OT: >>43775041
A thread dedicated to discussion and feedback of homebrews of any kind made by /tg/ regarding anything from minor elements to complex mechanics, or even inviting people to test your system in Roll20.
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Posting from last thread
So, I'm doing the whole Weapon Affinity instead of weapons doing a set bonus to attack or damage, but I ran into a snag.
Unarmed attacks.
My ideas are as follows:
>Affinity starts at 1/8 and increases for every trait you take
>Affinity is based on your armor/gloves, with certain armors getting different bonuses
>just have Affinity set permanently at some lowish number
>Affinity is based on other Skills, ie Protection affects parry affinity, mobility affects trip affinity, ect.
>Have players build their own Affinity spec when they take the first Unarmed Trait to represent their training have the option to take a new "style" as a new trait/when they take a trait
Right now the last one is what I'm leaning towards, as it sounds the most fun. Thoughts?
>>43875058
Is the game relatively light-hearted despite the theme? If so you could have sillier names, like dividing each group into 'Activities' and naming them as "Thinking", "Talking", "Acting", "Moving" and so on.
>>43879106
>>43879185
>>43879469
No real comment since everything seems thought out, good stuff. If you're looking for inspiration:
How does each race interact with every other race? How do they communicate, why do they interact, anything used to make things easier, etc.
How does each race build their homes? Any particular material, structural design, geographical influences, etc.
Throw a few posts at the world building general whenever they're up too, they're better suited for this stuff.
>>43885472
What kind of affinities do you already have? You could probably just apply a few of them whenever a character is not using a weapon to attack. Otherwise the last option does seem fun, up until a player decides to throw everything into adding Durable, Flexible, and Piercing to his hair and creates a martial art about using the hair on their heads as a weapon.
...that actually doesn't sound too bad, go for it.
Updated the project list with info on Aegeos: SS. I'll have to host and put in a link for the actual rules later, though.
>>43885472
How would an Affinity spec work?
I'm homebrewing my own LoZ RPG and would love some ideas from you.
Main Points:
1. Heavy focus on grid, combat-as-puzzle type of game. The GM puts the map much like A Link to the Past on the table, with moving traps, pits, switches and crates alongside foes.
1.1 Because of that, I envision a combat similar to D&D 4E, with maneuvers that pushes, slides or have AoE.
1.1.1 This maneuvers are learned through the game, either by leveling up or by sidequests.
2. Group can be of any "major" race from the franchise.
2.1 Each race is governed by a Virtue (Power, Courage, Wisdom) and each race can choose from 3 archetypes, each archetype ruled by another Virtue. So a Goron (Power) Alchemist (Wisdom) is different from a Zora (Wisdom) Guardian (Power), even though both have 1 Power and 1 Wisdom.
My main concern is that I haven't chose the resolution mechanic yet:
1. I could keep myself in the safezone, d20 (or 3d6) + modifiers vs Target Number.
2. I really wanted to do something that recalls the Triforce, so I thought off:
2.1 With 3d6, but each d6 represents one Virtue (Power, Courage, Wisdom) or;
2.2 Using d4, since its pyramidal shape remembers the shard of Triforce. This way I could go on dice pooling, one d4 for each Virtue.
I'm having doubts about skills. I could go almost freeform (call a Virtue and how it can be used to fulfill the challenge - you could use Power/Courage/Wisdom to jump a pit based on how well you can convince the GM to allow it) or allocate skills to each Virtue (Athletics to Power, History to Wisdom...).
About weapon and armor, everyone can use anything, for simplicity and since I never saw Link learning the basics of anything - only advanced maneuvers, that are already covered on the main points.
>>43887900
For a resolution mechanic, 2.1 seems nice due to how it connects with the Triforce. How about introducing points management by letting the players roll before a scene, and they only have the points they rolled to get through it? Some tasks could be easier when using a particular virtue, and they can add points/reroll them by potions or something. A d6 might be too little though for something like that though.
The problem with having all weapons and armor be usable by everyone is players would gravitate towards a specific build, and the difference between equipments would be easy to spot, as in, players can easily tell weapon A is a lot better than B, as such there's no reason to get B. Both could maybe be handled by limiting the amount of weapons and armor during a campaign I think, to make each one unique.
>>43887900
I might be pushing my own ideas here, but they could work you. Going with the 3d6, each are colored and represent a virtue. The characters have their virtue value like in your main point 2.1 and the modify the roll by rounding up. Possibly only have one virtue apply to each roll.
Say a Goron Alchemist with Pow=3 wants to smash an object (clearly governed by power); he rolls 3d6 and the power die rolls 2 and the others are 3 and 5. To get his sum he rounds up the 2 on the power die to a 3 and his result becomes 3+3+5=11 to smash.
I have done the statistics here; http://anydice.com/program/7209
The bonus a round up gives to a roll is a little under half the score. 3d6+3 is a little better than 2d6+6.
My own experience with round up is
- it's very limited. Any modifier is gonna be much more noticeable than the round up effect
- This can be a bit off-set by using bigger dice
- If the roll is equal or higher than round up gives no bonus and that might be annoying to some.
- It does however make the difficulty scale more interesting. Creates Bound Accuracy. Also, Score=5 does not help beat a difficulty of 18.
Anyways, it's just one way you expand on resolution mechanic 2.1. You could also let the die be replaced with a bigger so you roll 2d6+1d8
>>43887131
>>43885595
Basically Affinity works like scaling, basically a weapon has a stat line like
Basic Sword
Pierce Affinity: 1/10
Edge Affinity: 1/10
Parry Affinity: 1/8
(tags for things like reach, two handed, what Weapon Style Traits it can use)
And basically for every so many stat points you have in that weapon's skill, you get a +1 to that kind of attack. It's my method of helping diversify each weapon within a category, since a hit in my system is not a "hit" but basically means that person had to put extra effort into Dodging or Parrying and that slowly wears on them. I want to emphasize that the WIELDER is dangerous, not specifically the weapon.
Each Weapon category gets Traits you chose as you level to help define the style, buts such weapon in that category differs only in how easy it is to use it in certain ways.
For Affinity Spec for Unarmed attacks, the categories would probably be:
Blunt Affinity: (Bonus to attacking)
Guard Affinity: (Bonus to blocking or parrying)
Maneuver Affinity: (Bonus to Trips and Grapples)
And each character would get to chose an Array based on existing martial arts or kind of cobble their own together together on a point buy like system, but only if they take the starting trait for the Unarmed Weapon Style.
>>43888283
> How about introducing points management by letting the players roll before a scene, and they only have the points they rolled to get through it?
Could be used with the Virtue system really well.
>players can easily tell weapon A is a lot better than B, as such there's no reason to get B
I'm floating towards the idea that each weapon provides new options, so every weapon have its uses. It favors the hoarding aspect we see on Link, always having the right tool for the right time.
>>43888474
Round up seem nice, but maybe I'll go just a simple modifier for it. Maybe link (no pun intended) it to damage, so you roll 3d6 to hiy but your damage is the Power die, reducing the number of rolls making it quick.
Die replacement seems nice too, especially if I avoid the d4 option.
>>43887900
I've always wanted someone to be able to make a LoZ tabletop game. I've messed around with the idea a bit but it never went anywhere.
>The GM puts the map much like A Link to the Past on the table, with moving traps, pits, switches and crates alongside foes.
I think that's easier said than done. Zelda maps are deceptively complex, even in LttP era, and you may be suggesting that GMs do an awful lot of work here.
Have you played Four Swords Adventures? Because that's pretty much how a LoZ tabletop game should go.
>>43889552
Yeah, I may put a lot of work on GM's side when dungeon making, but with so much games out there, The next step would be release dungeons reimagined for tabletop.
Will look into 4Swords, never played it because no friends.
>>43889329
Or you could make a roll under, because then shifting to a d4 will be a good thing.
I wanted to add magic into a really rules light game and am stuck trying to decide between two different schemes.
The game has no character classes - any character can attempt to learn magic, but its sort of a dark fantasy setup and so it comes with a cost.
1) Casting spells automatically deducts HP from the user. HP in this game heals back up to full after a short rest though so its more of a limit per encounter than per day.
or
2) A player attempting to cast a spell must succeed at rolling a check on their Mind/Willpower/Sanity, and if they fail the spell still goes off but now they lose 1d4 of their Mind/Willpower/etc. stat. Attempting to cast the same spell multiple times increases the difficulty of this check since the entities you are calling on might get annoyed with being called on too much. Stat damage only recovers after a period of rest in peaceful surroundings and can't be done in the middle of the dungeon.
