File: TempoRPGv101915.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Here is my tabletop rpg project based on playing cards. Here is the bullet point summary:
Here is the bullet point summary:

*Generic med-crunch system I want to get the mechanics and feel down before I bring in setting details.

* Core mechanic: play x cards from your deck, pick one and adding bonuses. Additional cards from your check can be pitched for bonus effects.

*Low Cognitive Load: I tried to make character creation easy and quick, and tracking during gameplay low. Complexity should increase as you advance. not hammer you all at once.

* Changing Characters Characters are defined by traits,adjectives and backgrounds that are improved or changed during the game.

* Group Character Sheet keeps track of things everyone needs to know, has group features and advances with the characters.

* Abstract stress/trauma system encourages tension and pushing your luck.

>>43775189
* I am having a hard time getting feedback, what should I change or do about that?
* What should I split my pdf on so I don't drop the entire thing down?
* What do you like about it? What should be changed? What do you want to see more of?
To you, is this project worth continuing?
* I am an unemployed student with no money. If this project is worth continuing, what should I do from here?

___
Also will be here reviewing other projects on here in between studying. Be a good citizen. help out others!

>>43775224
> I am having a hard time getting feedback, what should I change or do about that?
Hard to answer without knowing what you've tried, but in general, talk about it with friends, and use social media and specialized forums (like here) to get the word out and find people that are interested.

> What should I split my pdf on so I don't drop the entire thing down?
It's compact enough right now to skim through in about 15-30 minutes, and nothing seems strikingly separable. If you're looking to pare it down for specific feedback, focus on that area, and only provide the necessary bullet points for other mechanics that the mechanic in question references.

* What do you like about it? What should be changed? What do you want to see more of?
To you, is this project worth continuing?
It's an interesting mix of chance with skill-- drawing random cards, but making interesting choices with the lot that was pulled, with your luck (likely) going south as consequences are accrued. I think the stress pile is a bit confusing, and should be laid out in a way that makes it easier to see its contents. You'll also want to watch out for people hording persona points. As written, they can just sit on them for several sessions, then unload all of them at once. As I understand this, that means they can potentially do the patently impossible (50+ on a check), and/or deal enough damage to a tank with a toothpick to cause the thing to implode. There are no caps on how much you can have, and how much you can use on a check.

> I am an unemployed student with no money. If this project is worth continuing, what should I do from here?
Always focus on yourself first. Can't make a game if you can't eat. While polling around for feedback, you can always see if there are any other hobbyists that would like to chip in and split the workload. Professionals will want payment, so stick to amateurs, and understand what that will mean for your project.

>>43776399
Thank you!

I do see the thing with persona points. It might be a good move to make it so any points over your rating are lost during a long rest.I do think that takes care of the problem with the cap as well.

I do think that making the stress pile less complex to parse would be a good move. Thanks for that.

I also think I need a setting for this, as it might be more compelling with actual abilities that link to a world and setting. Ideas for what might fit?

>>43775189
I can give it another read through tomorrow and comment on the improvements.

Question: have you had a chance to do much playtesting yet? Because the system seems mostly complete at this point and really requires fine-tuning.

>>43776964
I have done a bit, but due to being busy, and friends being far away, I haven't really gotten the chance to do as much as I want

File: V6 REWRITE.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

After suggestions in the last thread I've changed stat generation to just 1d5 for clarification sake and adjusted Hull point generation to 1d10+10 to keep it within in the 11-20 range which seems a bit more balanced.

I'm considering having a mechanic where players that roll a 1 for stat creation get a free additional roll on a positive trait chart *as yet to be written* in character creation (things like better quality equipment available from peers or additional resistance to specific types of damage) good idea or not?

I had a better reply in the last thread to comments but in summary, what key things am I missing and what might /hbg/ like to see implemented or used in Hardsuit?

>>43777166
oh wow I really fucked up the formatting here

>>43777166
Is this intended to be a oneshot game, or a campaign game? Are you intended to die fast and reroll fast, or keep and get invested in a character?

>>43775189
To answer the question you post in this PDF in the Abilities section, I definitely think you have a workable system, so the phase you should work into is building some kind of test scenario that you can fit this into so you can provide examples of what abilities can do.

Right now your main problem isn't that your core concept is flawed, because it most assuredly isn't. The problem is that you haven't given anything to do with it, which will allow people to test it and get enthusiastic for it.

So, I've got a couple questions on the docket today:

Firstly: in a system when an attack that beats your foe's defense is not strictly speaking an actual hit, does it make sense to have different weapons do different amounts of damage? Presently I'm thinking of having the major differences between weapons be things like reach, what techniques you can perform and what attack type it uses. Basically Like a Short Sword usually deals either Edge or Peircing and can use sword style techniques, same as a Greatsword, but a Greatsword has Reach, but must be used 2 hands. But a great sword and a short sword don't do different amounts of damage. This makes it so there is never a strictly "better" weapon aside from a weapon that's MADE better, so a shoddy dagger gets less of a bonus then an well made one, because the well made one is easier to use.

Second: is differentiating between specific types of swords super important? Right now I'm' thinking of having an "affinity" system tied to the crafting system. So a specific type of grip and blade gives a bonus to a type of attack, but a penalty to another. So a rapier would have a thrust grip and a thrust blade, and so have better Pierce Affinity, but worse Edge Affinity, but in all other ways be the same as an one-handed sword. Thoughts?

Thirdly: how is "All Around the Fireside" sound for a title?

>>43778206
Thank you! That does really help. I need to come up with some form of setting and make testable things

File: Cedar.jpg (197 KB, 443x761) Image search: [Google]

197 KB, 443x761

>>43777559
Ideally I think it would work better as a kind of campaign game with players take part in larger missions and smaller one shot jobs as they choose.

I'm at odds with if I want players to feel strong yet be relatively squishy - I included the eject function in the hope to give players a kind of 'retreat in the face of failure' option when their suit is near destruction.

I'm used to playing games where characters potentially die very quickly through poor decisions. Hopefully players may become invested in their character but i'm not really sure what written mechanics i'd need to put in to facilitate that (seeing as with character investment you only get out what you put in)

>>43778550
All around the fireside sounds like a cozy story game.

I do like the idea of actual differentiation between weapons other than damage. Makes it less of a question of optimiztion and more bout fun

>>43780005
Well a large aspect of the system is a group growing together across a journey, and I really want the title to reflect that. Someone once referred to my system as "the camping game" because The Camp Phase is a big focus for roleplaying and team building, where bonds are strengthen and Unity points earned.

I want the title to kind of touch on Togetherness or Unity, since that's a big core system, as well as Camping, since that's something that seems to stick in people's minds about the game. Cozy isn't that bad of an association either, since it's not super gritty as a setting. But it does have a fair bit of crunch, and I don't want people to get the wrong idea.

>>43780349
I like it then. The fact that you have a "camp" phase really ties into the theme.

>>43781886
That was always one of the things that bugged me in games, it was always "We take a long rest" and then unless there was a specific night encounter, it just popped to the next day. Shit happens around the campfire, people chat, they tend their wounds, they cook, they work on projects, they arm wrestle, they DO STUFF!

So I came up with the Camp Phase, everyone take turns picking actions, rolling for them (in some cases) and roleplaying out what happens, it's not even super long, but it gives the chance for players to step into their characters and have the game encourage it mechanically.

The rest of the game really formed around that, the idea not of a group of mercenaries who stay together out of convenience, but people who care about each other and support each other.

The idea that an adventuring party isn't just a team, they're a family.

>>43778550
I think an affinity system would work, but keeping the parts generic would be key, so players can describe their own weapons. Keep it things like "thin grip" or "flat blade". You'd also need to keep a system from being abused, biggest thing I can think of would be mixing and matching pieces to make weapons that are better all around than specialty weapons. Maybe something along the lines of taking the best affinity and subtracting the others from it, since something like a sword with a thin grip would be made for piercing and a thick blade made for bashing wouldn't be that good at either. You can then introduce traits and skills that would allow crafting to benefit from multiple affinities, things like allowing more than one, ignoring one from the overall piece, or turning a similar affinity into counting towards the overall.

>>43783296
That's a good idea! I want something that let's a person make, say a slashing sword or a thrusting sword, and doesn't necessarily penalize them, don't doesn't make it flatly better that a cut and thrust.

One of the steps I'm taking towards this is an armor system that has benefits against one type of attack and penalties against another, kind of a rock-paper- scissors situation.

The main thing is that I want it to focus on "The person with this weapon is dangerous" rather than "that person has a scary weapon". You won't be as afraid of the guy with a huge claymore if he's stumbling around swinging blindly, but if the guy with a small little knife just cleared a room and carved out a dudes heart and showed it to him you'd best be running or pulling out ALL the stops.

>>43783903
If that's the case, I'd suggest really keeping the affinities as the only thing on items, and make them tied into skills on the player. A weapon with crazy piercing affinity would really be only scary in the hands of someone that can use it.

Do you guys have any font recommendations when writing up the rules for your stuff? My font choice at the moment is completely random, since I have no idea what font to use for different occasions.

>>43786566
I tend to use calibri.

>>43786566
Linux Libertine is a decent default, and EB Garamond looks nice and classy.
Other than that, you could try to find something that fits the theme/atmosphere of your system/setting.

>>43786875
I've used Calibri for one of my thing myself. I think. I honestly can't tell.

>>43787154
I'll have to check those out and add it into my list of fonts, thanks. Maybe eventually we'll have a list of recommended fonts for use in writing homebrews.

>>43786566
I use Gentium Book Basic.

>>43786566
The one suggestion I'd give is to use two fonts: one for your section headings and another one for your actual text.

Personally I use Agency FB for headings since it looks science fictiony, and Cambria for my text, since it's very easy to read and has nice spacing.

>>43775041
>check list
>skyresh guy is kill
woah what?
"halted indefinitely" is projectspeak for "cancelled" i was actually looking forward to that one

all my hopes are on hard:suit guy now, don't give up mechaman ;_;7

Do house rules for mainstream games count? Because I've written up rules for Ogryn hired guns in Necromunda (community edition), and could need some critique.

>>43789865
Sure, though if it's an obscure title then you might have a hard time getting feedback.

>>43789878
Eh, Necromunda isn't that obscure, as far as skirmish games go.

>>43786566
Experiment with a bunch of different fonts. This may take a while, but it's totally worth it especially if you intend to sell. When I set to work finalizing formatting, I picked out about five fonts total. One for super fancy title, then heading 1, 2, and 3 then a default font. They all worth well with each other and can be changed using bold, and different font sizes. That's an important part too, make sure the fonts have those options.

Hey Homebrew Guys

Have you worked on your elevator pitch for your homebrew lately? What do you mean you haven't? How will you ever be an S-Rank developer without one?

In 25 seconds or less, pitch your game to a potential investor or buyer.

>>43790171
But my homebrew is just a bland mass of common rules tweaked and configured to my liking. Eh, but If i have to try...

It's a system for Action-y adventures with a fair amount of detail but focus on making the mechanics intuitive and streamlined. In its foundation it's a Generic and tweak-able toolbox, embarrassingly much like GURPS, but with focus on releasing complete and playable-out-of-the-box standalone books, with the toolbox part being more of a a side product.

File: Flip Control.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Someone posted in /bgg/ the other day and challenged anons to make a game using just dice, tokens, pen and paper and a deck of cards. I figured I would fully flesh out my idea and post it here. It's only 2 pages and should be playable as is, though it probably requires some proofreading and editing.

