforehand for any suggestions.
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So question: are weapon proficiencies (the actually being able to use a weapon well) viable? Should there be a gate to get to use the full potential of the weapons skill? Or should you just get to put points in Skill (Weapon) and have no real "Gate"?
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>>43730059
To some extent? Yes. But the traditional "proficiencies" are pretty rubbish in their design.
I prefer systems of mastery to systems of proficiency. You start with your base ability to understand that you use the sharp end of the sword to hit things. Then if you decide that you like this kind of sword (a two-handed sword, for example - don't get two specific) you can go deeper and specialize in that.

Some weapons are of course more complex to use and may require special training to wield at all, but generally that's not the case.
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>>43730150
Presently I have "Skills" with the weapon, and then "Traits" that define your style. So you could have a super high Skill, but not many Traits, or low skill, but a bunch of tricks up your sleeve.

I'm considering having something like an "opening" trait that takes away some penalty that allows you to use the weapon "properly"
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>>43730224
I'd recommend widening things up a little. For example, use big overreaching weapon groups to partition things. Have the Skill apply to the weapon group, and the style traits available for a specific weapon or small weapon group only. Then perhaps add another trait that lets you use weapon traits from one weapon with others in that group, or with another weapon in another group. Something like that.

Personally I use paired skills to determine weapon groups; Melee (Light) and Melee (Heavy) determines style - a sword is light and a mace is heavy - and Melee (1H) or Melee (2H) determines size and type of weapon. Combine these two and you have four separate values for 1H light, 2H light, 1H heavy and 2H heavy weapons, giving decently distinct weapon groups without having too much complications. From there, you can work with smaller groups for mastery - such as Swords or Polearms - depending on how you build your character.
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>>43730224
Also, remember that to the player, bonuses are always better than penalties. Nobody wants to use a weapon they have a penalty with unless they have to; if they find a new cool weapon that they don't get a particular bonus with, however, they may still be quite ok with that as long as they get to use its quirks (even if the mechanical effect is 100% the same).

For this reason, refrain from throwing around penalties too much.
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>>43730333
Presently I've got
Small Swords
Great swords
Blunt
Spears
Pistols
Rifles
Unarmed

Then I have weapon trait branches for
Swords
Axes
Maces
Pistols
Rifles
Spears
Knives
Rifles
Shields
Unarmed
Parry
Mobility
Force
Defense
Special (things like power attacks, dual-wielding, flurries, combat medic stuff, critical hits, ect.)

Though I may combine small swords and great swords. Right now the skills are based in what attributes they are related to and traits the specific weapon.
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>>43730377
That's a very good point. Maybe a trait that let's you use traits with the style, so you always have your full skill, but you can't always use your special techniques unless you invest in it.
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>>43730449
I'd argue for either changing Spears into Polearms, or adding an Axe category. Swords should be unified into one category ("Blades" may be more appropriate, to also include daggers and such).
I'd recommend against having too much specialization in both skill and trait branches, but if you're giving the player the opportunity to use it properly, then it's your system, go ahead.
>>43730470
Pretty much this. It's not THAT fundamentally different to swing a big axe than to swing a big sword, but if you're getting fancy with it that changes quickly. Stuff like parrying is very dependent on actually being used to the weapon you're wielding - an axe can't well block many blows, unless it's more of a polearm type designed to do so (or you have a shield).
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Okay, I'm driving myself crazy, because with my trimming I now have 19 skills that aren't weapon skill, and now I'm trying to figure out 1 more skill to use.
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Speaking of skills, presently my method of character generation RE: attributes and skills is that 5 is the baseline for Attributes, and then you get 5 points to spend, each attribute cannot go over 7, it's a simple 1:1 allocation, you can also shift a number of points from one attribute to another. Alternative, you can roll 2d4 (or 3d4 drop lowest).