Option 1 has Magic as a physically exhausting process, but spell limits are more per encounter than per day or adventure. It also allows casters to be able to do more spells as they advance in level since they gain more HP.
Option 2 has Magic work as a test of willpower/sanity, and stats don't really go up much over time. It does have the effect that characters with high stats who can more easily pass these checks do not run much of a risk, and can effectively cast spells at will.
From a pure game standpoint which seems like it would result in a more fair or more fun setup?
>>43890815
Option 2 I think
Option 1 kinda gimps spellswords.
>>43890815
You could also go with a more narrative based approach. Take inspiration from wh40k with their perils of the warp, change to what you want it too be.
>>43891095
My wife also liked option 2 more since she thought that the willpower/sanity loss setup could work better narrative wise.
>>43891390
I did want to make the magic pretty abstract and narrative heavy. Not having any spell levels or duration in rounds or range in yards or anything like that, more just simple weird descriptions and lasting either till the end of the fight, day or permanent.
Having the penalty for hitting 0 Mind/Willpower result in sanity loss, deformity or some other magic induced problem sounds fun.
I've also been thinking of different ways that players could acquire access to magic. Binding spirits or having them granted by patron demons seem to fit with the flavor I'm trying to go for. Or finding the spells bound in objects and keeping them on you to draw on their power maybe.
>>43888593
Sounds pretty good.
You should also include an affinity modifier for gloves/gauntlets (but not armor in general).
That way you get all of the intuitive mechanics.
>>43890815
I actually like both. As in, make both available. Players can master either one of them, or go for flexibility with decent scores in both.
>>43892523
Good call.
Let's me do cool shit like Parrying Gauntlets and Spiked Fists.
Gotta love Spiked Fists.
>>43889583
The trick that Four Swords plays isn't just giving you four links, but literally splitting Link into four playable characters, which manifests in the fact that, in addition to sword and shield, each player only has one other item and no inventory.
This could be done in your game by limiting access to tools and weapons so that characters stay distinct. Character A has a Hookshot but character B has a Bow and character C has the Flame Rod. Each serves a different purpose and each plays a distinct part in puzzle solving, because the puzzles are designed around having four players, not one.
Similarly, a tabletop game based around have three or four heroes instead of one needs to spread the action out more. Not everyone can be Link, but each one should be capable of a few Link-like feats.
>>43896039
Could work. Instead of freeing all items for everyone, limiting the items can work. But how limit them? Per race? Archetype? This would restrict some party combinations. And if all players want to learn Bow and no one wants Ball & Chain?
Much to think off, I'm still on early concept draft.
>>43898657
And now you're seeing why nobody has successfully made a legend of Zelda tabletop game yet. For that matter games with a puzzle focus like LoZ are very hard to pull off in tabletop. I honestly don't know exactly how it could be done.
As far as item selection is concerned, you could create a list of possible items for each character to start with base on all three factors: race, class and rarity. So a character could have an item that is unique to his role or species, or he can choose on from a list of universal starting items.
Has anyone tried or had much luck with an approach where you roll initiative, then spend points of initiative on actions, highest initiative goes?
Example: Bob rolls 20, Kate rolls 14. Bob spends 3 initiative on aiming, and then gets another go because he's initiative 17 now. Bob spends 5 to attack Kate, and now he's on 12; Kate's on 14, so it's her go.
The major thing for me is the "what'd you do on tiebreakers?" question, but I figure someone has to have had an idea like that at some point.
>>43902531
I've toyed with something very similar (but never actually implemented it), and my idea for ties was "they happen at the same time." Thus, if Alice and Bob have the same initiative and Alice shoots at Bob, even if she rolls well enough to take Bob out, Bob still gets to perform his last action before he gets hit.
If there is an issue of "who declares/rolls first", just have both players write down their action secretly and then just go around the table.
>>43902531
Looks like a tick system. Or a little bit like Exalted 3 Initiative.
>>43898657
Why not limit the items to only one copy in any given campaign like the games do? Then you'd have the puzzle of giving the right item to the right person at the right time.
>>43901831
Making a direct copy of a 'puzzle area' probably wouldn't work, but you can make puzzles for a person to get through an area, or "mysteries" the player needs to solve to advance the scene. The GUMSHOE system might work for such an RPG I think.
For a non-RPG game, taking a look at something like T.I.M.E. Stories might be good. Haven't played it yet, but despite its reputation for being a rather expensive game you can only play a few times at most, I think it can be a good source of inspiration for creating tabletop puzzles that rely on "giving the right item to the right person at the right time".
Rate the current version of Realms of Triumph please
>>43903660
30 pages long/10
Never understood why people think this will work. Ask guided questions, man. I'll take a look at it but it's very unlikely I'll read much before I get bored.
>>43903741
Reaper of Life and Heal's wording are inconsistent with each other.
The way every race's health is a different base number + vitality,, and then vitality is modified by the race also, feels really awkward. Just give everyone the same base HP and have the vitality modifier be the thing that creates a difference in health totals.
Halflings as the warrior race is kinda neat.
I'm curious as to what you think using ability scores and then abstracting them to modifiers will do for you other than HP bloat via vitality, but that's a d20 gripe in general.
Skill description is pretty rough and rushed.
>Starting Money
>Characters each start with 1d8+1x10 coins >to spend on starting gear from the following >list
Order of operations doesn't work quite that way. I think you meant (1d8+1)*10. That said, when you discourage rolled characters but encourage rolled starting wealth, you're using either an inconsistant or nonexistant design philosophy. My suggestion? Pick static starting wealth or remove the sentence or two discouraging rolling characters.
All the +Xs in front of almost every item are a bit odd. The default musket being a +2 musket is strange. It's an enhanced version of the default, yet is simultaneously the default.
You need more commas. Just in general. I haven't said it until I got to the paragraph on combat, but I thought I was ignoring accidental omissions up to this point. When there'd be a pause in speech, use a comma.
Constitution as cleric casting stat is an interesting thought.
Static 'beat 10 to succeed' is awful. Static DCs in general are awful, everywhere they've been done. *world systems have to be entirely built around the concept to even kind of get away with it, you're jamming it into d20 and it's just not at home there. At least *world doesn't make it binary pass/fail. You've taken the worst of both worlds, or, more fairly, the worst of *world and then removed the justification for tolerating it.
More to come.
>>43903660
>>43903741
>>43904399
3 move action economy is arbitrary and gamist, but could easily be dressed up to not be so. Think about how it could make sense in-world, and then attempt to justify it in-paragraph.
In dieties, Kefka is turbo-cringe. You even used the phrase 'the skimpiest of armor' unironically. That thing about the god of children and knowledge particularly favoring little girls with no justification is just fuckin' creepy. Nosajj isn't as offensive to the senses, he's boring as hell though. The others are pretty good, increasingly so.
I really, really like some of your upper level abilities.
You have to be level 10 to figure out how to throw sand in someone's eyes? Fucking seriously?
heres my main ask me anything, what do you nerds even do here
i got systems, son
i got systems and worlds.
20 years a worlds i run this shit son
but for real
lets talk worlds and shit
>>43904905
I suck at world building. All I can do is string along the erratic thoughts and ideas I come up with.
>>43905268
tell me ideas i will build and draw
>>43904485
>>43903660
Damnit Josh, I told you I wasn't a pedophile anymore. Stop basing gods off of me.
>>43905286
This was my last sad attempt at geography.
>>43902681
...Ouch, putting it like that I'm immediately thinking of scrapping it. Ticks were a nightmare.
>>43905300
Should I make you the god of bad taste in music then
>>43903660
I'm glad you provided a table of contents so at least I know what I'm getting into.
>Starting Abilities
So this game is basically classless or Race-As-Class? Okay I can live with that. Is there any limit to how often you can use your Starting Abilities? Can a Magical type just go around slinging Magic Missile all day?
>Races
I appreciate that you made humans slightly more unique than just "they're adaptable! They get an extra feat!" like in DnD.
There's nothing wrong with going with the original Tolkien/Gygax races, but ONLY sticking to them gives me little interest in playing this game because it just feels like hanging around middle earth. DnD has those races as the basis of their game but they also have exotic stuff like Dragonborn, Tieflings and Shardminds to mix things up.