>>43790171
Here's mine for this game:
Here is a game which supports 2 to 8 players and is designed to be playable using only a deck of cards, and some items or tokens that represent the units. The board is a grid of face down ordinary playing cards, which will be flipped face up as players explore it. The suits on the cards also represents 4 types of units, each stronger or weaker against another particular unit, while the numbers are the amount of units available for taking from a card. You take control of cards by using these units, and the player with the most cards at the end of the game wins.

My worries at the moment are:
Clarity and formatting of the rules. Writing this up made me realize I really didn't know the order of which to explain the game mechanics or its components and how they work together. Hopefully the rules and how to use the components are clear enough.
Difficulty of getting the items. The tokens are especially a worry since a game might end up needing a good amount of them depending on the cards, a worst case scenario would be all the cards of a single suit pop up and players would need to prepare around 40 tokens of a single type. Hopefully 10 tokens per type per player would be a good middle ground.
Unforeseen problems. Most of the rules were thought up within a one or two showers, so there might be balancing problems I didn't expect. Only playtesting will fix that I guess.

>>43790171
My product is the ultimate science-fiction adventure RPG. It can emulate any existing SF setting and universe, from Lensman to Mass Effect, and comes with all the tools that a GM needs to create a totally unique setting. It's powered by a unique yet tried and proven system that can be taught to anyone in five minutes, only needs one kind of dice and has almost no math.

>>43775189
I think I saw this on /r/RPGdesign . Meant to get around to reading it but haven't gotten the chance yet. Will do so either tonight or tomorrow though, once work settles down.

>>43786566
Comic Sans. More seriously, I don't particularly care what font you use as long as it isn't something outrageously hard to read or a script font, god forbid.

>>43790171
This is a system built around the notion that a group of adventures aren't just a gaggle of random strangers, they are a band of friends, and by the end even a manner of family. All Around the Fireside takes steps to both encourage characters and their players to form bonds and actually have them matter within the game. The system itself has a large amount of depth in regards to crafting, exploration and even negotiations and it prides itself on the feeling of true adventure with close companions. It's a game that takes a lesson about where great stories are told, with All Around the Fireside.

>>43791228
Script font? Do you mean monospaced?

>>43791252
No, I mean flowing written script font like what you'd sign a check with as opposed to print, like what we're typing now.

Believe it or not, I've seen people put up PDFs on other sites like that under the pretense that it made the PDF "stand out more". It just made them a pain to read though. It's a super easy fix though and like I said-what font you use doesn't matter to me as much as how clear and concise your ruleset is.

>>43785271
So, for affinities I'm thinking of doing something like certain grips or blades have ratings like "Thrust Affinity 10" or "Edge Affinity 15" and basically that makes it so for every X amount of skill points you have for the weapon style, you get +1 to your attack. I'm not sure how I'll handle stacking affinities, maybe instead I'll have each weapon start at AFFINITY 20, and the specific grips and blades have "X Affinity 5, Y Affinity -5" and that will drop X Affinity by that number and bump up the other Y number.

Is that pretty easy to understand/intuitive? Or does it just make obvious sense to me because i thought it up?

>>43790171
I don't have to be S-rank because I don't live in Japan

>>43786566
I personally use open sans titles with roboto text. Proxima nova also makes decent body text. Remember that sans serif looks better in digital display, but serif looks better in print.

File: V7 REWRITE.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

>>43789716
Fear not hopeful anon

I've wrote up a bunch of starting traits and from a previous suggestion, granted those that roll a 1 for a starting stat an extra trait on character creation. (multiple results of 1 in a statline gets an extra re-roll for their bonus trait)

As always feebac, ideas and suggestions welcome

>>43792306
So, quick problem I noticed. You wrote up 20 traits, but you have players roll 2d10. A result of 1, in this case amphibious will Never come up. Also realize that with 2d10 you a bell curve with results, so you should be aware of that when you spread out your traits, the ones in the middle will appear MUCH MORE LIKELY than the outliers, I would consider rewriting the trait table with that in mind.

>>43791512
Okay, yeah that does sound terrible.

File: SKILLS.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Can I get some feedback on my Skill list?

In particular, I'm wondering if Swagger is unnecessary when Carouse, Fascinate and Lie are already things. I really like having it in there though-- it's very evocative of the space adventure theme that I'm going for.

>>43790171
Front Mission meets Ace Combat via an ecologically devastated world caused by man's folly. With the world split into squabbling micro-nations and city states players take the role of mercenary mecha pilots amid the political chaos, their alliances only as strong as the next paycheck.

>>43792443
Balls. I only spotted the mistake just now but i'm not sure how to fix it. I only wanted the traits to be a straight one time roll. Is there a way I can avoid just deleting ten of them to keep it at 1d10?

>>43792306
I noticed you changed the statline from 1d5+1 to just 1d5. Any reason for that?

>>43793023
Honestly? You could do a kind of "grid"
Method, where you roll 2 different d5s and the number of the first one is the "column" and the second is the "row". It would allow you to have any multiple of 5 traits from 5-25.

>>43793089
1 to 5 seemed like a good amount for starting stats whereas 1d5+1 wouldn't allow for a stat of 1
>>43793195
Yeah i'll use a grid I think

>>43791735
So if I have Affinity 10 on a weapon, and like, 20 in that weapons skill, I would have +2 to my attack? Or does it not stack? And how high is the average skill vs how low can affinity go?

>>43792960
In my opinion, there's nothing bad with having a bit of redundancy and overlap in a skill list. In this case there's enough difference to be fine.

also:
>Unlock Counter, Dodge isn’t reliant on your...

I'm guessing that should be an "Unlike"

>>43793856
Yup. I found a few other mistakes on my own as well, mostly having to do with not fixing old terminology. Case in point:

>Significantly, a character’s Medicine Skill can’t be higher than his First Aid Skill.
After I had changed First Aid to healing.

>>43793900
AND ONE MORE THING:
Since you're going with a rather small number of skills, consider some better defined categories of weapons, instead of weapon specific skill. It feels weird to have running, jumping and climbing in one skill, but not be able to swing a broadsword and a katana with the same skill.

>>43793915
Excellent point.

What I'll do is what the original books this is based on says: Weapon Skills should cover broad categories, as most Skills do in general, but you can narrow that category down to reduce the cost. I.e. the default cost of a Skill is 2 points per dice, which would be for Weapon [Swords], but you could Weapon [Naginata] or Weapon [Double-Headed Battle Axe] at 1 point per dice.

>>43793766
It would stack. Right now "average" skill is 10, that's assuming 5 (average) for the associated attributes. It can get as high as 16 in character creation (min maxed attributes and Max starting skill point allocation). I'm thinking of having it get as low as 5(+4 at 20) maybe 4 (+5 at 20).

I'm not sure if skills will "cap" yet. Maybe 25? I'm still testing.

I'm want to introduce a food/hunger mechanic as a way to restoring HP and fatigue in-between encounters in my system.
Are there any good examples of systems that let you fill up before a big boss fight, or snack between dungeons?

>>43794220
Mutant: Year Zero requires you to eat extra to recover physical damage, and drink extra to recover fatigue. It's not really more complicated than that.

>>43794220
I'm working in a system presently that gives buffs from eating well cooked food and various dishes have different effects.

How the hell can I justify having a world full of monsters and scattered villages at the same time, without designated guards? Just have them mostly animalish, and happy to leave populated zones alone?

>>43795124
If the world works anything like ours, there is still a food chain. An overabundance of rabid, carnivorous monsters simply cannot be supported. Most of the monsters are pretty pacifistic and don't go out of their way to attack settlements.

For IRL examples of normal animals, neither bisons nor bears have it in them to ferociously raid and attack human settlements for sport (city bears raiding trashcans don't count), but you can bet they can overcome a single unarmed human if it comes to a fight. Your averge monsters would be the same, content to remain in their natural habitats.

>>43795124
Why there would be only scattered villages? Towns and cities grow naturally when people congregate in suitable spots for protection, trade and convenience.

>>43795791
The idea was to have large city states. They might claim territory, but can't really enforce their writs more than a few hundred km from their walls. The villages are what remains - settlements that were put down for a reason, but have either withered or been recent establishments that are kept fairly low in terms of population.
>>43795716
Yeah, that'll have to do. I'm just reminded of older accounts of europe and asia, where food 'on the hoof' was pretty common.

>>43795124
Why aren't there designated guards?

It occurs to me today the trouble with using paper to write down things. If you have a mechanic, and then wrote like 3 pages of things that link directly to that mechanic and how it works, and you then modify that mechanic is a substantial manner, you end up with two choices:
Write EVERYTHING AGAIN from scratch, or Erase and rewrite and hope you left enough space for the changes in terminology or verbiage so you don't end up with a cluttered and unreadable mess.

On the bright side, weapon mechanics soon, as I can't bring myself to get back to traits just yet.

>>43796582
Because people in villages have other things to do to keep themselves fed. You might get a neighbourhood watch spring up, people with farm implements, quarterstaves or bows if there's a problem.

File: PokémonTalesv0.29b.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Here's my narrativist Pokémon game. It would be great to hear your thoughts on the mechanics.

Magical girls system guy here. I've got rules for hope and despair finished now, so I'm next retooling relationships a little, as follows.

Each character may have a number of relationships, either friendly or hostile, and you'll indicate how large an influence that relationship has in your life by placing a value running from +1 to +3 to each. However, they must conform to a pyramid. One at +3, two at +2 and three at +1. You may have more but those are unranked and frankly even six is likely to be too many to juggle around.

If your relationship is friendly, that friend may help you gain an amount of hope equal to the value of the relationship. So, if the top of your relationship pyramid is a friendly relationship, they can help you gain a whopping +3 hope.

If your relationship is hostile, the value may be used in action against that person once in any scene involving them. So, if the top of your relationship pyramid is a hostile relationship, you have a whopping +3 once-per-scene against them, which most of the time would boild down to an action in conflict against them.

Choose carefully which use you want out of your top-ranked relationship.

File: V7.1 REWRITE.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Changed rolling for traits to a 2d10 = d100 mechanic instead just to keep it balanced and simple.

>>43797432
I'm assuming you've read Magical Burst? It covers a lot of the same ground you're approaching. It might give you some good ideas.

>>43799149
I haven't, actually. Since I'm building on Fate base, for ideas I've mostly scoured Fate products and discussions. Despair is loosely based on various ideas how corruption would work (though the sole in-print concept is in Fate Freeport). Relationships is influenced by Diaspora, which I read about quite a while ago, that enacts an entire relationship chart, and further influenced a little by Smallville. And of course, anime influences before everything else, or it wouldn't be a majou shoujo system I would be building.

I am aware of Magical Burst but for two reasons I haven't looked into it. Secondary is, there are apparently multiple versions floating around and I don't know which is the newest, and primarily I hesitate to be influenced by work that walks the same thematic grounds.

>>43799387
Crap, sent that bit too early... but anyway all I was about to add was, at this point I don't want to get any ideas that would send me back to the drawing board to refine any core concepts. I've been working on this long enough to want to push a Vers.1 out before I start completely rethinking any core concepts.

Anyone seen any settings where modern-ish technology is a thing, but transport isn't? Call it a scarcity of fossil fuels and a lack of alternatives.

I know it'd change the world pretty radically.

>>43799549
A good deal of our electricity still comes from fossil fuels. Lack of easily usable fossil fuel would stump advances in electricity-based industries.

>>43798718
How did I not think to suggest that in the first place?

>>43799549
I'm not actually sure how "modern" a world could get where our level of transport hasn't been reach. A HUGE force behind a lot of our advancements is how easy it is to get materials and ideas between 2 places.