Each Skill has a key, either one attribute times 2, or two attributes added together, a la Runequest. From there I'm thinking of giving X points based on your class, or like, 10 free points, with you being able to put up to 2 points into each Skill.
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On a scale of 1 to Pretentious, how would you describe the use of statistics called:

Battle (Knowledge and training in combat, killer instinct)

Command (Authoritative or aggressive influence, force of will)

Deceit (Aptitude for hidden intent, going unnoticed)

Prowess (Physical conditioning, coordination, endurance)

Spirit (Self-awareness, expression, mystic potential)

Wisdom (General knowledge, knack for learning, outward awareness)

It's a game of heroic fantasy in which every PC taps into some degree of magic through their actions (inspired by Earthdawn). Mechanically, it's a dice pool system in which your actions consist of adding the values of two stats and rolling that many dice.

For example, moving stealthily would be a Deceit + Prowess action; finding the weak point of a fortress wall would be Battle + Wisdom; getting an elemental or spirit to perform to lend you magical power would likely be Spirit + Command, Deceit, Wisdom, or even Prowess depending on what it wants in return or what you think you can offer it; convincing the Queen that you are a valiant knight errant when really you are an awakened bear would be Deceit + Command.
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>>43728935
If you're just using .txt you might as well just post everything to Pastebin. That's basically what it's designed for.
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>>43731565
Deceit doesn't really fit with the others; they're all very broad but that one is kind of narrow.
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I put this up a couple days ago, but 13th age only gets a few threads every blue moon so the thread died unloved. Anybody familiar with the system and can give a mechanical analysis?
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>>43731565
Overall, I don't see problem with those. Then again I'm of the school of thought that attributes / statistics should reflect the game and fill its purpose and not necessarily be "simulationist" to cover all activities. If you're going for universally working game theme then simulationist approach like D&D's classic spread of six is a valid choice, or any permutation thereof. As counterpoint, look at a game like Don't Rest Your Head that has a very specific theme and all of its values and dice pools have been built to serve that purpose alone (discipline, exhaustion, madness, hope, despair, pain).
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I'm working on making a Megaman Battle Network TTRPG. For those who are unfamiliar with it, thematically it's like Megaman + Tron while mechanically it is an action game mixed with a collectible card game. My focus for this system was to go for a system with as minimal dice as possible, restricting dicerolls to random encounters, random drops, or card effects with a random element.

My current dilemma is that I'm not keen on my current combat system. It works as follows:

Each player has a deck of 30 cards. Each player also has a set number of actions they may use per turn for moving, attacking, or reacting. Initiative is handled at the start of the match, with a coin toss to see which side goes first. The order of initiative will always be one side then the other side, but what characters act in what order is up to the leader on each side. Cards are drawn at the beginning of each "round" then the fight begins going in initiative and whatnot. Each participant makes a number of moves and uses cards in accordance with what their actions allow them to (offensive cards use attack actions, defensive cards use reactions, support cards can use any action) with some exceptions here or there. After 2 full passes through the entire initiative list is done, the round ends and players draw cards to fill their hand back to 5 cards.

If that doesn't make a ton of sense look up a video on youtube on how battles in Battle Network go. It's a bit hard to explain.

My main issue with my current rules is that it heavily favors reaction-based builds. A character with a sufficient number of reaction actions or a highly defensive deck can shut down a lot of offensive decks with ease until they get their combo needed to win. Think freezemage in hearthstone. I'm worried that this will make some battles last indefinitely or that others will be too one-sided for the reactive player.

(cont)
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>>43732113

My current plan is to update it from having 1-5 action types of each to just one big general pool of action "points" plus a smaller pool of points for various types of actions.

For example, players would have 10 points to spend on actions during a normal turn and about 3 points on average for attack, move, and reactions. Cards would use a certain number of points first starting from their related pool then draining from the general pool. So a 4-point attack card would draw the three points from the attack pool then 1 point from the general pool.

I feel like this may help prevent reactions from being TOO abundant in the game but I'm still uncertain. Not to mention by implementing this I'd have to re-tool well over 150 cards. Any suggestions on how I could potentially avoid letting the stall/reactive meta from dominating said game or how I can improve said combat system?

I hope my descriptions weren't too confusing... a lot of this doesn't translate well to text for those unfamiliar with the series.
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>>43731897
AC in heavy armor should always go up, the attack penalty alone should generally enforce the choice of light armor, not an overall reduction in AC. Make it 13 or even 14 (for the gambling types).