>Attributes
You need to format the Modifier section better. Obviously this is a first draft but when you make another pass you need to turn this into a proper table.
Also, as in all games that use Modifiers, I have to ask why? Why have Attributes and then have a a completely seperate calculation of how much of those attributes you actually get to use when rolling dice? You justify it in some places-- like how each point of Strength equals 15lbs of carrying strength or each point of Intellect is roughly equivalent to 8 IQ points (which is a silly description since a lot of people have no idea what counts as low, normal or high IQ). Vitality is used to Calculate your XP but there's no seperate use of the Charm and Dexterity Attribute, only the Modifier. Are you intentionally trying to be traditional to DnD?
>>43907838
>Skills
So Attribute Modifiers don't affect Skills? I guess that's a good thing (because you don't end up in a situation where Intellect and Dexterit are waaaaay more important than Strength and Vitality when using Skills), but because of that I'm struggling at this point to see why anyone would ever want to put points into, say Charm when Charm doesn't appear to affect the Speech or Bluff skills in any way.
>Starting Gear
Like >>43904399 pointed out, you got your order of operations wrong, so your calculation is hard to understand. Also I find it very odd that you don't encourage random character rolling, but you DO encourage random gear rolling. Why the difference?
Is there any downside to wearing heavy armor or is heavier always better?
>Combat
Fairly straightfoward d20 stuff. It is concise, which is good, but in its conciseness it's not really giving me much to get excited about. I've read a hundred d20 games and most people playing this will have done the same-- all I can say is that it's proven to work so it should work, but it's not giving me a really compelling reason to play it.
>Death
Are there any modifiers you can add to improve your death saves?
>Action Economy
I disagree with >>43904485 that the 3 Action Economy is arbitrary and gamist. In general, one of the things I like about this project is its clarity-- it doesn't obscure rules behind a bunch of purple prose, but focuses on making sure that the player knows exactly what he needs to do and can do at a given time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
>>43907874
>Dieties
Oh wow that was sudden, jumping right into world building. Some preparation would have been nice.
>Kefka
Yeah what >>43904485 said. Kefka is creepy and not in a good way, between the skimpy armor and her encouragement to her follows to basically "Go Forth and Rape". It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Even the Greeks, who were allll about their gods basically raping all the time, never went so far as to say that any of them outright encouraged it.
>Esvent
Also creepy, as was stated before. There's really no reason to include the "especially the young girls" part unless you're intentionally making him out to be the god of pedos. Removing it loses nothing, keeping it makes me not want to play your game.
>Nosajj
Okay this is better, I like the idea of Not-Thor literally forging the shape of the world with his hammer. Very mythic.
>Clifordio
I'm sorry but this one just made me laught. GOD OF LAVA. WORST GOD EVER. So he's...the devil, I guess? Why would anyone follow the God whose only purpose is to punish the dead? Also is Lava so important in this setting that it needs to have its own diety?
>Jozhia
A little on the nose here. Does he watch out for the fools, protecting them in their idiocy, or does he enjoy throwing banana-peels on the floor in front of them?
>Shoj
God of Guns. I can dig it.
>Abilities
Okay I appreciate that you have a nice mix of Martial and Magical abilities here, but the variety needs some work. The Level 6 Physical ability, for instance, is only useful if you have an axe, but there are no such variations for any other kind of weapon. The Deflect and Parry abilities don't really make much sense to me anyway-- they reduce damage, but the descriptions would indicate that you're blocking the damage entirely.
>>43907894
>>43903660
>Skill Checks
Do you really need this much granularity? Why would you even have a character roll to accomplish something "very easy"? Shouldn't they just be able to do it on their own? Maybe give some examples of what sorts of things would fall under each difficulty level.
>Monsters
I feel like your XP rewards are waaaay out of proportion to the needs of levelling up. A character would need to kill dozens and dozens of low level monsters to even reach Level 2, all while only using their starting abilities. You also don't give any kind of guide for the GM as to what monsters are appropriate to send at your players as what level. A Red Dragon is the "King of Beasts", "an incredible challenge" but it only gives 2000 XP, which isn't enough to take characters from Level 2 to 3 and would hardly make a dent above level 6. You also gave them Alignments but I don't see anywhere else in the book where Alignment is explained.
Closing Remarks on Realms of Triumph
>My favorite thing about Realms of Triumph
I like that the game is a classless system. I'm not convinced that the game necessarily has the tools to execute that too well, but I appreciate what you're going for and that you aren't limiting a character to one type of action or role in the party.
>My least favorite thing about Realms of Triumph
Kefka and Esvent. I don't really want to play in a world where people worship those dudes, and it kind of taints the entire product to be honest.
>Would I play Realms of Triumph?
I mean it's not really a complete work, but it also kind of is because all the rules are in place so I'd have to say no. It's not really doing anything different from DnD or Pathfinder or 13th Age or any of the hundreds of other d20 games. You need to find some kind of hook, something unique mechanically or thematically to draw the reader, player and GM in. Otherwise there's just very little incentive to play.
>>43902531
Here's how the One Roll Engine, which is the system that I'm using for my homebrew, handles it.
>Step 1: Declare
Everyone Declares what they are going to do during the round, starting from the character with the lowest Sense to the highest. Ties are resolved by comparing Perception and Mind, in order.
This means that characters with high Sense will know what the characters with lower Sense will do and can prepare their actions accordingly.
>Step 2: Roll
Everyone rolls their dice at the same time. The roll is a pool of Stat + Skill, and the goal is find matched sets. A Set is described as the number of matched dice in the Set (called Width) x the actual value of the dice in a set (called Height). So a Set of four 7s would be written as 4x7. Generally each player only uses one Set from his roll as representative of how well he did, but under certain circumstances he can perform Multiple Actions and use additional Sets.
>Step 3: Resolve
Everyone compares their Sets and that determines the order which things occur. Sets with greater Width (i.e. a larger number of matches) go first, and if they have the same Width then priority is determined which greater Height (what the actual number on the dice is). Characters can influence their position in the Resolve phase by taking a -1d penalty to add +1 to their Width for speed purposes, allowing themselves to go faster at the risk of making their action less successful.
>>43905300
To be fair, if you're naming characters after final fantasy characters, you deserve far worse.
>>43907912
It's strangely nice to know I still have work to do. Thanks for the input. Also this is far from a first draft, I've gone through about 10 different versions to get to this one.
>>43908331
Can I ask what your goal with this project is? Because as I pointed out it reads mechanically as sort of a standard d20 game without much to set it apart from all the rest of the projects made under the old OGL.
>>43908397
It's made to be an RPG that anyone of any experience level can learn and enjoy. Kind of a starter game.
>>43908463
That explains it actually-- the game reads very much like a somewhat updated version of 1st Edition DnD. If anything I'd suggest that you back and read that to get an idea of how someone like Gygax introduced people to the idea of roleplaying with dice and paper. It actually still holds up-- it's dated but still fully functional, and it's got a lot of natural ideas that are either ignored or taken for granted (such as the notion that HP has always been an abstraction, not a measurement of how much physical punishment a person's body can take).
Only problem is that I'm not seeing a lot of stuff in the product that someone with a lot of experience would be terribly interested in. It's got the same races as every other game, the same overall roles, a lot of the same skills and magic and most of the same monsters.
If your desire is to make a game that can act as a jumping off point, a starter game, then you approach it exactly as that. Pretend that there is no Dungeons and Dragons, and that you have no obligation to use the same themes and tropes as it. Why is the Red Dragon the king of beasts? Why not have it be a giant spiked gorilla or a living mountain? Why do the classes end at Human/Dwarf/Elf/Halfling?
You're on the right track by making it clear to read and easy to understand, but you have an opportunity to do more than just filing the serial numbers of Basic DnD.
And for a starter game, it has a lot of stuff in it that I don't think will make much sense to a new player, like Attributes that primarily exist to calculate an Attribute Modifier. Why not have the Modifier be the Attribute itself?
>>43908532
We're planning on adding 2-4 more races very soon, including Skeletons, Lamias and Orcs. We're still working on creating truly unique monsters but that's easier said than done. As for the Attributes, we're still trying to figure out ways to make them actually useful.
>>43909167
If you can't figure out how they're useful, why are they there? No offense, it's just kinda the opposite of how designing anything is supposed to go.