File: Virtuous.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

I rewrote the Resolution section, as well as made some other minor changes. Since my precise pacing went out the window for it, I got off the Times New Roman train.

My main concern now is looking interesting. I have no idea how to be visually appealing/stimulating for a to-the-point system that isn't tied to a setting or fluff.

I think this creation is just about done, though. Can't imagine what else I'd do to it.

>>43799665
Yes. I know. I used to be in logistics. It'd enforce a massive size limit on cities; while there were places in the ancient world of size any sort of disruption usually came with commensurate disruption in population.
>>43799632
Yeah. I know. I'm thinking somewhere where the 'green' things arrived from the get-go. Hydro-electric, at least. Not particularly efficient, but it can work.

Or, hey, natural uranium reactors are a thing in our world. Why not there?

>>43799767
That said ,the mechanics don't interest me too much, since bullshitting them is easy. More the idea of a setting where it's a thing.

>>43792960
Swagger doesn't seem to serve the same purpose as any of the other three, so I think it's fine.

>>43796911
You can download a note app for your phone or tablet, I've been using that to jot down any ideas that come up.

>>43797199
Maybe change the wording for deciding on a talent, since looking through the examples, I find it hard to believe that someone would say "I am the ultimate at Being Effeminate". Ignore this if they were just joke talents and you don't actually want anyone to have a talent with negative connotations though.

For Contests, how does a performance "one-ups the previous performance"? And how does "describe something you learned from your loss" for either battles or contests affect the game mechanically?

>>43797432
Do consider adding a proper question next time please, without them it's pretty hard glean what might be wrong with it. Unless you're just stating how you're changing your system since it looks pretty good as is. I can't imagine a good reason for having a hostile relationship at +3 other than to be a dick though. And I suppose the pyramid can be reshuffled at any time?

>>43801794
Any thoughts on >>43791735
I do use the note app, but probably not near as much as I should

>>43791735
>>43802514
Double digits might be a bit too large, any reason to not use single digits? Otherwise seems fine , other than I can't think of an affinity combination that might merit a negative on another affinity. Unless maybe it actually physically modifies the other affinity, or when an affinity or weapon trait adds a direct benefit? Example: a weapon with Blade +3 blade is reduced to +2 when its blade is shorter after Reach is added, at the benefit of attacking farther.

Looking to have a spot to store a pdf on my personal site for a homebrew system I've made. What are some good free sites to host pdf storage I could link to? Would something like Dropbox or MEGA work for the longterm?

>>43802874
dropbox should be fine , already using it for ages

File: image.jpg (150 KB, 639x512) Image search: [Google]

150 KB, 639x512

so we tried a sharpness-multiplicator for stabbing and cutting weapons

regular ones have x1,5 or x2 sharpness , multiplying attack force (which is strength + leverage bonus)

however , the multiplicator depends highly on how thin and broad a blade is, therefore weapons with higher modifiers flex and bend easily , making them highly ineffective against high-stability armour (plate)

if weapon stability is lower than armor stability , you have :
(armor stability / weapon stability) x armor damage resistance

f.e. if the sword is half as strong as the armor , 15 cut resistance turn into 30, negating most sword blows

in this case , bulkier weapons like maces have no such problems

what do you think?

>>43801794
>Maybe change the wording for deciding on a talent, since looking through the examples, I find it hard to believe that someone would say "I am the ultimate at Being Effeminate". Ignore this if they were just joke talents and you don't actually want anyone to have a talent with negative connotations though.

Being effeminate could be useful if you needed to disguise yourself, charm someone, or freak someone out. It's mostly a joke talent though.

>For Contests, how does a performance "one-ups the previous performance"? And how does "describe something you learned from your loss" for either battles or contests affect the game mechanically?

"One-upping the previous performance" is a narrative thing. For example, if the previous contestant did a slick pirouette on stage, your Roserade could pirouette over the audience while showering them in flower petals.

"Describe something you learned from your loss" is also a narrative consequence. Like in Dungeon World, the narrative shapes the gameplay here. You might vow to train harder and change your Bonds because of that, or you might decide that the Dragon gym leader is a cheating asshole and reaffirm your Righteous Nature to get a Star Piece. Either way, it ends the conflict on a new note, and keeps the game moving forward.

Someone please help me with copyright. I need a license that basically says "Redistribute and re-use the shit in this book as long as you give credit, but DON'T touch the pictures; The artist needs to eat and shouldn't suffer for me being a filthy hippy". Is there any kind of template for that?

>>43806165
Just state in your copyright information that the rules are available through creative commons license. Explicitly state that the images are not to be redistributed.

Copyright statements are just rules written for lawyers.

>>43806165
There's creative commons or something like that, that's "Redistribute and re-use the shit in this book as long as you give credit"
Might have to make two releases. Or make a link/site for donations to the artist with a plea to the reader.

>>43806165
Info on Creative commons license. Probably a good resource for developers in general.
https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Considerations_for_licensors_and_licensees#Irrevocability

>>43806276
Thanks. This might be nice to have in the OP pasta.
>>43806270
Hmm. Interesting.
>>43806259
>Copyright statements are just rules written for lawyers.
So what you're saying is that Rolemaster is basically an attorney's approach to RPGs?
>Just state in your copyright information that the rules are available through creative commons license. Explicitly state that the images are not to be redistributed.
Fair enough.

Other question. I recently found out that an organization in my world reflects a partial line of one of the Starcraft 2 units. Voice of the Eclipse. Is this the kind of thing that's copyright-able? Either

>>43806297
>Is this the kind of thing that's copyright-able?
No it is not, to a degree. It's kind of a grey area, but I think you're safe using the term since it is comprised of common words. It's grey because it could be copyrighted in regards to something, but I doubt Blizzard would have went through the trouble. I believe there's a US Gov search engine that lets you check copyrights, trademarks, and patents. I'm not a lawyer so I can't vouch for the legal status of its results but it's a good thing to go off of.

GW ran into this issue with Space Marine and why they turned Imperial Guard into Astra Millitarum. It's a bullshit made up word, but because it's made up, it's copy-right friendly.

>>43802672
It would work more like this:
Generic Sword
Edge affinity: 20
Pierce affinity: 20
Parry affinity: 20

Then you would customize it with say, a thin blade modification to turn it into a rapier like sword. The various modifications would read like

"Thin blade
Pierce affinity 5
Edge affinity -5"

And so the weapon would look like this.

Rapier
Edge affinity: 25
Peirce affinity: 15

So a lower number is better, because it means you don't have to have as high of a skill to get a +1. Basically every interval of the Affinity number you have for the Weapon Skill is a +1

So Affinity 7 would be +1 at Skill level 7-13, +2 at skill level 14-20, +3 at skill level 21+.

It wouldn't be like Edge +3 because I want to have a degree of scaling.

That said, 20 is a pretty high starting point.

Though, this may all be too complicated. Maybe I would be better served as just +1 edge, -1 pierce, ect. I just want a system that emphasizes the user, rather than the weapon.

>>43807056
Definitely sounds cool to have a weapon's effectiveness scale with the user, rather than giving flat bonuses.

Depending on how high your skills, target numbers, and other modifiers are, you could instead give +X affinity bonus per skill level.
Like, just plain scale up everything else if you have to, because it makes the math easier.

>>43807346
Well right now I'm using d10s with a Degrees of Success system as my central mechanic, and the baseline skill is 10. I don't want to make numbers TOO big though.

How would fractions sound? Like 1/2 affinity so you get 1 point for every 2 points or 1/8 affinity so you get 1 point for every 8 and so on and so forth?

>>43807433
That might be your best option actually.
Make sure to explicitly mention rounding down (maybe stick to multiples of two), as fractions tend to look icky.
The actual math remains about the same (either way really).
I think the real advantage here is that it semantically makes sense:
more affinity => more bonus.
And that sort of thing makes it look and feel easy I think.

>>43803002
It looks ok, but gives a rather clunky feel, due to multiple variables involved in determining a single thing. The idea that sharper/more penetrating weapons are less stable is nice though, even if when you're using a rapier vs a full plate mail opponent you'd be aiming for the joints instead of clashing against the armor.

>>43803419
Could be my inexperience with RPGs, but that feels pretty new to me. It does sound like an interesting way to keep the story flowing between scenes, although maybe a bit forced? For example, what about a loss of which you don't really care about?

>>43807056
Unless you plan on having skill levels going up to 100, single digits still seem the better option, if only so that you'll need lesser valued numbers to gain a +1s. Maybe keep both Affinities and Skill Levels to between 1 and 20? Base weapon affinity could be 10 or 15 and modified by single digits.

>>43807504
My thoughts exactly. Lower=better isn't exactly intuitive, fractions are gross and I try to avoid them whenever I can (thus adding attributes together for skills rather than taking the average), but in this case they make the most sense, especially if I explain the easy way to remember it.

Now I get to dig through some of my old systems to find and scrape the weapon mechanics for ideas. Thank god I'm a sucker for "build your own weapon" style mechanics.

Now I just have to figure out guns. I made it easy on myself by sticking gun tech between "automatic" and "muzzle loader", so I don't have to balance super long reload times or more than one shot per turn on average. Of course there are some traits that let you shot more often, gotta have my gunslingers.

>>43807647
What kind of role do you think guns will play? Are they a major part of personal combat? Or do they more typically occupy a sidearm role supporting your main weapon due to their slowness?

>>43807540
Good call, single digit mods is a better decision, but I think I will also go with fractions for the actual look.

>>43807851
Well I guess now is a good time to talk about the default setting. So on the main continent, bows were never really a thing. If people wanted to attack at range they would use spears or atlatls or blowguns. Guns were basicaly a dude going "this semi-explosive gas sure does push things far, what if I put it in a tube with a little spear" and there you go.

In combat they are usually a sidearms. But dedicated riflemen are a thing as dedicated ranged support.

Maybe I could do "Close Affinity" and "Far Affinity"?

>>43807647
I feel fractions should be avoided like the plague. Always stick a "round up or down" clause if you have to divide something. They especially don't make sense when dice are involved. If you have to roll a 3.5 or higher to hit, you still need a 4 or better, so might as well just say round it up.

>>43808196
Yeah, the only reason I would in this one case is because it makes it more intuitive to look at rather than smaller number=better. It would just work as a way to express "1 point bonus for every X Skill"

So edge affinity 1/8th would give 1 +1 bonus to attack with the weapon's edge for every 8 skill points you have with the weapon style.

God fractions are gross though.

>>43808196
>>43808241
The whole base plus modification thing makes fractions even uglier desu, damn.
Maybe stick with increasing positive integers for affinity, then scale with some fixed number to get the final points per level fraction.
i.e. +A/X bonus points per level

>>43808462
To clarify:
The main complaint with just doing points per level was that the numbers would become astronomically high compared to the rest of your system.
So during the end calculation just scale them back down then round.

>>43808072
Here's a thought:

Generally when medieval era games try to incorporate guns it comes off awkward, because they usually need to downplay just how much of a game changer they really are. In real-world history, guns changed everything not because they were necessarily more deadly than arrows or pikes or whatever, but because you can hand a gun to any dumb peasant and turn him into a dangerous element of the battlefield. Guns don't require the same training and skill to use as a sword does (which isn't to say that guns don't require any skill, but you don't need to be an eagle eye or a trick shot to be able to kill a pikeman charging at you at medium range).

Now consider:

In most RPGs, combat happens in relatively close quarters. This is because the baseline for attacks is being within arms reach to hit a dude with your broadsword. This is the perfect range for stuff like flintlock pistols, which have piss poor range and accuracy but are relatively lightweight and compact compared to, say, a brown bess.