I'm not really sure of why, when augmenting my blade, I'd ever choose a bonus to a disengage check over the ability to pop free and take an extra move action. My gut says the extra move action is broken; being able to pop free (for free) is fine.

Nothing about the talents strike me as especially broken. I am curious about something regarding the Blood Blade talent, though; why do the Heroic, Villainous, and Ambiguous options offer different spell types? I'd rather have a single spell of my choice baked into the talent with a choice of the two other abilities. Just curious about your design choices.
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>>43732192
I'm not familiar with systems that run on card pools, but generally it sounds like there's s systemic imbalance if it favors reacting. Either attacks are too weak, or reactions too strong, or attacking is too expensive, or reacting is too cheap.
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>>43731646
I'm an idiot. Thanks.
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>>43732203
>AC in heavy armor should always go up, the attack penalty alone should generally enforce the choice of light armor, not an overall reduction in AC. Make it 13 or even 14 (for the gambling types).
Fair enough. I thought I remembered one class or another actually had their AC go down, but now that I look at it, it's not the case.

>I'm not really sure of why, when augmenting my blade, I'd ever choose a bonus to a disengage check over the ability to pop free and take an extra move action. My gut says the extra move action is broken; being able to pop free (for free) is fine.
The Disengage Bonus lasts the entire battle while the pop-free is one and done. The extra move action is there because Focus is a Daily/Encounter resource, and I was comparing it to Leaf on the Wind, but if you think it's too strong I'll dial it back.

>Nothing about the talents strike me as especially broken. I am curious about something regarding the Blood Blade talent, though; why do the Heroic, Villainous, and Ambiguous options offer different spell types? I'd rather have a single spell of my choice baked into the talent with a choice of the two other abilities. Just curious about your design choices.
That's a talent that underwent a ton of revisions and that part is a bit left over from what was there before (nabbing spells from classes other than Sorcerer, depending on Icon). I don't see any reason to not just give any Sorcerer Spell of your Level as part of the base Talent.
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>>43732342
Regarding the disengage/pop free thing, I didn't readan comprehenshun the bonus lasting until the end of the battle because it says "your next disengage check," even though it says it lasts the entire battle right after. I'd say that everything's fine there, then.
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>>43732405
>Regarding the disengage/pop free thing, I didn't readan comprehenshun the bonus lasting until the end of the battle because it says "your next disengage check,"
Yeah, maybe I could be clearer about that. While the Augment lasts the entire battle, you only gain the bonus each time you hit with a Force Blade attack. I'm not sure if it needs this limitation, because I don't want it to compete too well with the Rogue's Tumble Talent.
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>>43726732
This is definitely an easier read as a summary of the setting over the pastebin in previous threads, great job.

>>43728467
I recommend asking in Etrian Odyssey forums or threads too, though be prepared to handle a negative response.

Try explaining how mapping works in the game. I faintly recall an RPG where the aim was to build a village I think and as you explore or build stuff you draw onto a piece of paper. Looks pretty interesting, regardless of the map making skill of the player. It had cards representing seasons and stuff that happened on it, maybe someone knows what it is?

Naturally since the video game exists, you should take inspiration from existing skills. Use their name, their execution, anything that can tie in to the stats.

Considering that interacting with NPCs are a part of exploration, social skills are pretty important. Rather than making them skills, maybe turn them into the equivalent of their stats instead? Eg: a forceful manner of speech is the equivalent of STR, an eloquent manner is TEC, etc. Unless of course there are no villages to be found.

I honestly don't think returning to a hub would disrupt flow, as long as you allow it only after certain events. Maybe only at the end of each stratum or something. The rest of the image seems fine, though I do recommend lurking here and fish for ideas from discussions since it feels like you're in need of more knowledge in the TTRPG department to help draw inspiration from.
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>>43729214
Seems like everything's already there, though you could probably expand everything a little bit since there's plenty of space left. Maybe start with a list of possible ways of determining task difficulty, summaries of classes and skills, and ways a player could lose or gain stability.