>>43909251
I guess it's because they're present in so many major RPGs that it'd be odd if a player used to Realms started playing DND only to be (for lack of a better term) confused by the presence of attributes. I also like them because they help define one's character.
>>43909251
To be fair, DnD struggled with making all of their attributes actually useful from Basic onwards. In Basic, ability scores mainly existed to gate access to certain classes, which was fine in Basic because no matter how bad your Stats were, you could always be a Fighter, and Fighters in Basic were probably the most useful class you could have.
>>43909369
And this is also true. For what it's worth, the traditional Str/Con/Dex/Int/Wis/Cha does a fairly good job at encapsulating the totality of a character. It allows a character who is tough but not necessarily muscly, smart but not necessarily intuitive, clumsy but charming, etc. What you need to figure out is how truly important these traits are to your system. In Basic, the answer was "not really that important" which was good because you generated by rolling 3d6 down the line, full stop. In later editions, those numbers became so important that having bad starting rolls could ruin a character forever.
>>43909369
If the point is for new players to have a simpler version to play before moving to DnD, the first thing I'd chop are the attributes. As far as defining a character, they don't do that any better than the modifiers, since the modifiers are the only thing that have meaningful influence. If anything, they're deceptive, presenting odd-attributed characters as more potent than characters with 1 less when in truth there's no difference.
>>43909565
Oh, nah, I agree that str/con/dex/int etc are the golden attributes, I'm more questioning why they're bought up to 18 just to derive an additional stat in the sub-10s. Just buy up the modifier itself and remove the middleman, there's no hard prereqs in the system for even that frankly silly (true, but silly) justification.
>>43909648
This I agree with. Modifiers are dumb, just use them as the stat directly.
>>43909648
Mutants & Masterminds does this.
>>43910019
Most games that do Dice roll + Modifier vs Target value do, frankly. Having an Attribute Score that exists mostly to generate a smaller Modifier that is actually useful is almost entirely a legacy mechanic from Dungeons and Dragons.
Making a Game for Beginners that uses that mechanic isn't that great of an idea because all it's doing is preparing you to play Dungeons and Dragons. And you might as well play Basic if you want that. It's not the 90s and not everything is based on d20 anymore, so a game designed to be "d20 101" isn't as significant as it may have once been.
Guys help
I started working on setting fluff (it's based on an old NaNoWriMo project) again, and now I'm making an in universe card game for my RPG.
Has anyone else fallen down the rabbit hole while fluffing out your setting? Do I follow it to the end or get out while I can?
>>43910289
I'm curious, tell me more, and to be honest you're speaking too abstractly for me to be certain of what you're asking. Do you think you're going overboard with setting design, and asking if you should keep designing or move to mechanics? Because I'd say spread your time between the two. Invest a bit in one and then when you sense a lull and lose steam or get a good idea for the other then switch.
Hey, could Campfire Tales or anyone else tell me what you're using for card designing? I'm kindof interested in that. I've been wanting to do this grimdark fantasy post-apoc stuff that kinda adapts parts of what I liked in Scrolls.
>>43910337
So, in the original story, 2 characters are playing a card game called Tributaries, a popular game among fishermen and merchants. I kind of cling to ideas like that and want to flush them out, so I started designing the actual card game they were playing.
The issue is that this probably won't have any effect on the RPG, and so I'm not sure if I should bother actually designing the card game or not.
Right now it uses something similar to a normal deck of cards, with different suits (Boats, Beams, Banks and Bars). The actual game plays out... Interestingly. One player is reds (Bars and Banks) and one black (boats and beams). Banks and Boats are "bases", Bars and Beams are "riders". I'm still working in the mechanics of the card game, but the idea is similar to something like poker mixed with solitaire.
My question is should I bother with this admittedly unnecessary game or just stick to what's necessary and come back to it later.
>>43910474
Stick to what's necessary and come back later. Solidifying and correcting mechanics is more important than fiddly bits of the setting, especially for a product that you expect other people to play, because they will inevitably produce their own settings that won't have all the same details that yours does.
Use the card game as a fun diversion if you get blocked on a part of the game itself.
>>43910474
Nah, fuck that. Focus your efforts on making something good, as opposed to... well, ever seen a drawing that has 90% of detail in one body part? Hands, eyes, etc? Overdoing one aspect makes the whole thing suffer.
>>43910545
>>43910539
Thank god you guys reached a consensus...
Admittedly I still have a shit ton of work for the mechanics. But a short distraction could be just what I need. I'd hate to get burned out, that's been the bane of several systems already.
I've come to believe the notion that a game should seek to fill a niche rather than retread old ground, but to be honest I don't really feel I have the kind of inspiration or skill to create something that hasn't been done before.
Basically what I'm about to ask is should I just write a Fantasy Heartbreaker and get it out of my system? Do you think it would be worth it to write an FH if it leads me to some greater idea?
>>43910759
It's true for every creative endeavor that you can't sit around doing nothing until you get The Perfect Idea. If you like writing games, write one just for practice, if nothing else.
>>43910759
What's your heartbreaker got going for it?
Even in the worst games there's usually a spark of something cool and interesting. It's why when I review a PDF I always post my favorite thing along with whatever other critiques I have.
Oh and if anyone else has a PDF they'd like me to review, go ahead and post it and I can take a look.
>>43910759
My game, admittedly, started as an FH, I wanted to pull a lot of ideas from a lot of systems and even a few vidya.
In the process the game kind of came into it's own, from a generic fantasy game to a bit more nuanced game about adventure and friendship that has a very different focus than "go gank fuckers and make money" to "tell a story about a group of companions growing together, and the adventures they share. Also: animal companions are based as fucked, everyone should have them"
Hard:Suit is coming along gradually.
Main Additions:
- Rules for combat outside of a hardsuit
- A weapon table with special rules
- Rules of social actions and interactions
To Do:
- Class skills
- Ammo types
- Crit damage tables
- Fluff
So far with fluff to generalise - A strangereal world where mecha technology found grounding after biological and chemical war made flight and advanced avionics impossible due to the creation of and subsequent biological fallout from 'The Ecozone' (a vast and dangerous biome whose spores and seeds infested the stratosphere) Originally starting as environmental survival gear, hardsuits quickly became weaponised.
Former unions have collapsed in the aftermath and with it many countries have devolved into civil war and petty squabbles. Players take the role of a freshly formed squad of mercenary mech pilots, putting their lives on the line for money, fame, vengeance or sometimes just good ol' fun.
At the moment i'm writing out general country descriptions and with them any special rules starting characters from these places might have.
I've attached the core rules pdf and in the next post the draft lore stuff.
As always i'm open to ideas, suggestions and critique and hope to get some feedback
>>43911329
Whoops, here's the core rules pdf
>>43911352
And the fluff pdf
>>43911329
The more I read about Hard:Suit the more I want to play it. I feel it's pretty connected to its setting, but I feel that works a bit better for mech games than anything else.
I will continue to monitor your progress and chime in if I find anything that seems sketchy.
It looks to me like you're quite close to a playtestable product. Have you done anything on that front so far?
>>43911352
Out of curiosity, what does "C-Beam" stand for? Apart from an excellent Blade Runner reference?
I also like the fact that your beam weapons seem anchored in hard technology. "Fusion pistol" is more evocative of a practical sci-fi world than a more fantastical one.
>>43912303
I was thinking some kind of chemically induced laser but it could really just be anything suitably bleeding-edge technology related.
So, I drew up a list of 3 Weapon Type Customizer thingies (need a better name): Blunt, Axes and Blades.
Basically you start with a basic form of the weapon and have to either find or forge different versions. But they are all built out of these attributes (plus things like specific materials giving miscellaneous bonuses), and those attributes determine their Affinities.
For my purposes "i" will be hilts, "^" will be blades/heads and "*" will be special
Blunt:
Blunt: 1/8
Pierce: 1/10
Parry: 1/10
^ barshaft: +1 parry, -1 piece, -1 blunt
^ Ball head: +1 blunt, -2 parry
^ pick head: +2 pierce, -2 blunt
^ flange head: +1 blunt, -2 pierce
^ spike head: +1 pierce, -1 blunt, -1 parry
^ hook head: +1 parry, +1 pierce, -2 blunt
i covered haft: +1 parry, -1 blunt, -1 pierce
i cocked haft: +1 blunt, +1 pierce, -2 parry
*long haft: two-handed, reach
*top-heavy: +1 blunt, +1 pierce, -2 parry
*haft-balanced: +2 parry, -1 pierce, -1 blunt
*specialist: use might+finesse, -2 blunt, -2 pierce
Thoughts? I can post blades and axes as well, but this should give you a good idea.