What if firearms are simply a thing that any character can have and use without significant training? The Fighter, Rogue and Wizard all carry a few flintlocks on their persons that they can whip out to blast a guy, but once that's done the gun is basically useless for the rest of the fight, since it takes too long to reload.

You can further balance firearms by saying that they don't do as much outright damage as as a sword hit or whatever, but they ignore armor and automatically stuns an enemy that it hits. Therefore firing a gun becomes a more interesting tactical option because it could be used to finish off an enemy or to break their attack or to weaken a heavily armored foe-- but only once per encounter for each gun.

File: 1448251039444.jpg (30 KB, 600x426) Image search: [Google]

30 KB, 600x426

Could someone possibly point me to a universal RPG system that is both rules lite and has a level up system?

>>43809656
The way I'm working around the whole "guns are crazy lethal" thing is the idea that a "hit" in my system doesn't necessarily mean you hit your target. It just means that you made them expend effort to dodge or parry or block.

The greatest advantage I have in my system is the fact that everyone can "use" a weapon regardless of their skill, they just can't use any special tricks or talents. Firearms in my system don't fulfill the same role as a bow would, they are closer to say, a Greatsword or Maul or something, in that they deal a greater amount of "damage" in this case fatigue. In normal systems this is because a Greatsword is a big fucking weapon, in mine it's because it's much harder to avoid a bullet, so a person who has some points in Pistols or Rifles has no reason not to use them, but a person who invests traits in them will get enough out of them to be the quick handed gunslinger or the eagle eyed sniper.

It's true that most fighting is hand to hand, which means a Rifle Focused character fulfills a similar role to a caster in another system, in that they are trying to avoid the cluster fuck long enough to do what they do.

Another advantage is since guns don't use gunpowder, but instead an explosive gas, I can fudge the actual POWER of a firearm to be closer to what a normal person could do if I so chose.

Also; the setting "time era" is closer to 3 Musketeers than it is Medieval Dark Ages

>>43809656
Sounds like a watered down tabletop Bloodborne.
I love the idea of guns for situational stuns instead of straight massive damage.

>>43810314
Maybe make it so that firearms are like a DnD Magic Missile and always hit, whether by actually impacting a fatigued target whose too weakened to avoid it or by causing enough shock and awe to throw him off his game. The balance being that guns are basically single use in most situations.

>>43810380
That's actually exactly what I was going for.

>>43806297
Have you asked your drawfriend what he wants? He might have a satisfactory solution.

>>43807647
>fractions are gross
Yeah, they can look frightening, but if you present them as a simple thing it might work out. Put some effort into driving home the idea that
"+3/8 just means you get a +3 bonus per every full 8 affinity. Any leftover is ignored"
One of my personal flaws is that I believe the general population is morons when math is concerned, but you have to have some faith sometimes. A lot of rules in RPGs are made because the developer assumed the players are idiots/assholes and hard rules had to circumvent that. Ranting aside, keep the fraction notation to tables or places where information needs to be compact, and make the wording follow the natural thought process of "reading" the fraction, this will help with comprehension issues. Really
>>43808241
>"1 point bonus for every X Skill"
is just a 'wordified' fraction.

Also, have you considered dropping 'All' from name. It stops the flow in the name IMO, but to be fair, I have heard this one too much
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiKGP5Fbs8M
Around the Fireside have a nice flow and coziness.

File: image.jpg (99 KB, 375x500) Image search: [Google]

99 KB, 375x500

>>43807540
since we use values which are easy to divide , there is no problem with complexity

we have most things depend on fixed or stable attributes , so we can just make side notes if necessary

just tested the stability system , worked pretty awesome imo , just need to make solid rules for hitting chances for armor gaps

>>43810619
So wordify it, that I can do. I may know what Affinity 1/8 means, but for players it would go a long way to actually write it all out. One of my personal flaws if I have this notion that, if it makes sense to me, it will make sense to everyone.

Also noted on the "All" thing. I'll try just saying it aloud a lot and see how it goes. I like All because it brings in the notion of togetherness, but I can see how it would be a big clunky.

>>43807540
>Could be my inexperience with RPGs, but that feels pretty new to me. It does sound like an interesting way to keep the story flowing between scenes, although maybe a bit forced? For example, what about a loss of which you don't really care about?

You don't necessarily have to care about a loss to learn from it. Let's say you're sparring with your old friend after meeting him for the first time in years. Maybe you learn that he's changed, and isn't like the person he used to be - which is its own plot hook.

The idea is that you always "fail forward," so the story keeps progressing even if you lose an important battle. Maybe I should have that clause even if you win, so there's a twist even if nothing is at stake. The game is about character growth after all.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, by the way!

>>43810414
That's an idea. In an earlier draft of the system, firearms where covered under Tools as far as traits went, but then so were knives and unarmed attacks.

I do love Bloodborne though, it and the Souls games were a very early inspiration for me.

I don't know if I want to go all the way back in that direction, I enjoy the idea of a dude rocking out with twin pistols or even being able to consistently use a pistol and a sword dual-wielded, it is a pretty slick look. Right now firearms are based on the Girandoni rifle, which is this sick air-rifle, which is very easy to reload and fire and one of the first rifles to hold multiple rounds at once.

File: 1365464498831.jpg (108 KB, 400x400) Image search: [Google]

108 KB, 400x400

I'm trying to put magic into broad categories for a system, about 10-15 categories in total, and I need to see if I'm missing anything major (besides Sound magic, which I'm unsure what to do with)

>Fire
>Ice
>Force
>Light
>Life
>Heaven
>Hell
>Death
>Nature
>Mind
>Matter
>Space

Any suggestions on what to add/remove/change for these categories? I'm trying to keep them down to things that deserve their own category. My main problem is that Sound magic is too limited to deserve its own category, and Light may be the same, but I can't think of a proper noun to combine them without stepping on Mind (illusion) or Force.

>>43812844
Light and Heaven can probably be combined. It looks like each one should have a balance but doesn't.

File: Vanguard Final.png (2 MB, 1200x1200) Image search: [Google]

2 MB, 1200x1200

I finally have a good picture of one of the mecha from my WW1 Mecha game.

Astarian medium Knight, model: Vanguard. "Guardian" rig

File: darkest3.jpg (54 KB, 620x300) Image search: [Google]

54 KB, 620x300

Slightly updated version of BA in the project list. The classes now have talents they can use in camp, instead of the stress relief system that was in place before. They may be a little overpowered at the moment but I just wanted to add some flavor to the classes. The Darkest Dungeon plagiarism intensifies!

>>43814307
Looks good! It gives me some good inspiration for my own system's Camping Phase, don't worry though, I won't crip anything directly or anything like that.

>>43813339
That's pretty damn slick. Not sure how WW1 looking it is tho.

So, what is the general conscensous on "talent trees/prerequisite feats"? Right now my traits are operating off a bit of a "tree" with a central "Skilled" trait that allows the use of all other traits, and then kind of branches. Assuming each new trait does something new and isn't just a matter of "this is a strictly better version of that".

It's things like "you need to know Hook (intentionally pull aside an enemy's weapon or shield) with your Axe before you can perform Catch (perform it as a reaction)" or "You need to know how to Set-Up (bonus on your next attack on a successful parry) in order to Reposte (attack on a successful parry"

This is further balanced by starter traits using less Technique Points, which is a resource that refreshes every turn, and more advanced ones generally using more.

>>43816736
Seems fine to me.

File: Realms of Triumph Complete Rulebook.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Can someone add me to the list? I've been posting here for a while, I just kinda got lazy about it for the last few weeks. Anyway, Realms of Triumph is currently between beta and final tweaks. I very much need some art done if anyone would be willing to help with that.

>>43816736
I see nothing wrong with trait trees like that, as long as each trait by themselves offers a distinct advantage. That is, provides a clear answer to question "why would I want that" and the answer is not just "because of the next trait in line."

>>43818111
afaik the list can be edited freely by anyone even anonymously

>>43818281
Oh, I didn't know that.

>>43813339
not diesel-punk enough for ww1

>>43816068
>>43818622
This one, I specifically told the guy to amp up the Art Deco influences, but also to base it on medieval Knight armor, because that's the culture this mech is from.

Another mech can be summed up as "What if Nikola Tesla was Pharoah of Egypt and someone let him build a mech?"

This setting also features the Tripods straight out of War of The Worlds.

>>43816736
I believe the problem was "tax feats" - useless feats that you had to take to get what you wanted. So take a lesson from D&D and let basic things just be doable, weapon finesse and combat expertise are iconic examples of tax feats. For 4e, it seems many feats are math fixes, that's a bad way to do it.

I must admit, I dont know much of your system, just read posts, but I like what I see as it seems we share ideals.
I think the tax-problem really lies within the method of acquisition of feats - that is what makes the tax too high to pay. If you buy the talents/feats with xp, then tax feats arent as much of a problem, because it's just a matter of balancing the cost. A note to remember is that to get the last in the tree you have to pay for all of the prerequisites, that total might run so high it's too expensive.

>>43812844
Your magic list reminds of dedicated "spell caster system" which Im unfortunately unfamiliar with, but you can take inspiration from them and just the magic system of "standard" systems:
- Mage from WoD, both nWoD and oWoD
- Ars Magicka
- Spell schools from D&D
- D&Ds other magic systems, see Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum,
- There's an RPG called Sorcerer
- wh40k have some disciplines
Since you have fire and ice, you could look at D&Ds subschools even or rehash a class to a magic category, like folding the druid into Nature.

For my own brew I got Practices of Arcanum:
- True Naming
- Elemental Magic (4 or 5 sub-disciplines)
- The Shadow Weave
- Blood Magic, it's life magic
- Rune Magic, given to dwarves by their god
- Necromancy, magic regarding spirits and the dead (my elves need this to survive)
- Nature magic
General Folklore magic, just small practices that have a small magical effect, everyday stuff, accessible to everyone.

Divine magic is separate and works differently. Karma (governed by my Luck characteristic) and Destiny (governed by my Protagonism characteristic) are also forces that shape the world.

>>43815466
I'm sure whatever you come up with will be both more unique as well as complementary to your system. What I have feels like a jumble. My game so far is really more of a collection of notes of things I would like to include. All I really need is a few days with my partner, because I know we can do really quick work together.

>>43816736
I think it works better if things like Hook and Catch, Set-Up and Riposte can function on their own, but synergize with each other. It's especially important when acquiring skills and feats and whatnot is somewhat concrete in your game. If retraining and whatnot is an option then it isn't such a big deal.

One way around this could be a sort of Practice system. Let's say a Fighter knows the Hook and Catch feats. He can do these because he practices them on his down time, much like how a wizard in DnD memorizes spells. But now let's say that a certain challenge might require Set-Up and Riposte, or maybe he just wants to broaden his horizon. If he's only at a certain level, then he's not yet skilled enough to be able to keep both Hook/Catch and Set-Up/Riposte in his personal arsenal at the same time. The feats require too much focus and coordination, and he doesn't have enough experience to be able to manage both. So for his evening/morning exercises, the fighter practices Set-Up and Riposte, so on the next day he has those at his disposal, but is too rusty to use Hook and Catch. Once he gains more experience and another level or two, he's become more skilled and can practice all four maneuvers at his leisure.

The irony is that DnD has trained players to accept this sort of thing for magic as normal and an acceptable way of limiting its power, but the reasoning behind it is really awkward and obscure. And the system that it actually makes sense for, feats of martial ability, gets totally overlooked.