The aim is to have people who read these one or two pages of text gain enough knowledge about it that they could play a session of it immediately, albeit with some expected rule mistakes.

>>43729446
>but lore-wise there's really little reason to justify this
How do aspiring magic users in your setting gain use/learn magic then? Maybe you could use that as a progression method.

>>43729672
Gain control of an enemy character or minion for a turn? The enemy cannot target anyone besides her when she's revealed? Take a card from the opponent's hand and use it this turn?

>>43731565
Wouldn't mind playing*7/Pretentious. I disagree with >>43731676, Deceit seems fine, and is broad enough to use either physically (sneaking), socially (lying) or mentally (hidden agendas).

>>43732113
I agree with >>43732237. Do you maybe have an example for the reactive or defensive cards? Also, part of the appeal of Battle Network is learning the enemy's move set and countering them I think. Rather than drawing cards randomly, I recommend letting them choose instead, like in the games (I think? not sure). Yes, one player might go to his overpowered combo immediately, but there is no way the other wouldn't do the same thing as well. This would eliminate any worry of stalling since they'd already have their best options available.
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>>43732943

The reaction chips are rather few in number but large in effect. There's invis, which is just flat invincibility for a turn (usually 1 half a round), guard and counter which just counter one specific attack, shadow which grants immunity to all attacks but sword-element ones for two turns, and mole which prevents damage from all except lobbed attacks and attacks made on your turn (such as getting hit by a counter).

Most can be further augmented by taking the Invis sub-element during character creation, boosting their duration by 1 turn. The cursor primary element and some cursor-element cards can ignore most of these effects but it either takes making your navi that way or throwing in chips which don't mesh well with most decks.

It is true that the fun of the main game is learning the moveset of an opposing navi and reacting to it, but the nature of the game is a highly competitive one which means some optimization for a fair PvP is needed, especially when you have players that tend to bitch about that sort of thing...

There is some element of choosing what cards you use. You can select one card outside of combat that you will ALWAYS have at the beginning of a match. You can also select two chips to be linked together, so when you draw one you are guaranteed to draw the other. I am experimenting with some late-game options to make more fluid decks. I don't want to go the fully open route and just say "everything you've ever bought is usable" because that's a bit excessive.

Not to mention the "heart of the cards" topdeck draw is very thrilling in a card game imo.
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Pre-emptive bump
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>>43733265
Those don't seem too bad especially if there are enough options to counter it, though that Invis sub-element might be what makes them powerful. Maybe limit it's usability to maybe 2-3 times per game? Also, am I right to assume that a round might not consist of a consistent number of turns and varies depending on available actions? Because that might be the problem and why a full turn invincibility could be more advantageous over attacking.

30 cards is pretty doable, especially in a decreasing pool. Plus it gives you the flexibility to give proper counterattacks to an opponent's otherwise impenetrable strategy, introduce bluffing into the mix, and again, it would eliminate the need for stalling tactics which is your current worry. It is ultimately your call however, and the mechanics you already have (linked, one certain card) is pretty nice as it is, and I won't deny the thrill of drawing a card you really wanted to appear.

Also, if you haven't already done so, I recommend doing some playtesting with the rules and cards you already have before adding any more new mechanics. Maybe you'll find another problem that needs addressing, or your worry of reactive decks be unfounded.
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As with everyone here, I've been doing work on my own homebrew system. I've been compiling the various rules, systems and ideas I like from retroclones, blogs, and whatever else I can find, and trying to cram them together and make them all play nice with each other. Wanting ease of use and teaching has led me to work with d6s in varying amounts, which leads me to the main combat mechanic.

The basic Accuracy check is 3d6 roll-under.
The top end of the range (i.e. the range of the dice that causes a miss) is affected by a character's Armor.
There are 5-result "bands" thereafter that can result in successful hits, going from "Hit with Consequences" (usually a counter-attack, but other options are conceived) to just "Hit" to "Critical Hit".