>>43912945
Also: is level caging a good idea for feats? Since I'm doing small branches for Traits, I'm wondering if I should lock higher tree traits behind a level minimum to help encourage spreading traits early? Or is it not worth it? Level caging allows me to have disparate levels of power for traits, and assumed levels of things like Technique that they require. Assuming lower level traits are easier to do and require less Technique and stay useful at higher levels, is it worth caging?
Also; thoughts in second tier classes/prestige classes?
Bumping.
>>43912945
reminds me a lot of the Vagrant Story weapon customisation options. Consisted of a 'blade' and 'grip' (blade being just a catch-all-term) the blade had a base damage that when affixed to a different grip changed the blades affinity towards particular types of enemy and changed the type of damage between blunt, pierce and slashing so I guess that might be something you could look at to see how it was done.
I'm thinking of a tank game, stripping out parts of Ad Eva v3 for use; my current puzzle is scaled range vs a hexgrid (I don't think a square one would give enough space for facings). If you just have a flexible scale range like the dark heresy games, this is fiddlier on a table... But, I mostly game online anyway, and R20 has a fairly useful ruler. On the other hand, hexes work fine IRL and on R20, and give a useful fixed measurement for board scales. At present I'm unsure of which would work cleaner for movement.
>>43916509
>someone else has heard of vagrant story
That's actually where I got the idea. Along with the Affinity system, tho that's also tied to the Souls games Weapon Scaling mechanic.
>>43916509
Well the main thrust of VS weapons was grinding affinities for them, and also keeping in mind if there were any special weaknesses on the creature. You wanted, for example, a high dragon affinity spear.
(There was lot more to weapons, but it's been years since I played VS.)
>>43916598
VS was one of the best PS1 era games. The best! It was one of the games that sold Squaresoft to me as a game company to follow.
>>43910871
Here's mine please, if you don't mind. It's a two page set of rules for playing an area control game using a deck of cards and several tokens. I'm mainly worried about if the order of my explanation is too jumbled or confusing, and if any rules are vague or unclear. I'm also writing up a different board game at the moment, should I discuss each part of it here gradually the way others have been doing, or should I wait until I have a full PDF before asking anything?
>>43912945
How do the fractions read again? "1 every 8 points in Blunt"?
>>43916584
It would highly depend on the type of game you're making, and also mostly up to your preference. I know hexes restricts movement to six directions and you can't have a hex have two different terrain types, at the benefit of what you said. How does flexible scaled range work? If it's anything like miniature games, you'd have the benefit of completely modifiable terrain, at the cost of having to measure everything, which might not be a problem.
>>43905624
If it makes you feel any better, I really like it.
>>43916822
Yeah, for 1/X affinity, you get a +1 for every X skill points for the weapon class attacks with that damage type. So a basic blunt weapon would give you +1 for every 8 skill when making a blunt attack, and every 10 skill if using it for a piercing attack.
>>43916611
I want to save things like that for special materials and the like. I also feel like "growing" affinity like that would really complicate things. Right now I'm looking into weapon durability/condition only in so far as special events or a single roll at the end of combat.
>>43916822
I'll give it a look tomorrow.
>>43916912
Thanks. It needs a lot of work though. I need to start putting in names and cities and crap.
>>43916663
This is the truth. That and Tactics were my favorites. Shame they went in a different direction for the tone of Tactics Advanced.
>>43917922
The numbers you currently have are flipped around then, unless pick heads are supposed to be blunt, and top-heavy weapons make it easier to parry stuff. Looks fine otherwise though. Maybe add atleast one +2(uhh -2?) blunt part.
>>43919611
I need a better way to express it, but yes they are flipped, a + is meant to improve the SCOREe which in this case lowers the NUMBER.
NOt super intuitive unfortuantely
>>43919611
And I'm avoiding a +2 blunt part simply because the blunt affinity is already at an 8, so I want to be careful with how low people can take it.
>>43919900
I think as long as you make it clear that "less is good", players should pick up on "negative numbers = improvement" easily. Alternatively, since the formula is "player affinity/weapon affinity = bonus damage", you could have the modifiers affect player affinity instead. Could get confusing though.
I just noticed, but assuming that Pierce refers to weapons that can deal damage even through armor, the word itself implies pointed weapons like rapiers or arrows I think. What are some examples of Pierce weapons that you have? Also, maybe use Mace, Trauma, Force or Impact to differentiate the Blunt weapon type and Blunt affinity?
Maybe give an example on >>43913800 too to comment on.
>>43920996
Pierce refers simply to a damage type. The 3 "core" types are pierce, blunt and edge. They play off of the 3 armor types, Soft, Hard and Hybrid differently. So to crack Hard armor you want Blunt damage, to cut through Soft armor you want Edge weapons. Since a "hit" just means the person has to exert extra effort to dodge an attack I'm doing armor as Hard To Hit, rather than Damage Reduction. And maybe I'll use Impact as the damage type or Mace as the weapon category, for Clarity.
And examples would be like Squires (basic class that refers to a military initiate) going into either Knights (captains), Paladins (Fantasy FBI) or Druids (State-Employed Freelance Detective Spellsword guys)
or Initiates (basic class representing hopefuls to the Thaumaturgic Society) going into Thaumaturgies (Freelance Spellcasters who sell their magic), Druids or Necromancers (Basically a mix of Military Combat Medic and Coroner)
Things like that.
>>43910289
Follow it to the end, then divorce the projects.
>>43921566
This madness, do this.
>>43916822
Let me say first off that I'm not particularly well versed in card games.
>Card borders
This is the first thing that strikes me. It's going to be very difficult to keep track of whose units are whose beyond having four players. 7-8 players? Not a chance. I can pretty much guarantee that it will lead to confusion and arguments.
>Card numbers
Why divide by two and round up? Why not just use the number itself?
>Suit priority
Your Mnenomic device for determining what beats what is pretty clever, I'll give you that.
>Unit suits
How are other players going to know what suit you've assigned to your units? I can see this being very confusing, especially, again, if you're serious about the game having up to 8 players. It's madness.
>Game progression
I'm also certain that the game ending 10 turns after the last card is turned will lead to confusion. Someone will inevitably forget what turn they are on, and it will throw off the balance of the game by ending it early or drawing it out. There needs to be a better way to keep track of time.
>>43916822
>>43926094
Continued
Overall impressions
>My favorite thing about Flip Control
Despite my criticisms above, I actually really, really like the core concept. Creating an area control game using common household items is a pretty great idea, especially since you can bring in some imagination and say that the suits represents mountains, jungles, rivers, etc and the the various numbers different kinds of resources and such. Same with units-- suits might be infantry, artillery, cavalry, etc, whatever strikes your fancy.
>My least favorite thing about Flip Control
Too many invisible variables. Having four players, each with their own collection of units and a commander, means that at any given time there might be 20 different units types on the field, each with distinct properties based on suit and who owns them. I struggle to imagine any group being able to successfully keep track of it.
>Would I play Flip Control?
I would actually, once all the wrinkles are ironed out. It's like Random Risk and I can dig that.
>>43926094
That's alright, any input at all is appreciated.
>borders
I agree that anything over 4 players is excessive and can get confusing, but it is there as an option to allow for larger groups. Plus standard card sizes (2.5 x 3.5 inches/63.5 x 88.9 mm) should be large enough that even larger tokens (Meeples are 45x45x2.05mm) should fit, since they are only partly placed on the card and not completely on it, as long as it is clear section the units were placed in. A card with all players in it would look something like the picture I attached. It'll be busy, but theoretically it should work. Hopefully I'll have an opportunity to try a full 8 player game one day.
I think I'll add the image I just made, plus a mention somewhere that stackable tokens should be used, with coins being foremost as an option, the next being meeples of atleast 4 different colours. Anything else still goes, but they should preferably be stackable. I'll also add something about having atleast 15 - 20mm distance between cards, which should help make it clear who owns whose units on which card.
...although I think I just thought up a mode where the cards are placed as close together as possible and ownership of units that overlap two cards depends on the section of the border that it is on. I'll expand that idea later.