Bottom line, if you're going to have a system of prerequisites, you should make retraining an option so that players aren't glued into one build that they end up not liking at the end of the day.

>>43780349
>unity
>campfires
Not just calling them bonfires so you can rest with your faithful mercenary group, the band of the hawk

>>43822751
Sounds like you want to play Reign.

>>43820061
>>43822728
I've been making an effort to try and avoid the major pitfalls of D&D. It has a lot of good ideas sprinkled through it's many editions, but it's all locked under this layer to sacred cows and unnecessary design choices.

The Practices idea is pretty neat, right now players get a new trait every level or so, depending on their class, but it might be a good idea to give them some wiggle room in case they pick a trait that doesn't suit their play style.

Also: set-up and resposte serve 2 fairly different functions, and can be used completely seperately , but they do synergize very well together, and trait synergy is a big thing in they system. Right now they main reason for Trait Trees is that some traits are just higher level, because they would require a noticeably higher degree of skill to perform, and trait trees help those feel connected to other, similar traits you can get earlier, to kind of help naturally showcase obvious synergies.

>>43822751
I intentionally avoided calling it a bonfire specifically to avoid obvious connections to the Souls games and Berserk. I love them, no doubt tho, and they are very inspiring for the system.
>>43821267
I certainly hope this will be the case, though your system does look incredibly intriguing.

Need a little worldbuilding help.

In this setting, the galaxy is basically divided into five major areas. The core is Gestalt Space, which is where the setting's major political force lives, and each area beyond that is part of a series of concentric rings that represent weaker and weaker authority and oversight.

The sector closest to Gestalt Space is essentially a massive band of stars and worlds where hundreds of factions vie for dominance like Middle Ages Europe.

I'm struggling for what to call this region of space. The name that I'm currently working with is "The Kratosphere", which comes from the greek root word for power, whence terms like Democracy, Technocracy, Plutocracy, etc. But I feel like I'm getting up my own butt with this, using esoteric terms when it really should be a more simple and straightforward way to describe a territory populated by mutually distrustful factions.

>>43824426

Post whatever names you have for the other spheres, so we know what naming conventions to follow. Or is Gestalt space the only one with a name so far?

>>43824426
>hundreds of factions vie for dominance like Middle Ages Europe.

Feudal space?

>>43824426
The Pie Ring/Strip. Because everyone wants a piece of it.

>>43824448
Not quite so linear.

You've got Gestalt Space in the center, then this region, then Free Space, then the Great Reef, which is a barrier of worlds and stars dominated by a lifeform called Metacoral which is impassable by FTL vessels. Whatever is beyond the Reef is currently uncharted.

The naming scheme is clearly aimed at ____ Space, but I'm struggling to figure out what to use; on top of that I kinda like the asymmetry of having this highly balkanized region of civilization having unique designation.

Other names I've considered is Domain or Dominion Space, the Veränsphere (from the german word for Sovereign) and Polyciv Space. The last one was my working name for a long time but I've lost my taste for it.

>>43824426
Maybe they just call it with a generic "the inner rim" term (implying there's also an outer rim).

>>43824523
Not bad, though it does make the civilization there seem more savage than it likely is. Plus Feudalism itself has specific socio-political connotations that aren't present in the setting.

>>43824539
Hadn't though to the Strip, or the Ring for that matter. I kinda like the notions conveyed by them, and they preserve the asymmetry that I find oddly appealing.

>>43824539
Actually thinking about this idea gave me an idea. I was trying to think about how fields and such are described in astronomy and one term is belt, as in asteroid belt or Van Allen belt.

I may go with something like that-- I'm leaning towards the Dominion Belt.

>>43824778
How about the Hegemonic Belt? Rolls off the tongue nicely and describes the political situation of the area well. If I ever get a chance to play your game, I'll still make my character call it the Pie though.

>>43824863
Also very good. Hegemonic hits the note of these guys trying to beat one another down and dominate each other nicely.

>>43824863
>>43825072

Having some slang around can add color to the setting. If you go with Hegemonic belt as the common name, have mercs and low-lifes refer to it as the hegemonic pie from time to time.

>>43775189
Hey, giving this a read. I really like what I've read so far, so I'll just write things down as they come while I'm going through, besides grammar and that stuff.

>Persona points can be used to negate a failure
I feel like this takes a lot of excitement away from drawing a Joker. The only time a (reasonable) player won't just negate a crit fail is if they were already getting hammered.

>Marking Qualities
Why would I ever mark it as a Trouble and take the penalty, when I could Act Against for the same cost, ignore the penalty, and gain a Persona point either way?

>Abilities
I definitely think you should have them. I personally don't like having to choose from a list and instead prefer making up my own, but I'm just one player. My biased suggestion would be to offer a standardization on what Abilities can do numerically and if there's room, some suggestions.

>Group Sheet
Hot damn why didn't I think of that.

>Group Flags
I like that these can function as side-objectives that give the group bonuses, and that they help a GM to know what kind of content that the players want to see. But I'm not so sure about silly objectives that don't actually move the game, or the vaguely-defined ones that can basically be taken at multiple points (unless that's intended. But the check system implies it can only be checked once). I'm looking at Technobabble and Evil Overlord for these. Seems pointless and abusable. Maybe I'm full of shit.

>any particular guidelines for characters or topics that make group members uncomfortable and should be avoided.
TRIGGERED

>Core Mechanics
- Getting consequences if there are any face cards in your pool means that as you progress to higher Persona ratings, it's increasingly likely that you'll sustain one. Kinda hinders the scaling, maybe that's intentional.
- I'm not really clear on what pitching is. I get the feeling this is attached to Abilities which isn't in yet, though.

[1/2]

>>43826145
[2/2]

>Stress
You roll against the value of the highest face-up card. Are face cards considered 10? I also can't seem to find anything saying when cards go into the stress pile face-down or face-up.

Actually I'm just having a hard time understanding it in general. Maybe having a long example of play/conflict after the rules would be good.

>>43827317
>>43827144
So what do traits actually DO? I don't think you explained that. You can spend character points to say, be a a robot or be attractive or two-weapon fight, but how does that effect the game?

Big moment for me, TG. I've finally decided my year of work and complete rewrites has killed too many cows to ever hope to pass as a retroclone. It makes me wonder, though, what's the most wildly different game you've seen that still fits the title of retroclone?

>>43825378
Definitely.

I'm leaning heavily towards calling it the Belt, but what do you think of the Mantle? It references planetary geology in the form of the layer between the core and the crust of a planet.

Where Belt is concerned, I'm also thinking of giving it a more astronomical name, as in the Mesogalactic Belt.

>>43818281
That's good to know. I'll put up my project the next time I have free time.

File: 13_kaynielson_powder_color_26.jpg (290 KB, 650x746) Image search: [Google]

290 KB, 650x746

I am trying to figure out a good fluff/mechanic balance for the way magic is handled in my game.

Basically the idea is that all Spells are sort of spirits/singular entities. If one mage has Fireball that means that no one else has it, because Fireball is unique. No one knows how many spells there are, because old ones are unearthed from forgotten cities and ancient tombs, and sometimes new ones are captured. No two have ever been alike though.

Using the spells works in a D&Dish kind of way: the process of casting a spell is incredibly intensive, requiring hours of ritual preparations and reagents, so not even the simplest spell can be cast on the fly. Instead the spell is cast beforehand and a seal/scroll is created that can be activated at any time to unleash that spell. The seal gets destroyed after it's used.

Only a single copy of any spell can be created at one time, because of reasons.

So my big question is this - in what form should the actual permanent spell be? If it's just words in a book it doesn't make sense that someone can't just copy that shit out and make 2 fireballs unless the page itself is special. If it's some sort of spirit/entity that inhabits the body of its master then what happens when the mage dies? How are spells found?

This shit is bugging me.

>>43830196
Some ideas:
Maybe let mages prepare spells by imbuing it into item of choice with them. The item doesn't necessarily need to be destroyed when the spell is cast, just discharged.

Make spells some sort of spirit entities. Not even creatures really; they don't really have minds or anything, but move on their own under some instinct. They cannot be seen, but a magically attuned person (maybe its a gift, maybe it takes training, maybe you just pick it up from being near magic) can sense their presence. Through meditation, lucid dreaming, or drug-induced trances one can interact with them and absorb them into ones being.

Spells are attracted to places with a similar affinity: Wild death spells naturally wanders towards graveyards, for example. Theoretically, one could lure nearby spells,for example lighting a great bonfire to attract any nearby wild fire spells.

When a mage dies, the spells are simply released and starts to wander.

Any of this fits your setting?

>>43830196
Not gonna lie, first thing I thought of was adorable little fire/ice/shadow ball familiars, little spirits floating around you that you "lock down" into scrolls or tomes when you want to prepare them for use. And then when the spell is cast they kind of float away, either back to the Mage casting them or away into the ether depending on how they feel about the Mage.

An idea that I use in my setting isn't necessarily the paper, but the INK that spells are written in that makes them special. My spell casting system is very Full Metal Alchemist, where you wrote out the spell, usually some kind of glyph or sigil in this old magic language, then use a special command word to cast it, which then sets the ink on fire and triggers the spell. Since magic isn't really "I throw fireballs or magic missiles or raise the dead" and more "I heighten my senses or sharpen my sword to an abnormal sharpness or memorize minute details".

File: seal of Bathim.jpg (377 KB, 1383x1357) Image search: [Google]

377 KB, 1383x1357

>>43830407
>>43831138

Both of these are pretty cool.

I had been thinking of something between the Lesser Key of Solomon and those old dudes from the Arabian Nights who keep djinn in bottles and use them to perform feats for them, but in a more limited form when I was trying to figure out this system.

Part of me was thinking that the seal/scroll/whatever was made as a way of compelling the source of the power to act as you commanded for the spell, but that you could only strike one bargain with that entity at a time (hence the no preparing two copies of anything).

The problem with that though was that I didn't want every player to just share their spells with the other PC's and everyone end up godlike (since there are no classes and anyone can use magic). If the entity were free then anyone could call on them, so they needed to be contained/trapped/owned by a single person for it to work.

Of course if you had to carry around a bunch of seals that you could only use once and couldn't be re-charged mid-dungeon then it would be a giant inconvenient pain in the ass too.

I wanted players to be able to steal spells from other mages, or loot them off their rapidly cooling bodies.

If spells are demons, then there must be some way to compel and capture those demons, and to steal them. Hell at this rate it might as well be pokeballs or something.

>>43831429
>I wanted players to be able to steal spells from other mages

So if they get a hold of an "scroll" or whatever ells is used for a prepared spell, the can cast it, and then prepare and us it themselves?

>>43831511

Yeah, but the problem with that was what happened to the Spell after it was cast but before a new scroll was prepped.

If the spell gets absorbed into their mind/consciousness/whatever, then what happens if a piano falls from the sky and crushes them before they have time to transcribe a new one?

Is it just lost forever? Do you have to go ghostbusters to capture it? What the fuck happens?

I have a relatively simple mechanical concept and no way to make it work fluff-wise.

>>43831593

You either has to go the ghostbuster route with wandering spells, or spells take on a physical form when they don't have a mind to occupy. Shiny stones are popular.

Or they are immediately pushed form the casters mind into his now dead body. The corpse now has every spell the caster knew prepared. You probably don't want to go this route, but the thought amused me.

File: V8 REWRITE.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

Progress is gradually being made with Hard:Suit as I've had time to work on it during work breaks.