To elaborate, a character with 5 Armor (frex) is missed on a roll of 14 ~ 18, hit with consequences from 9 ~ 13, just hit on 4 ~ 8, and critically hit on a 3.
If that character gains two more points of Armor (easier said than done), the miss chance jumps to 12 ~ 18, hit with consequences 7 ~ 11, hit 3 ~ 6 and cannot be critically hit at all barring Accuracy boosters. I will mention that more than 5 Armor is very difficult to attain, due to story issues.

I'm basically looking to hear if it's terribly complicated or not, any sort of weird corner cases that I may be missing, funky probability muckery that may cause major fuckups, etc.
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>>43733848
I playtested a bit and had planned on introducing a bluffing element...unfortunately a player took a disadvantage for his navi which made him play with an open hand, making bluffing impossible so that aspect was a bit ruined.

My issue with that is that it's not easy to coordinate between too players, nor is it easy to bluff an NPC enemy when there are no dice rolls for skills and the one playing them (the GM) can see what cards both sides have. Other issue is that a large majority of attacks are projectiles or other forms of attacks that go straight down the row, making it fairly predictable. I want bluffing, gambits, and all sorts of other fancy chess and poker-esque strategies but I'm uncertain how to implement them. Would it be better to focus on introducing new cards to help reshape the meta or changing the meta from the ground-up?

>>43733868
It sounds simple enough to understand. My only question is whether or not your definition of "armor" is protective against everything or just conventional weapons. If you don't have it already I'd suggest having armors be more/less effective at blocking different types of attacks, like having full plate be 5 armor to all except lightning magic or something, or having quilted armor being 2 armor against bludgeoning but 0 against everything else. Either that or give weapons the ability to lower an armor's protective value through penetration. If PTU taught me one thing its that people will try to minmax the shit outta ACs.
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>>43734229
Sounds like there might be other factors involved which might make a reactive and defensive deck preferable, maybe post a pdf of the rules and stuff to better pick it apart?
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>>43733868
One thing to consider with this is that 3d6 has a bell curve, meaning that you're much more likely to roll a 10 or 11 than you are a 7 or 14. If you balance the game around that fact then it should work.

My opinion is that this system would be hard to keep track of. The players are probably going to need a chart to reference the range of outcomes they need to hit for each Armor level. In that regard it kind of reminds me of THAC0, except that where THAC0 is binary (either you hit or don't) this has a gradiant of effects, which is both good (more interesting things can happen) and bad (it's more complicated).
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>>43735208
If anyone wants to pick it apart I'm open to criticism. Had to put the cards in a separate document since it was so long, so if people need to look at that just ask.

Any other issues you notice that need improving (explanation of rules to newcomers, program functionality, navi creation, etc) feel free to put it out there.
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>>43738009
Ahh, I know where I went wrong. All this time I was under the impression that you were making an LCG/TCG type game, despite you mentioning that it was a TTRPG from the very beginning due to how the summary of your mechanics works.

Now that my sights have been set straight, I really don't think you'll need to worry about balancing the cards. If they have a stalling/reactive deck and the GM doesn't like it, he can throw out an enemy that eats up characters using those decks. It's the GM's job to give the players a challenge after all, they wouldn't call him out on cheating or something for it.

And with regards to reactive decks in PvP no player would go up against another without finding out what their deck consists of and making some sort of counter measure, especially since you're playing at the same table/chat room and you can see mostly everything another player does anyway. Encourage investigating the other player by having scenes or skills that allow the players to do so.

If you are still worried about balance though, then reconsider whether what you really wanted to make was an RPG or a TCG. If you intend for PvP to be a focus in an RPG, take note that a match would take atleast 15 - 30 mins, and unless they have teams, only two people would be involved in it, with the rest having absolutely nothing to do. Then there's the nightmare of making a 30 card deck for every single NPC in a campaign.
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>>43738009
I know jack-all about MM Battle Network, but the one thing I'd suggest is explaining in brief exactly how your core dice/card mechanic works before you get into character building. That way you get the following benefits:

-Players familiar with MMBN, are coming into the game with certain expectations as to how it will play, can see right off the bat how the video game mechanics translate to the tabletop

-Players who know nothing about MMBN but are accustomed to tabletop games will get an idea as to what kind of game it is, and therefore can make the connections between those mechanics and the setting details as they are introduced.