>numbers
To avoid needing excessive amount of tokens. Using just the numbers, assuming a 3x3 grid, with 4 10s, 4 9s, and 1 8, that's a total of 77 tokens, an obscene amount considering the game is intended to be played with extra coins or game tokens lying around. Currently with the same cards, you'd need only around 44 tokens, still a good bit, but it's unlikely to happen. I'm banking on players whittling each other down would mean that there would regularly be less units in the game than there are tokens. Worst case scenario is all the cards that give lots of units pop up and the players explore all of them at once.
>>43926094
>>43926758
>suits
Using coins as an example, before the start of the game, the 5 cent coin is determined to be Hearts, the 10 cent coins represent Spades, the 25 cents are Diamond, and the 50 cents are Clubs. This is true for everyone, nobody can claim that his 25 cent is suddenly a Heart. Definitely adding this example into the document for clarity. Hopefully this addresses the invisible variables part of your impressions too, there are only 4 unit types on the field, 5 if you include the commander.
My worry now is the commander, which is supposed to be a unique token for each player (hairpins, paper clips, Monopoly pieces, etc.). It could get busy if all players decide to put all their commander tokens on the same card. Maybe I should restrict them to only one commander token can be placed on a card at any time, would add an extra bit of strategy, and place importance on the commander token.
>progression
Hmm, that's true. The original draft had the game ending as soon as the last card was explored, but that might be too sudden, especially with no real way to block it from happening.
Here's an idea: When the final card is explored, and after a one round buffer (a round ends after each player plays their turn, I should add this), each player removes one card that they have claimed ownership to at the start of the round. All units on a removed card are lost forever, regardless of who owns them. The game ends after all cards have been removed. That should make for a pretty climactic scramble towards the end, and would also dissuade all the players from exploring all of the cards too early. I worry that it might end too quickly that the players may not have a chance to do anything though. Perhaps it should be done at the end of the round instead?
Many thanks for the feedback, lots of improvements to be made.
Bumping with content:
What I've been working on for the past few days is the system that my homebrew uses to allow for superhuman abilities. They are called Marvels. Anyone familiar with Reign and Wild Talents will realize what I'm doing here: I'm combining Reign's Esoteric Disciplines and Wild Talent's Miracles under one roof.
The attached PDF is the overview of the idea, and I've written up the first half, which covers Enhancements.
>>43929177
And here are the Enhancements.
My goal here is to be able to encompass just about any variation on a Skill imaginable with this system. I'm going to add to the end of this document explanations and examples of the different ways to create Enhancements.
Here's what the thread can do (aside from offering general critiques on style and concept): help me test this by throwing me ideas about mutations, technology, exotic martial techniques and the like that I can then try and build using this system.
I've been writing up some more city backgrounds for Hard:Suit
In summary:
Matrazan (Not America) - Former Southern Union capital. A strong and aggressive business based land that frequently hires mercenaries for trade security. Well made and balanced hardsuit technology but overconfident pilots.
Populdon (Not Russia) - Previously isolated after recovering from a devastating viral outbreak. Hardsuits are a little outdated but reliable with cautious and wary pilots.
Toland (Not Bhutan) - Isolated farm based nation that is close to creating toxin resistant crops. Pilots are humble and Hardsuits have great environmental sealing and specialized equipment to traverse dense mold-scape.
New Edonia (Not UK) - Former Northern Coalition capital. Strong but held back by tradition that dictates tactics. Pilots adhere to a strict charter of ethics and behaviour despite pomposity. Hardsuits are specialised in close combat.
Brinst (Not China/Korea) - Profited off the war by supplying both the south and north in exchange for technology. Now produces superior copies of Matrazan and Populdon equipment while claiming they invented them first. Pilots are wily and vain and Hardsuits often feature bleeding edge experimental technology.
Mosilava (Not Yugoslavia) - Went absolutely mental during the war and split into pro-north and pro-south countries.Now recovering from both a civil war that attempted to remove an ethnic minority from its populace (not kebabs) and Ecozone spore clouds obscuring sunlight.
At the moment i'm trying to think of some more "Not Country" ideas to use as i've plenty of map space.
>>43929368
These look great. You're really hitting what I aim for in my world building: interesting, compelling and pithy. I especially like New Edonia and Brinst, which serve as an awesome cautionary tale that it's impossible to think that you can win a war with pure firepower or that you can profit from it. I especially like the part about how Matrazan just dicked them up hardcore for cheaping out on them. It's great.
Okay, I'm gonna dump a section from my Combat Rules regarding Basic Actions, in hopes that I can root out any confusing or unintuitive mechanics.
Each Round consists of 1 turn per Combatant, progressing in order of Reflexes from Highest to Lowest, ties are decided by either a roll of 1d10 or by a Combatant electing to go after another, if they do so they gain a +1 to all actions that turn.
Once turn orders are determined, they are locked in place barring special events that shift turn order.
Each Turn consists of a Movement Action, a Major Action, up to 3 Minor Actions and an unlimited amount of Free Actions. Free actions may be taken at any time, including on other Combatant's turns.
You are also allowed to take one Reaction on each of the other Combatants Turn as well as an additional Reaction once per Round at the cost of 1 Technique point pet Reaction.
Basic Actions:
Move: Movement Action: Move a distance up to your Speed, provokes Opportunity Attacks.
Shift: Movement Action: Move 5 feet, does not provoke.
Charge: Movement Action: Move up to your Speed in a straight line, but no less than 10 feet, and add +2 to your next Attack. Provokes.
Attack: Major Action: Make an Attack with a Readied weapon.
Withdraw: Major Action: Ready a weapon or item from a pack or other slot, or return one to one.
Utilize: Major Action: Perform a complex or precise task such as unlocking a door or drinking a Potion
Prepare: Major Action: Gain 1 additional Reaction this round that may be spent as normal or as a Major or Minor Action outside your turn.
Sprint: Major Action: Move up to your Speed, provokes.
Interact: Minor Action: Manipulate a simple switch or object, close a door or snatch an item off the ground.
Ready: Minor Action: Ready a weapon or item from a quick slot, or return one to one.
Check: Minor Action: Perform a detailed search of an item or object.
Chat: Free Action: Talk.
Recall: Free Action: Make a Knowledge Check.
Thoughts?
>>43930313
Well, you aren't listing any reactions there.
>>43930488
Oh. Right. Fuck.
Ran out of room in my last post.
Defend: Reaction: Perform either a Parry or Block.
Opportunity Attack: Reaction: Make an Attack.
>>43930313
Up to 3 Minor Actions seems like it would get out of hand, especially Check, which seems like it would us as much if not more focus than Utilize.
>>43930662
Should I swap it to Check does a cursory search and 2 Minors? Or would 1 minor be more balanced? I'm not opposed to lessening the number of Minors available, I just want to make sure players have options.
>>43930713
Sure, of course. I think sticking with 4e's Major/Move/Minor economy should work fine, with the provision that you can trade-in a Major or Move action for additional Minor actions. It's mostly that I feel that having 3 Minor actions available to you on top of being able to move and attack overextends the believability of 4e's already super-flexible combat architecture.
>>43930313
>if they do so they gain a +1 to all actions that turn.
If 3 players tie, would the two latest get +1 and the first does not? If a monster and a player tie, is it only the player who decides who goes first (and who gets the bonus)? It can create an incentive to have players of the same reflexes to get a bonus. Another point is that it's always the same turn order for the players (should their refl differ), might get stale for some, but it can speed up play. >>43930313
>Free actions may be taken at any time, including on other Combatant's turns.
Just a minor question, does any also mean 'during'?
>as well as an additional Reaction once per Round at the cost of 1 Technique point pet Reaction.
Point peR reaction. Im guessing technique points are defined earlier. Sounds like warrior could end up with more than mages, a neat detail, but still something to be watched. Action economy should be carefully considered.
>Minor Action: Perform a detailed search
Doesnt sound so minor. I guess it depends on who long a turn is.
>drinking a Potion
A point made in Dungeon World was that potions are pretty small, more akin to a shot rather than having to chuck a ½l coke.
>Prepare
Maybe include the clause of a trigger.
>Move, Spint
Worded the same. To allow for double move action, but not shift and move?
Is there no way to just "increase defense" beyond using prepare for additional reaction?
>>43930931
I agree with this. With three minors, it is getting functionally close to them just as well being free.