Ideally I'd like to be able to test it properly but
>players willing to take time out to test new systems

So far I've made an overhaul of core mechanics with some specific effects for failure and successes in rolls trying to keep things as cohesive as possible while still being simple

I've written up the rules for disengagement, repairing/restoring and status effects established with some crit fails and crit success that should always give an interesting result with more to follow

There's now a weapon table with special abilities on some weapons (trying to keep damage for common weapons in a balanced range)

I've still to write up rules for play outside of the suit but as always I'm open to suggestion, improvement and critique

>>43828109
Belt seems fine, the common men wouldn't really care too much about using sciency terms for nicknames.

>>43828059
What's a retroclone? Is it like what modern 2D pixel video games are to the old games like Mega Man etc.?

>>43827997
Skills only seems the better fit to me, as the stats seem pretty arbitrary and just add another layer of complexity when the skills can already perfectly represent that. However, the problem comes when skills are 3+, correct? At that point I say introduce a soft cap to skills and have additional conditions for upgrading that skill past level 3. It'd be pretty realistic in that you can't go beyond what is humanly possible without working hard for it. Traits could help remove those conditions and set the threshold higher for non-humans. Make the conditions harder as you go higher, maybe even encourage penalties depending on the type of game.

I'm going to wait first and see if this also solves any of your other problems before commenting on anything else. If you could, maybe reiterate what was it you are having trouble with?

>>43834078
Pretty much. A retroclone is a modern game designed to emulate or at least invoke the experience of playing an older game.

Put together some worldbuilding stuff today which describes the structure of the galaxy in my homebrew setting. It consolidates several ideas that I've been throwing around this thread.

It's a Pastebin, I'm not at my normal computer right now to make it into a PDF.

http://pastebin.com/1B4JSWry

Anons. I need a pickmeup. I'm on the third draft of what is going to be a full-scale RPG, with all the bells and whistles. It's already a 200 page tome. I've been working on this with a friend off and on for a couple years now.

Writing a book is so much work. Holy fuck. I just.. so tired..

>>43836648
Balance your input/output. Tired from producing to much? Go consume. Forget about being productive for a few days. Play something someone else have made. Then return.

>>43836648
What do you still have to do to finally complete it?

I don't suppose anyone has suggestions for reading for creation of arbitrary effects? I've been reading Ars Magica 5th, but haven't been able to grasp any weird magicy effects (like confusion or charm) like can work in a procedurally generated way.

It could be a function of targeting maybe? [target][changes loyalties][Arbitrarily?] for confusion maybe?

>>43839730
GURPS Thaumathology has a chapter on "Freeform" magic.

>>43839300
The stuff we've been putting off. Mostly fixing a few bugs we keep shoving aside under the pretense of "we'll come back to that." Finishing things like prices v. starting funds.. and turning a couple sections of notes into a proper GM's guide.

>>43839886
Out of professional curiousity, what's the project?

So: anyone have thoughts on the pro's of Target Number vs Roll Under? Right now the attack profile looks like
1d10+weapon style+Affinity Bonus vs either
Block: protection + endurance or
Parry: 1d10 + weapon stat + affinity bonus.

The average protection and weapon stat score are the same and endurance is anywhere between 4-7, average of 5.

So you can gamble on a parry use a reliable block. "damage" is based of Degrees of Success. I could do roll under, but I'd have to adjust skill caps and how blocks work, so I'm not sure how worth it would be.

Does anyone have a good general guideline for how to know if your homebrew should be a MOD of game X or a new game that draws heavily from X?

Currently looking into making a game where your relationships are your XP without stupid requiring sex for leveling up bullshit like in bliss stage, designed for like a certain subset of weeb games (Persona, Non-grimderp mahou Shojo, certain super-robot sub-genres and the like). But for conflict resolution, I am looking at a lot of stuff from Legend of the Wulin, since it has a lot of design features I really like, to the point where I feel like I am right on the boarder line between "this is too heavy duty to be a mod" and "This is not going to be unique enough to justify it being its own system".

>>43840291
http://grandheresy.com

>>43842260
>A "subtle magic" sorcery system that gives the creative occultist incredible power, while keeping the nature of magic mysterious and discrete like depicted in folklore rather than a living artillery.
>A dynamic system for handling "giant" creatures, from war-elephants to dragons or whatever else, representing the inherent challenges in fighting a creature that could trample you without noticing.

I'd like a quick peek at your notes, sir.

>>43842298
The overall design takes a lot of notes from The Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel.. though the two sections you quoted directly are completely original.

I'm working on draft 5 currently, but when it's finished we're going open beta. I'll probably start a thread here about it as well as announcing it on the website.

>>43842346
So it sounds like you're going to go up against Song of Swords, then. Either way, I'll look forward to taking a look. Good luck in your efforts.

>>43842382
I'm not really worried about the competition. Both games take heavy notes from TROS, but we went in a very different direction. From what I've seen of Song of Swords, they wanted to increase the level of simulation from TROS and increased the complexity of the game some - adding more character building options, a lot more weapons, etc.

We wound up actually going the opposite direction, focusing on making the game run more smoothly, streamlining things where we could while trying to improve on the elements from TROS we loved. There will probably be some overlap in the audience of one to the other, but they are fairly different beasts.

>>43841595
Also, I'm looking to make Two-Weapon Fighting viable and not some horrible Trait sink. How does the idea of a normal weapon doing (DOSx2) and an off hand weapon attack being 2 (DOSx1) attacks? Same exact equation up until that point, but when calculating how much Fatigue you deal to your opponent, you only deal 1 times the amount of Successes instead of 2? It's ablated somewhat by armor though, so doing that could render it a bit of a trap option. I'm considering just having no penalty to holding two weapons, but under normal circumstances you're only calculating damage as though you're attacking with your best, and it would just give you 2 different options as far as weapon specializations, so you could have a sword and a knife, and have quick access to 2 different styles at once.

Historically few people would dual-wield two of the same thing anyway?

Thoughts on dual-wielding in general?

Thanksgiving really puts a debt in productivity it seems.

>>43845856
You mean dent?

Making my ownfantasy tabletop wargame, in the process of making the units for each race, having trouble with one of the races.
They idea is that their 'military' uses hit and run tactics, as they all live in in a giant, toxix to outsiders swamp. So they really just slow down invaders, cause a few nicks and cuts then GTFO, letting the land kill their enemies.

In terms of appearance, think Dark Elves, but uglier and with slightly scaly skin.

So far i've got archers that can slow down enemy units with poison and a melee unit that can move twice a turn, provided it makes a successful attack in between movements.

Any other ideas?

>>43847470
Sappers that can build obstacles like ditches and barricades?

Casters that can turn the earth poisonous, send out toxic mists and make ill winds blow? And summon the dead of the swamp?

Tamed creatures of the swamp that are sent to kill the enemy? Swamp lizards, giant armored frogs, flail snails, will-o-wisps?

>>43847572
i've already got construction and buildings as the human thing, so I dont want to step on their territory. I can get behind the toxic mist thing though.

>>43841848
I don't think there's a way for anyone but yourself to determine that you are making a mod or an entirely new game. I guess you could consider it a mod if you're only taking stuff from one game and their core mechanic is relatively untouched. If it takes from multiple games and the core mechanic is entirely unique, you could consider it a new game.

>>43843010
Most video games have dual wielding as weaker individual weapons, but deal more collectively. Something like dividing the original damage by half, but do more attacks per turn. Realistically, unless you've learned a particular style that has dual wielding, you won't be utilizing the weapons optimally and have a lot of wasted movement. In such a case, attacking with the lighter weapon and using the other for heavier blows is usually preferred.

Note that I'm just talking out of my ass and I don't have any martial arts experience though, only going by logic here.

>>43847470
On an actual board, or imagination with pen and paper?

Maybe hidden movement within the swamp? I was going to say movement/teleportation between swamps if there were multiple.

Traps that hold enemies down, naturally. Maybe something that splashes the toxic waters onto them?

Lures of some sort, to get more into the confines of the swamp. Maybe a siren or something.

>>43848196
>I don't think there's a way for anyone but yourself to determine that you are making a mod or an entirely new game. I guess you could consider it a mod if you're only taking stuff from one game and their core mechanic is relatively untouched. If it takes from multiple games and the core mechanic is entirely unique, you could consider it a new game.
Not exactly what I asked, but still helpful, thanks!

>>43847602
To add to what >>43847572 is saying, terrain manipulation. Wizards that change or move terrain, units that have effects on it, like a swamp animal that can poison a terrain piece it moves through for a turn, units that easily move through terrain.

Also, I you have any rules you'd like to share, I'm also working on a wargame, and would love to pick your brain.

I'm surprised this thread hasn't died yet.

>>43849206
We've actually post capped the last 3 or 4 threads.

Bumping with my old thing. >>43790639

File: the great silence.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

a "wild west with magic" thing I'm making. Is designed to be fast to get into it, and to make combats deadly.
I plan to test it this week, and I could use some feedback prior to it.
I'm on the making of a table to generate random plot hooks, and maybe some other that gives each player a boon depending on their background (indian/sheriff/bandit/etc, though I don't think that's too necessary)

>>43849224
Yeah but with Thanksgiving and all most posters are probably occupied. I suppose it's a good sign that we've got actual social lives and such.

Hey /hbg/ how did you decide on how many skill points your players start off with? I use a d12 system, and my players stats grow a large amount over the course of the game, but I don't know where to start it off.

You need to look at it from an outcome perspective, and work backwards

>What percentage of the time do you want a starting character trained in a skill to succeed at a common challenge?

>How many skills out of your total do you want a starting character to be trained in?

Once you can answer those two questions, you can get an idea of how many skill points to give to your players by determining a.) at what point a character is competent at a skill and b.) how many skills a starting character should be competent in.

>>43852958
This. Stat out a few appropriate starting characters, play-test them to make sure thy work as intended, adjust if necessary, then determine starting values from this.

Looks like this thread might not survive the holiday weekend, but I'll give it a bump anyway.

>>43855119
I'm keeping an eye on things, I'm just using my free time to crank out weapon crafting and the like

>>43852898
well I looked at the range that I was using, from 2 to 8 I think, and judged which classes were more skilled and which were more ability focused. No telling if it's been balanced well but I think it works for now.

>>43852898
frankly? I just picked some numbers that looked good (5 for average attribute, skill baselines are based on 2 of them, then 10 points to spread amongst the skills, cap of 2 pet skill), then I just tweaked things around that. Pick a starting level that "feels right" for your mechanics, then tweak mechanics to accept those numbers, for instance, a roll under system using a 12 you don't want skill numbers starting in the 10's, but for a mod+roll that can work just fine. And you probably don't want to dice pool if you have negatives. As that can muddy things.

Pick something that makes sense for the system obviously, but know that you can usually tweak things from there to whatever looks good or is intuitive.

Guys, how do I deal with an edgelord as one of my PC's ?

He's a lawful evil Tiefling and is just being a wanker, my buddy is rolling a Dwarf Paladin who is countering the majority of things well but it's getting tedious now.

How do you guys deal with someone who just wants to throw shit everywhere?

So, I'm trying to find a single word to describe animal mastery. Right now I'm playing around with either, Command, Mastery or Animals, but they feel either inaccurate or... Inadequate.

I'm also playing around with how to describe various races based on IMMUTABLE FACTS about that race, rather than just things that race is usually good at. Right now I'm trying to do that via free traits and maybe some free skill points. I don't like attribute bonuses, as they describe individuals, which vary wildly.