As it stands all you have at the start is a statement that the game uses both playing cards and dice. Do a little bit more and explain how those items are used, even if in brief.
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>>43738415
Alright. I'll consider the cards/enemies a bit more then. Most battles against the minor mooks tend to be quick, but yeah a battle against an intelligent opponent/boss/player tends to take a long time. I'll try and develop some more hard-coded rules for them to make boss fights and virus fights balanced against larger groups of players.

>>43738440
I appreciate the perspective. I'll try and clarify more on how much the dice will be used. In essence it is only used for a few select number of cards like Randommeteor (strikes x number of random spaces on enemy's field) or Circgun (strikes a random outer-edge panel and 3 more counter-clockwise behind it). The GM may also use dice for random drops/encounters but right now that's not in the system. It's heavily centered on cards so I'll try to emphasize that more.
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>>43739237
When you say cards are you talking about specially printed cards or a traditional deck of playing cards that have special values associated with each number/suit/face?
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>>43739451
Specially-printed cards. In the game players use "battlechips" which attack as various attacks, defenses, and support techniques. The only thing I know to compare it to is the Third Generation of digimon where they have the cards that they can slide to boost their digimon's power and junk.
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What do you all think of using d100 as your core mechanic if you don't use hit location tables? Is there any point other than "I like the granularity" or "the players know exactly what their chances of success are"?
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>>43740069
Honestly? It's useful for having a very wide range of options and for using Degrees of Success.
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>>43740069
It creates an illusion of predictability. "Oh, I'll just make this a 60% success rate, so they player will make it in ~2 out of 3 rolls", but honestly, most games with d100 fuck this up with way too many modifiers or an asinine rolling system.

Honestly, I'm not really a big fan of d100 games, since they often feel capped. You can't roll over 100, after all, and if your skill equals your success chance,... Unless you use the D100 more in the way of classical D20, where you roll the D20 and add a modifier.
But if you go with that option and don't use any systems where you NEED the granularity of the d100, like hit locations, you might as well use a d20. In my experience DMs usually don't use modifiers lower than 5%, so there's virtually no difference to a D20 in that respect.
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Here's the Introduction to Marvels, which are how my homebrew handles abilities outside the scope of Stat + Skill. This is probably going to be my most serious challenge yet, as I'm combining concepts from two different One Roll Engine games (Miracles from Wild Talents, Esoteric Disciplines from Reign) into a single system. Pray for me.
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>>43740069
Initially I was going to use d100 for my own game but moved away from it after my experience with the 40k RPGs.

Every single game became a huge bogged down mess when it came to combat since nearly everything gave a +10 bonus or -10 bonus to a role to the point of there being a direct line in rulebooks stating flat out 'just bunch all the bonuses together and make it +/- 30 to save time"
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>>43669495
I'm working on a homebrew hack of D&D 5th Edition and something that's been bugging me for quite a while is the whole Armour as Armour Class vs. Armour as Damage Reduction debate. I would love some input from any of you willing to do so.

On the one hand, having armour increase the target number enemies must achieve to strike you is simple. You don't need to check anything else when a PC or monster gets hit, the attack either resolves or it doesn't. 5E uses Resistance (half damage) and Immunity (no damage) WAY more often than it uses anything resembling damage reduction, and I can see why. It's just a lot faster this way.

On the other hand, armour shouldn't really make you harder to hit, should it? Its real function was to deflect or absorb the brunt force of blows suffered. But we can't just give people Resistance to physical damage while wearing armour, because not all armours are equal in terms of protection. A chain shirt shouldn't give you the same benefits (and drawbacks) as a full set of plate mail. In addition, checking for Damage Reduction means having to subtract an extra value every time a creature takes damage, which slows the whole game down considerably.