>>43931206
>I agree with this. With three minors, it is getting functionally close to them just as well being free.
Free actions can be take during others turn.
>>43929368
Play up the reliability of Populdons hardsuits. Have a rumor that they remain operable after being left sitting in a swamp for a year.
A Not-Iceland nation could work. Small, in the past thought of as insignificant, they made it through the war by being both neutral and geographically out of the way, and thus had all their infrastructure intact. Now, they are still small, but advanced since they were the only ones developing while the others were rebuilding and shaken by post-war turmoil. Steal a bit from how "Stand still, stay silent" did.
>>43929623
Yeah Brinst is a real shit of a country whose greed in playing Matrazan and Populdon against each other just lead to the complete collapse of their power base. Betting everything on hovercraft and promoting dangerous, untested technology is their latest ploy in re-establishig their former trade empire.
New Edonia has its own problems. Its stubborn refusal to use modern tactics or accept concepts such as controlled retreats, night time raids or hostage negotiation means its stuck in a tactical mire unless the pilots great-grandad did something similar years ago successfully.
I'm thinking some kind of Mongol, Ottoman or Australian Not-land next. Any ideas?
>>43930313
As a player, i'd like an option for Aiming. It could be useful to overcome any range penalties in long-range engagement, or to declare outside of combat just before an ambush.
I propose:
Aim: Major Action: Specify a target within your line of sight. Gain +(not sure, 3?) on ranged attacks for as long as you keep focusing on the target and don't loose line of sight.
Is there really no limit on reactions? It could get a bit ridiculous in, say, a 5 vs 1 situation-
>>43931588
If there was a Not-Iceland, it would still suffer from the ecological devastation of the war. They'd come away in better shape because at least they weren't bombed directly, but they'd also be extremely bitter against the other nations whose conflicts roped them in anyway.
The theme of Hard:Suit it seems to me is that on a global stage it's impossible to remain truly detached from events, and even if you don't take part directly you will be swept along the way.
>>43931872
A more complex variation on Aim might be you gain +X each turn that you use your Major action to Aim. So if you are ridiculous far away you can spend a bunch of turns Aiming to hit a guy better.
What I think is the problem with this is that it encourages dead turns. A turn spent Aiming is a turn that a character doesn't do anything else interesting, which games like this prefer to avoid.
Of course actually using this option is up to the player, but the fact that it exists in the game at all is encouragement to the GM to create situations where it MUST be used, which may not be where UnityDev wants it to go.
Just a consideration. You always need to consider the overall goal of the product when introducing rules like this. Just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's fun.
>>43930313
What about reloading ranged weapons? Would that be covered by Utilize? Is it the same for crossbows, bows, and slings?
>>43932183
Needing to take an action to reload a ranged weapon feels like it would take most of the fun out of using one.
>>43932243
Well it kinda depends on how the combat is paced. I walked in from GURPS land, where two turns to reload a bow is perfectly acceptable. I can see how it gets in the way with combat turns representing a bigger chunk of time.
>>43931057
>"during"
Yes, you can take them during another person's turn or action.
>Technique
Technique is basically a resource that's refreshed each round and is used for to trigger Combat Style Traits like trips during attacks or complex maneuvers.
Mostly the option is there so players can react to enemies who get multiple attacks per turn, which are higher level traits.
>Check
Noted, will change from "detailed" to "cursory"
>potions
Interesting idea. Alchemy is a big-ish thing, so that could use some fleshing out. Thank you.
>move/sprint
Intentional, it's so players can double move at the cost of a Major, but may scrap that and let players "drop" actions to a lower tier Major>Movement>Minor
>increase defense
There are Traits for that, but mostly you're always mounting as good of a defense as possible.
>>43931872
>>43932118
>aiming
A normal ranged attack is assumed to be a slow, aimed attack, Traits allow you to perform Snapshots, which are quick, inaccurate shots.
>million reactions
True, but since without at least a basic Block or Parry against each attack you'll get swallowed in group battles or multi-attack enemies. It's a choice I made in the spirit of fun, punchy combat instead of verisimilitude. No one wants to track how many reactions they get per round, they already have to track Technique per round.
Also, ranged combat isn't super common, since most ranged weapons are either guns or thrown, so a rifleman is really the only one who would benefit much from it.
>>43932183
>>43932383
>>43932243
Firearms are reloaded either as a Free action (hitting a level on the side of their gun), using Interact (pouring a tube of balls into the feed tube) or Manipulate (loading a ball in the barrel). As all firearms are gas-powered a la the Girandoni Air Rifle.
I will look into an Aim action and perhaps a basic Total Defense action though, they are good idea.
I'll probably drop Minors to 1/turn, fix the wording on Check, and do Action Substitution.
>>43932183
>crossbows, bows and slings
On the topic of this, I will probably look into slings as weapons. No one I've played with EVER uses them, so I just kind of forgot they were a thing.
Bows and crossbows however, aren't really a thing in the setting. They just never figured them out until after gas-rifles, and even then they never reach any real form of popularity aside from novelty items for bored nobles.
>>43931057
As for the Reflex thing, maybe I'll scrap that and come up with a different idea. I wanted to play with the idea of volunteering to go after someone to get a small bonus. May not be worth it.
>>43931588
>>43931954
Yeah I think a Not-Iceland off the east coast of the New Edonian landmass could be an interesting addition or maybe somewhere else. Maybe they had remained away from the conflict for.....some reason but was affected by the same unfavourable weather pattern that spread spores into Toland.
I'm not sure how it could be different to Toland though other than being super bitter towards everyone else. Aquatic hardsuits? A long running battle with New Edonia over the newly inflated fishing stocks? (the not Cod Wars)? something completely different?
Ok so the map here has the areas I think could become new places. Any better ideas?
1.Not-Japan? (just in proximity to Brinst (not korea/china) Not-Australia?
2. Not-Italy/Venice/Greece? (used to make advanced avionics and are now super bitter that flight is a dead-end line of research)
3. ?
4. not-egypt?
There's a whole bunch of space near Mosilava that'd probably have a bunch of baltic states in there somewhere
So I'm pretty close to being able to run a decent combat scenario, however I have a question:
How do people feel about "Wounds" as a thing that happens when Stamina runs out? I feel like that way, players just keep stacking wounds/fall unconscious after fatigue runs out. Since death isn't something I want to happen until a dramatic moment like a "boss" if you'll forgive the term.
Since the game is broken up in to small "Quests" between trips to town (it's this phase thing, I described it a while back if anyone cares) I could have players accrue Wounds, basically debuffs that hang around either they get treated at Camp or they get treated back at Town when it's all said and done. Then during the big Showdown, assuming it's a Combat and not a Puzzle or Debate, they would go in with a bigger risk of this being their final moment, and it would be insured to be dramatic.
Example: Carl and his buddies go out to clear a nearby cave of a pesky Manticore. It's only a day or so away, but on the way, the group runs into some wolves. During the fight Carl tries tanking, but neglects to use all the skills he has available and ends up losing a lot of Stamina and he ends up taking a Wound, Ravaged Arm, which applies a penalty to attacks. When the group camps, they can't get it healed fully, so they risk going in with Carl Wounded. When they reach the battle, things go south quick. Carl loses all his Stamina again, and the Manticore lands a Wound, and gets Poisoned. The group is desperate to help, but is out of Unity and potions, and they know Carl is going to go down. So Carl uses his last turn (everyone gets one), to throw everything into his last attack, not bothering to save any Technique for reactions, and then drops. Luckily this tips the battle in favor of the group, even though Carl dies dramatically afterwards, getting a few last words and giving everyone a bunch of Unity for their efforts.
Thoughts?
>>43935447
Fate runs on the same idea. Characters have a stress track that gets eaten up by attacks, and clears after every conflict. If you get a lot of stress during conflict, you may record some of it as consequences, which hang with you until they are treated and then fade with time. Consequences are aspects so they get written up when you gain them, are factual (true) while you have them, and may be invoked or compelled.
If you ask me, the system works well.
>>43935447
>>43936373
Fates injury boxes and stress boxes are a 'clump-ified' hp systemmight be meatpoints, need to reread, either way just a normal health system, but I think the real sweet gravy of the Fate health system is consequences and particularly it's "Taken-Out" mechanic.
As the rest of the system it's deeply rooted into the fate point economy and that probably have to be reworked if adopted.