For instance: elves don't get a +1 agility, because there are slow elves. But they ALL have a naturally eidetic memory, so they get a trait to reflect that. Humans have a naturally high bond with animals, being one of the few who can successfully domestic animals, so they get a free animal companion and some points in the related skill. Half-Orcs are born with an innate connection to the spirit world, so they are super skilled at Necromancy and religion.

I'm also thinking of including a negative trait for each race. Like Elves are mana sinks, they can not cast spells, but they can hold mana. However I can't think of a good trait for every race.

Thoughts? How do you do races?

>>43857764
>Humans have a naturally high bond with animals, being one of the few who can successfully domestic animals, so they get a free animal companion and some points in the related skill.
>Getting a pet just for being human
That's adorable.

>>43857764
>single word for animal mastery

Commune
Kinship
Magnetism

One word is difficult, I can think of plenty with two words.

>>43857789
Literally, in human settlements, dogs are more common than children. EVERYONE has a dog. Let alone horses, cats, domesticated foxes and in some coastal settlements, domesticated seals and otters. Humans are just "good" at domestication, they can take ANYTHING and in a few generations turn it into a pet. Some scholars even fear they might be doing it to other races, but due to tier long generations it's just taking forever.

>>43857883
Elf pet, wat do?

>>43857849
I know, that's my problem, but every single other skill is one word, and so it fits in about the same amount of space.

I like kinship and magnetism tho.

>>43857764
Animal Handling is the usual term for animal-related skill, but i'm guessing you mean something beyond just mere skill with mastery. If a sillier name fits your naming conventions, go with "Dogs best friend"

As for racial features, I think you're on the right track with concentrating on special abillities/disadvantages rather than stat modifiers. However, there's nothing wrong with including some modifiers to show how they on average diverge fro other races id say.
I'd love to help you come up with special traits for your races. Which one do you have and how do you imagine them?

>>43857764
"Domesticate"?

As for races, I think it's definitly the best approach to focus on traits rather than stat modifiers. What other races do you have in your setting? I'd love to help you come up with traits for them.

>>43857912
>>43857946

>Post.
>nothing happens
>post doesn't show up for a minute
>post again
>suddenly double.

Weird.

>>43857982
That might be the same error I've been having a lot lately. Often when I make a post, it doesn't appear, even if I press refresh several times. I usually have to reload the page, THEN PRESS REFRESH again for my post to show up. It's even worse on /sci/, for some reason after my post shows up refresh doesn't work at all until I reload the entire page.

File: elves2.png (401 KB, 993x1405) Image search: [Google]

401 KB, 993x1405

>>43857764
>How do you do races?
In regards to attributes and approaches (skill stand-in) there's a limit to what you can start with and races and classes increase the starter limit.

Picture is my most completed race, the elf, a racial trainwcreck - the race itself, not the rules. They used to be more magical, but their gifts have faded, as an elf player you must choose which racial traits you have. You'd have around 20 XP to buy these traits.

All in all, races will feature choices, how being that race have shaped the character.


Also, Im trying to make the pdf nicer to read, how do /hbg/ like my graphical setup? Would like feedback on the background just as much the race.

>>43859563

The race:
Interesting concept. It's hard to say anything about the mechanical part without knowing more about your system, but the choices available look varied enough to allow for diverse characters while still having a sense of unity. If that makes sense. Words are hard

The "graphics":
Overal good. Think I would prefer if the trait description didn't start at the same line as the trait titles.
Not having a stark black-white background for digital files is rather pleasant, but I'd pick a slightly lighter background tone.

>>43857946
>>43857912
I'm at work presently, but I can do a bit of an info dump at lunch if you'd like. Right now I have Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, Halflings, Drakekin (basically a mix of Lizardmen, Dragonborn and Kobolds), Dusklings (kind of a fantasy trans-humanism inspired race), Half-Sentient (basically half-golems), and then crossbreeds who, rather than just being a half-and-half, are either better, worse or just different from the sum of their parts (half-orcs are an albino race who has a concrete tie to the spirit world, half-dwarves are basically dwarf+ and half-elves are a race of wanderers who don't fit in well with anyone but Halflings)

>>43860126
OK, lets do this:

>Humans:
Pass, humans-are-special traits are so dependent on setting I won't even bother

>Elves:
+ Good hearing, because ears
+ Good seeing, because archer stereotypes
+ Have the natural ability to mana-drain opponents, because mana-sinks
+/- Spells affect them less. This goes for positive and negative effects.

>Dwarfs:
+ Strong resistance to poisons and toxins. Includes alcohol!
+ dark-vision, because underground stereotype.
+ advanced sense of taste allow them to judge quality and composition of soil and minerals
- slow movement, because shot and stocky
- sensitive to bright lights

>Halflings:
+ small size makes them good at hiding and moving silently

>Drakekin:
+ Natural armor, because scales
+ Fire resistance, because draconic
+ natural weapons, Teeth/claws
+ Infravision (ability to see heat signatures)
- shit at speaking common languages, because of their cloven tounges

>Dusklings:
Okay, I have no idea what these are. Magical cyborgs?

>Half-Sentient:
+ Natural armor
+ Incredible/unending stamina
- Sinks in water

Hope some of these can be used.

>>43860126
>>43860594
Basically Dusklings are humans who WAY BACK WHEN got into crazy magical body mods during the days of the Old Alaeish Dominion, which were the first people to discover magic. So they have very... springy DNA, and usually have things like horns, tails, fangs, unnatural skin colors, and occasionally things like claws, odd eyes, vestigial wings (sometimes in odd places) and things like that. In all other ways they look human, or at least humanoid, because they used to be humans.

One really common off-shoot are called Bastlings, which are otter/cat people who are excellent natural swimmers and basically have a not-India/Asia theme.

They are bros with Halflings who are wanderlust-filled river traders who one day just pull up to the bank and set up permanent shop. They age somewhere between humans and elves, which make them super compatible with half-elves, who age at the same rate.

This obviously causes problems for half-elves, as they age too slowly to keep up with their human childhood friends, and too quickly to keep up with their elven childhood friends. They also can't connect easily to "The Dream" which is how most elves are educated.

Elves basically age at 1/10th human rate after age 10-ish. Up until that point they can connect to this thing call "the dream" which is this living memory projected by sleeping elder elves. All elven children are basically sent away to live at an old folks home which serves as both a boarding school/daycare.

Dwarves basically age to their 40's, then stop aging and slowly start turning to stone/trees/whatever Environment they stay in too long at about 100. So an old wandering dwarf basically becomes a horrible mix of everywhere they go.

Cont

>>43861294
Half-sentients are an all mute slave race who were created centuries ago during a big "golem" phase humanity went through. They basically created golems capable of giving birth in hopes that the offspring would retain the intellect of people with the controllability of golems, since golems are REALLY dumb and can only perform very simple commands. After the power resources keep golems running (a leftover power source from an Alaeish ruin) ran out, half-sents were only thing left running, but since they were so human-like, they were eventually granted partial citizenship to prevent riots and uprisings. They can store mana, and are easily accessed power sources, but they're hands are too clumsy to effectively mark the necessary sigils and they can not speak the command words. They typically have ceramic-like red/brown skin.

Orcs are largish, human-giant crossbreeds, back before the great giant hunts drove them to extinction. They have tusks and are very in touch with nature. They can commune with it in a similar way humans commune with animals. They have very low mana capacity though, which can be a danger on the battlefield, as that means they resist mana very poorly. They are expert gardeners though.

Drakekin are big, scary, and can run down a horse at full gallop, which makes sense as they are a completely artificial race made by the Old Alaeish Peoples in basically a big science experiment. They are very much at home on the plains, and basically invented the idea of heavy foot infantry, as most wild animals have a natural predisposition against them, as though they can smell how fake they are. They get on well with humans though, living near to the Human's coastal settlements and forming a natural barrier while humans keep them safe from sea and stocked to the horns with fish, a delicacy.

Basically
>Humans love the coast and animals
>Elves have both eidetic memory and ancestral teachings
>Drakekin love plains and running shit down
>orcs are scary big gardeners who suck at magic
>Dwarves are like old humans who turn into stuff when they get too old
>Half-Orcs are Albinos in touch with the spirit world
>Half-Elves are natural outcasts
>Halflings are riverfolk
>Dusklings are freaks into body mods
>Bastlings are swimming cat/otter People who are from not-India.

I think that's everyone.

>>43861294
Okay, so it sounds like Dusklings should have no fixed traits, but rather a long list to pick/roll randomly from.
They could be easily influenced by magic, as a common trait, since they've already modded themselves to hell and back.

If halflings generally are wanderlust-filled, give them some sort of amazing sense of direction; They always know which way is north, can always find the way back, a good sense of distance, etc.

>>43859867
I found this to make the bg; https://pixlr.com/editor/ and still learning it. Lighter tone was my thought as well or perhaps a beige-ish color.
The line-break might be a good idea.

Elves will probably be the most varied race. They others will still have choices, but they arent gonna be as varied.

>>43860594 >>43860126
Here's a quick review of of what I'll do with mine
>Human
My are gonna be Driven, spending their racial xp on Drives; Expertise, Luck, Protagonism and Faith. They can also buy Noble Born, which will give them blue blood and born in a ric, powerful family - the nobles.

>Elves
>>43859563

>Dwarves
Not sure how to work mine, just yet, but they probably get some access to some basic rune magic because their society.

>Halflings
Dead, they didnt survive the God Wars. Got gnomes instead for the "small" race.

>Drakekin
Got lizardfolk. Their stick is environmental adaptation and mutations - not sure if they should be frowned upon or be praised a divine blessings. Mostly inspiration is just various reptiles.

>Gnomes
Some fey-like stuff, talking to animals, access to the Shadow Weave. Easy learning and tutoring.

>Hobgoblin
A warrior race.

>>43861537
I have to say, you did a very good job actually thinking about the relations between the races. Many people overlook that.

Some of theses sound pretty finished already, like the Drakekin getting superb movement speed but can't interact with animals. Others, like the dwarfs, seems like you need to think a bit more about what their place in the world actually is.

File: 3 - DFlaI1V.png (2 MB, 680x497) Image search: [Google]

2 MB, 680x497

I need a good system for rp'ing in a low fantasy setting (Think M&B Warband but like with technology from 600AD). Any good systems that keep combat simply but make the world articulate and fun? Pic is kinda the feel I want for players. I've gotten the world setting ready but don't have a system.

File: RPGConsolidated.pdf (1 B, 486x500) Image search: [Google]

1 B, 486x500

So this is a thing I've been working on. I was doing some pretty regular updating for it until about a week ago when I just... stopped. Can't really find anything to add to it for now, anyone have ideas/suggestions?

>>43862145
Rune had a RPG that basically was arcade style combat. All player were supposed to go full murderhobo and there even was a savepoint system in the rules.
You could get boons from various viking gods as you leveled up too.

Can't say much about how it play because I never played it myself, just skimmed the rules.
Though it would certainly get the feel of you pic, since that was what rune was all about.

>>43861837
That's true. Honestly I probably haven't put as much thought into Dwarves as I should have, as to me, they aren't SUPER interesting and generally feel same-y regardless of what you do, unless you do something SUPER out there and then they don't feel like dwarves. Maybe I'll just scrap them wholesale, who knows, could give the name to the Halflings instead, give them a better name.

>>43861608
This is a good idea, I was just going to make them the "humans" of the setting, but now I like the idea of a "build your own Duskling" from a list of traits.

File: 7f9c1b0774[1].png (396 KB, 1920x1080) Image search: [Google]

396 KB, 1920x1080

>>43775041
I am working on Fallout homebrew for Mongoose Traveller. I found that Traveller works really well for running a Fallout game due to its natural lethality, though it lacks advancement so I am going to homebrew some sort of 'gaining skills and perks' system.