I'm familiar with a number of games that handle armour differently, I'm just not sure any of the methods would work in my homebrew. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
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>>43741296
DnD has always abstracted a "Hit" in combat as "An attack that does damage". An attack doesn't beat AC doesn't necessarily go wide, but rather it merely fails to have any kind of useful effect due to it glancing off the armor or being otherwise deflected.

It's a fairly straightforward idea that's never been presented well, and when it has been it's been soundly ignored by most players. Same with the notion that HP isn't actually how much meat you have on you, but a measurement of your ability to keep fighting.
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>>43741296
The way I see it, soft armor gives a form of damage reduction, as blows can more or less consistently harm you through it, but the armor absorbs the blow. Hard armor however, basically makes it impossible to damage the protected areas (with most weapons). My advice? Armor class as difficulty to hit is actually a bit more reasonable than straight Damage Reduction. It exists that way for a reason.

Additionally, the issue with DR in general is that it becomes increasingly less useful as Damage Scores increase ect ect.

If you really want to represent it accurately? Have armor give a AC(Armor Class) that works as a "difficultly to hit" to a certain threshold, and a (Armor Reduction) that drops damage dealt. But that could get tricky and complicated.
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>>43740069
I'd use it just to be able to make silly ranges of success. Something like draw an image on a 10x10 grid and the coordinates correlate to the numbers on a d100.
>>
Are there any other core mechanics you guys areally particularly fond of? I like games that use a single d10 with roll-under.
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>>43740069
Back when I started I used d100 because I was drawing inspiration from Darkest Dungeon and the game makes use of percentages. I don't own the game so I was/am winging how player progression works. It used to be by 1%, 3%, or 5%. My partner said that was essentially too granular. As design moved forward and character progression changed, it was decided that 5% changed were simple. Until we can playtest the first draft of the game we won't know how broken something like Dodging or Blocking is for a first level character with really low chances of avoiding damage.

People have told me that I should just change to d20, but I don't see why. d100 works fine, and in some of my games systems the granularity works. With stability points for example, however many points you have left is the target number you have to roll under. The worse your mental health, the harder it is to stay sane.

My system is more of a sometimes d100, sometimes d10 mutant that hasn't had any testing. It works in my head and for now that's enough to keep using it.
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>>43741771
Well, I'm fond of how Fate works...
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>>43741937
>People have told me that I should just change to d20, but I don't see why.

Simple:
Ask yourself
>Would my system change in any way if I divided by 5 and used a D20? Would I lose any essential features?
If No, use a D20. It serves the same function, but is quicker.
If Yes, stick with the D100.

>With stability points for example, however many points you have left is the target number you have to roll under. The worse your mental health, the harder it is to stay sane.
Sounds like a Yes to me.

Do you switch between rolling systems? Is most of the system D100+Modifiers to beat a target number and only a few, like the SAN System, a D100 roll Under?
If so, you should rethink that. Switching systems up like that is poison for the playability, people will mix it up and get pissed.
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>>43741771
I'm a fan of systems where you can fully resolve an action with a single roll. This obviously includes the One Roll Engine that I'm using for my sci-fi homebrew. Counter-examples are d20 systems where you have to do a separate damage roll after making your roll-to-hit.

I also like abstract health and damage mechanics, where your ability to stay in a fight is determined by something other than how much meat you have on your body.

Oh and as far as d20 is concerned I really liked healing surges from 4e.
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>>43742211
Do games where damage is dealt through weapon dependant static values and you only roll to hit count?
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>>43742126
d10 rolls are used to determine hit point/stability damage as well as hit location. Everything else is roll under d100
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>>43742440
Sounds like a fairly consistent system then.
Roll Under is also something most people see as counterintuitive with D20. I'd stick with D100.
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So, in a homebrew, are classes that say a little something about the setting better than broad archetypes? Presently I have 8 classes all linked to a specific stat, though only thematically. Would it be better to have broad Archtypes like "The Seeker", "The Warrior", ect. Or "Scout", "Squire", "Initiate", ect. Each one has a more solid role in the setting, scouts generally do X thing, Squires are military Trainees , Initiates are people trying to get into the Thaumaturgic Society.

Is it better to have classes as Fluff-inclusive jobs, or general roles/archetypes?
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