>>43828590
Who'd you get to do the art, or did you do it? If the latter, could you do a cover piece for me?

>>43862684
Most people go with a d100 system for Fallout, so Traveller is a bit of a bold choice, what do you plan to do in place of the career system for chat gen? And are you porting Fallout's skills, or using Traveller? I'm interesting in this both because I like Fallout and because Traveller as a system doesn't get enough love, it's great for down to earth characters in a lethal game.

How much are you pulling from Traveller and how much from Fallout?

>>43862684
>P.I.E.C.E.D
Love it

File: 2c3e86c588[1].png (131 KB, 1920x1080) Image search: [Google]

131 KB, 1920x1080

>>43863624
Thanks friend, that is good to hear. I thought it was too corny or something.

>>43862541
I like how HP is representative of their confidence. It makes Spirit being a 'not-MP' more jarring though, though I suppose you could fluff it up as 'the capability to do things that can't be done normally' or something.

Also, some explanations on the traits would be nice. Otherwise seems fine though, time for playtests for finetuning.

Black Friday bump.

File: c5256837dc[1].png (271 KB, 1920x1080) Image search: [Google]

271 KB, 1920x1080

>>43863534
The game is more or less 80% Traveller, with Fallout tweaks. I have already combined some skills (Persuade, Carouse and Diplomacy into Speech for example), as well as renamed some skills to make it more fallout-y (Battle Dress -> Power Armour Use, Broker -> Barter)

For careers, I am going to make a completely new list of careers for pretty much any archetype I can think of.

Traveller indeed does not get enough love, I find myself preaching all of its amazing features - yet my words fall on deaf ears.

If you have any suggestions, let me know. Also your message came to me about 3 and a half hours after you posted it, you might be going through some internet issues friend.

>>43866595
I once attempted a quick mod of it for a setting I was working on. Got hung up hard on careers, tred carefully.

And work internet a shit

>>43866816
Career's are easy if you derive logic on previous careers and get into a good flow. The real trick to careers is making them balanced and interesting to take.

>>43866816
Oh I forgot to add. What do you think of a career that essentially amounts to 'becoming a Super Mutant'. I had the idea that some mishaps on certain careers might have your character forcibly placed into the Super Mutant career (e.g. dipped in FEV vats).

>>43867159
I like it, I saw the unfortunate circumstances section and it made me smile. I dig the idea of taking the Traveller "well shit" character creation a step farther without going full "I'm dead at character creation" some people
Might even be happy to get that result.

>>43867342
Thats really good to hear. I was inspired by the Traveller^2 career 'Prisoner' that I believe can only be entered through events or mishaps.

I've been working on a Fire Emblem D% system for a little bit now. I've made good progress on it, but the main problem im running into as of late is handling Growths and stats.

Whilst I've come up with ways of preventing RNG screwage, Setting the base rate themselves and stats have always been tricky. I've been taking a lot of crunch from older games, but still cant find a comfortable ground- and i'd rather not just try and just ab-lib it every time a game is run.

My current idea is to give sort of a Point Buy for growths, Plus a Best/Worst stat. The example being "You have 280% to distribute between your growths, spread them how you like.", but I'd like to go fly on the wall for this and see how stupid it sounds.

>>43775041

does this thread have a space for an anon who is working on a RPG ruleset to be used in vidya?

/agdg/ don't like rpg and prefer platformers and interactive novels too much to offer any valid criticism of the gameplay.

>>43867528
Go for it, we already have /ss13/ and /dorf/, another video gaym won't hurt.

>>43862609
Yeah, skip any races you're not actually interested in. There's nothing wrong with using stock fantasy races, but they shouldn't be seen as mandatory.

So, randomness in character generation, particularly in stats and skills, how do you like it?

I kinda want it for my game but I see two problems;

1) When higher scores arent linearly costed, but higher scores cost more, any set bonus get bigger when applied to a higher score. An example of Linear almost is WoD with its dots neglecting the increased cost for 5th dot. D&D point buy are an example of Increasing.

2) Independent randomness. In D&D with random generation, the usual method is roll 4d6 drop lowest for each ability. Sometimes there's clause like "if your total modifier is 2 or less you can start over" to tie them together. Still it leads to great swings in ability scores for the various players.

Infodump; stats are called Attributes, got 8, ranked from 0=poor, 1=average, 2=good to 4=exceptional/extraordinary while skills are handled as groups, called Approaches, got 7, ranked from 0=poor to 6 and average either as 1 or 2. Each type have their impact on the roll and it's not relavant here. For both of the characteristics I want increasing cost for higher ranks.

So to work around the two problems Im kicking around some ideas. For 1) I thinking of keeping record of how much xp have "went into" the characteristic and have thresholds determine the rank. The unusual idea here is to keep the record after character generation and to apply any bonus granted by race/class/others to xp sum rather than having directly applied to rank, like "dwarves gets +1 toughness rank", but instead "dwarves get +5 xp to toughness" better wording needed. It avoids the issue of +1 getting exponentially better.
With the above 2) arent as much of a problem, but I still want to solve it. I thinking having only a single roll for each of Attributes and Approaches, such that the roll gives a distribution of modifiers to all within type, eg
C M S T D I W F
2 0 0 1 3 -1 2 -3
0 1 -2 -1 0 3 1 2
0 3 -1 -2 -1 1 4 1

cont

>>43868546
Tables aren't so good on tg, but I hope idea of each line is one distribution of modifiers and each number in each line is a modifier to attribute.
The attribute line up is: combat/magic/strength/dexterity/toughness/intellect/willpower/fellowship

Another idea was a set amount of rolls to distribute modifiers, like
"Roll a d8 4 times, get +4 to the according attribute. No attribute can get more than +8. Then roll a d8 two times and get -2 to the according attributes."

Are there any other good methods I could use or do you think one of my methods is good enough? Im leaning towards the first method.

There's also another aspect to the random generation; it takes away agency from the player over his/her character. To off-set this I imagine the character creation follow
-Pick Race (human and lizardfolk have effect on the rng)
-Roll 'characteristic modifiers'
-Then buy characteristics with xp
-other stuff
This way combines the usual idea of point buy with some rng. I like this method to include rng in generation, but not enough to overtake the creation of the character and instead tries (or forces) to helps develop a more natural character - the appeal of rng in the first place.

Rather than including negative modifiers, one could have all characteristics start at poor with 0 xp. This is just a slightly different setup, but it might be more simple to get. It does however preclude the possibility of racial penalties.

File: bab68a816c[1].png (499 KB, 1920x1080) Image search: [Google]

499 KB, 1920x1080

>>43867342
If you are still around, I completed my first career. Could use some feedback if anything looks iffy.

File: 1374796493686.gif (55 KB, 1280x395) Image search: [Google]

55 KB, 1280x395

>>43852590

>>43867452
How does the original game handle growth? Maybe you find an inspiration from the growth rate and stats of canon characters.

>>43868752
Second method feels terrible due to how arbitrary it seems. First one looks ok, but might become tedious if xp bonuses happen often.
This tediousness of maintaining xp would double especially if you let xp points go up high.

A way of solving that is you could let the GM handle it, the bonuses would then be nice surprises that the players don't expect.

>>43869543
It's for character creation, the xp doesnt do anything besides unlocking a rank. Afterwards I dont imagine players interested in throwing xp into it unless it raises the rank.

In the words of the D&D, when doing point buy, the races would grant point score that is pre-spent on an ability, rather than modifying the score after points are spent.

The issue you raise with bonuses happening often can be a problem, because so far Im expecting several things to provide xp to increase the attributes and approaches; like their own starter xp pool, Backgrounds, Bonds, maybe classes, small amounts from the racial traits pool, and the overall pool of xp that rounds off the character.
But all of this is in character creation, and Im okay, in fact want it, with many sources to determine attributes and approaches. Later in my design stages I will provide a quick character generation for those that dont agree with the above method of creating character, but want something simple ala Dungeon World.

>>43868838
Looks pretty good. I look forward to following your progress, I feel like this would be a pretty big hit in my group, maybe even spark some interest in Traveller, which would be excellent.

I love the events/mishaps that offer a choice, I feel it's very in the Falout spirit.

So: how do you make a race that functions very differently from other races work in a system? For instance Zombies as enemies, they don't block or parry, but they're still a pain in the ass to kill unless you know how? Or automatons when "damage is represented by fatigue and influenced by personal will power? I have some ideas, but presently they feel a little... Hand-wavey.

It would be like stating Droids in a starwars game, they function VERY differently from people, but you need to find a way to make them work with basically the same stat line.

Thoughts? How so you handle it?

>>43869543
The Original game handled growth by D%. When a character gets a level, all the stats are rolled for in succession. If they rolled under or equal to their growth, they got a +1 in the stat. this could result in a level in which they got nothing or only 1 stat, or a level in which they got a full +1 to all stats.

Sadly, you don't get to determine their growths. Characters come with their own- and you only can really find out the hard numbers by looking at extra resources. Though, that kind of what i was doing for stats- with looking at the class base itself for starting %'s. I'll give it a second look over.

>>43872037
Sounds like a system that encouraged save-scumming and rolling until you got pluses to all the stats you wanted.

>>43872201
A lot of FE games made that really difficult without restarting the whole map. As your quicksave would also save the random seed.

>>43872037
More seriously, might I recommend using the "Fixxed" level up method from PoR and/or RD (I forget which one had it), where instead of random growths, your growth is just "you get this % of a stat up in this stat every time you level"?

>>43872201
Levels happened often enough that unless you got REALLY screwed (or using a bad unit), you would reach at least your averages on a long enough timeline- which made the unit perfectly serviceable, so there was little reason to.

You could manipulate the RNG if you wanted to however, and you could max out a unit way before its time.

>>43872258
Fixed? I know of the BEXP trick where you always got three of your highest in RD, but as far as im aware of, Levels in both game were always random. Maybe your thinking FETO (If you've played it, its a online V.S Fan Game), but that's still a good idea. Takes out the random aspect- and whilst its not going to lead to the party being absurdly godly, everyone is garenteed to be competitive.

>>43872258
As someone who levels in Disgaeas up to 9999 for fun, restarting a map to get good rolls doesn't sound too big of a bother. However I've never played FEs so I don't know how long / involved the maps are.

>>43872335
You had to beat the game to unlock it
http://old.serenesforest.net/fe9/fixed.htm

It also includes weird shit like stats of enemies and like items you have equipped into it, but yeah.

>>43871203
Monsters and player characters dont have to function the same way.
Autimatons, including zombies and etc, arent driven by will, or at least not their own will. Well, the train of thought just took a left turn. If you want to still use willpower use the animators will.

My original suggestion was gonna be have different mechanics. Some sort of dwindle mechanic. The monster is only takes minor damage with each attack and is seemingly unstoppable. Rather than a large pool of hit points, have each attack either be completely useless or have some diminishing effect. Im gonna build my health system not unlike yours, but Im not very far with it just yet. I thinking of taking some inspiration from Fate's consequences to build my wound system, which might have some good ways to handle alternate injury.

>>43872429
Well, that explains why I haven't toyed around with it yet. I've only just started RD. Still, i'll give it a look over, thank you kindly for the resource!

Using it, I'd try to keep it simple and try to not factor in too much of said weird shit. No need to have a situation where people are arguing 5% because they're holding elfire or something.

>>43857764
Husbandry is a word you could use. Don't know if that necessarily relates to domesticating dogs and whatnot, but it's got strong ties to having animal companions