Im gonna implement Take-Out as a normal action to be taken against minions/mooks and enemies that's "defeated", ie ran out of what you call stamina.
I just realized I use an antonym, Fatigue, to describe my 'stamina' points. Well, the antonym have the same connotations as Wounds, but if I change how it's worded stamina or a synonym might work better.
Anyways, I was thinking of having critical damage ala Dark Heresywhich in reality is not unlike Fate design-wise regarding health, as in minor/major wounds. I was thinking of splitting combat up in Duelling/Outplaying for Fatigue damage and Attack for inflicting Wounds. Still working on my action system, but it gotta fit together with the health system.
>>43937420
Yes, Fate's stress is "clumpified" for a lack of a better word. Each stress box counts for one more than previous, so if you have four stress boxes they are valued 1-2-3-4 points of stress. When you get stress, you must cover all the stress with a combination of stress boxes and consequences (which amount for 2-4-6 stress). When your stress and consequences can't cover for the stress you took, you get taken out. Unless you conceded before that.
Stress is not directly meatpoints, it might better be described as narrative currency to keep you going in a conflict.
(Apparently, Dresden Files Accelerated is experimenting with de-clumped stress, where each box directly stands for one point of stresss.)
>>43937627
>>43937420
>>43936373
So the moral of the story is I need to look into the Fate system? I can do that. Presently I was inspired by Critical Wounds from DH.
Pre-emptive bump
>>43938750
Maybe, if you want to mine for ideas. Your stamina / wounds is working in similar manner. But note that Fate is a narrativist, fiction-first system that eschews simulationism.
>>43939548
I stole my Unity system from a Narrative game so, even in the least likely places one can find inspiration.
>>43929203
Here's a few ideas to try and build, sorry if these don't really fit your setting though. I'll leave the proper explanations for why things happen to you, whether it's science or unexplainable.
Built
A tool which fires bubble like substances, and used mainly as stopgaps for medium sized holes in ships created during space combat.
A bed which temporarily enhances the person's capabilities after sleeping in it. The enhancement lasts until the person gets tired enough to yawn.
A type of food which helps heal wounds faster. Looks horrendous and has an acquired taste.
A book which when read conjures horrific images that terrifies anyone that listen, including the reader.
Learned
For these, try making a version which seems more realistic or plausible too.
A technique where the user takes a pose and fires a wave of energy from their body, with a strength comparable to cannons. The user's physical capabilities need to be at an extreme level to even attempt the technique, though it is not particularly strenuous to the user.
A technique which absorbs electricity/energy in order to temporarily move at the speed of light.
A technique which forcibly takes hold of the target's attention, distracting them with hand movements that the target eye's must follow.
Grown
The user emits a strong odor in reaction to surprising or anxiety inducing events. The user does not notice when the odor is emitted, but can control what kind of odor is produced when they do, whether relaxing or absolutely unbearable.
The user can quickly turn into stone, indistinguishable from the real thing either by shape or texture, but cannot move when they do. When the user dies, the body quickly turns into sand, along with anything on their person.
The user can detach their limbs whenever they want, and regrow them. A faster regeneration however is extremely strenuous to the user, for example growing a limb instantly is likely to cause them to faint.
On the subject of wounds, would it be weird to have them be specific to the creature? Like each monster has a list of like 10 possible wounds they can do, and you roll for them? That way each monster encounter brings different dangers to potential journeys.
>>43941680
It's not a bad idea, but you'll probably need a method to generate a wound list rather than listing all of them out. If your monsters have any traits that define them, you could use that to influence what wounds get dealt.
So I somewhat hate to ask this here but;
Does anyone have those custom lewd homebrew classes that were floating around in those short threads? I believe the system was pathfinder and I'd like to know what got created.
>>43941680
Not weird, but I'd make more sense to have broader wound-types, like "Broken Bone", "Acid Burn", "Strength-draining toxin", etc. So a monster that can inflict Broken Bones could do so to any body part, and wounds get more generalized rather than having to look up creature specific rules all the time.
So, let's say I finish a project. I write out a whole PDF, and it looks nice, and I've even went out and found some artwork that makes it look really professional.
Where can I go to print a single copy as a real book? I want it to look like a "real" RPG book, too.
>>43942139
I'm pretty sure no printing establishment will do single copies due to fixed costs involved. You'd have to take whatever minimum print run they are willing to do.
>>43942139
>>43942159
I'm pretty sure there is such a thing as "Print on demand", a specialized type of service that does just that. I've never had to use it, so I don't know any good companies, but hey, google.
>>43942159
On second thought, it might actually be possible to make single printed copies, due to how deep digitalization goes these days. But I've no idea of costs involved.
>>43942191
>>43942177
>>43942159
Dang!
Found a company called "book baby" that will do it for 79$!
>>43942289
Shiit, that's expensive. But might be worth it to have a nice-looking book. Out of curiousity; Is it hardback? Full colour? Number of pages?
>>43942331
You get a single hard cover book with full cover.
I have a game that I've worked on since I was a kid. Mechanical, it's not the best, but I would totally get a single copy to look at am reminisce. It would be an interesting piece to my book collection.
>>43942413
Oh! But they have a promotion where you get 1 copy for 19.99
>>43937627
>Stress is not directly meatpoints
Just took a peak, stress is separated into physical and mental. I definitely need to read the entire system thoroughly soon.
>>43935447
>they know Carl is going to go down. So Carl uses his last turn (everyone gets one), to throw everything into his last attack, not bothering to save any Technique for reactions, and then drops.
Gotta love the heroic death trope. Im gonna built in rules for that, probably gonna take heavy inspiration from Fates Taken-Out and Deathwatchs Heroic Sacrifice optional rule. Gonna mold the rules such they are for the player to control their own fate/defeat but also defeating finished enemies. It's meant to allow the player to show-off and prove he's badass.
>>43941680
In my early draft here of the health system I have minor and major wounds.
Minor; Arrowed, Bleeding, Bruised
Major; Pin-Cushion, Broken-Limb, Deep-Cut/Bleed-Out
Minor wounds could be 'easily' tended to, but major wounds take serious care.
I considering incorporating conditions, like Knocked-off-Balance, Prone, etc into the wound system, renaming it to Consequences. Let it be things to overcome, prone: get up, bleeding: tough up, Off-Balance: dont got time to regain balance and upgrade it to Prone while dishing out some Consequences to the enemy.
>>43942109
Those kinds of wounds probably need a lookup. An idea could be to put it in the monsters own section. When you have a hellhound that drool acid and no way for player do actually do acid damage, it's not really a broad wound type.
>>43940402
Some of these can definitely be done, but a few others are outside the purview of the Enhancement system and fall into the category of Powers, since they aren't improvements or modifications to Skills but instead are holey knew abilities. They've definitely given me something to work on though, thanks!
>>43942098
This 5e class was my contribution. I tried to keep the magical realm as subtext for the most part, so you can play it as a straight body horror thing. I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a group that would okay it though.
>>43940402
>A type of food which helps heal wounds faster. Looks horrendous and has an acquired taste.
Asclepius Pear (9 points)
>The Iconian civilization engineered these wonders before they entered Transcendence. A lifeform eating one will experience a marked improvement in his natural healing abilities. The downside is that it only grows in sulfur-heavy soil, which results in an extremely unpleasant taste that is nauseating to most carbon-based life.
Built/Biogenetics
Effect: When ingested, this Enhancement allows a person to ignore all Difficulty when performing a Healing check on the eater and adds +1 Width to all Healing and Medicine checks that targets them. The effect lasts for 2 hours after eating. A person's body can only metabolize one portion of this Enhancement every 8 hours, and it requires passing an Endurance check to resist suffering from paralyzing nausea during this period (this condition is ignored if a person successfully consumes an Asclepius Pear 6 times without failing an Endurance check)
>>43944621
Updated version
Okay got a question. A question about FORMATTING.
Take a look at the PDF that I attached here: >>43929203
On this PDF, each page has the same Header, which covers the chapter as a whole.
Now look at the revised version attached to this post.
What I've done is learned to use Sections. So the header for each page is the title of the Section. That way when you scroll down or flip through pages, you always know what Section you're reading. In particular, starting on page 4, the header changes to show the point value of the Enhancements being shown.
This has the advantage of the reader always knowing exactly what they are looking at, but my worry is that it's too busy. Anyone have thoughts on the matter?
>>43945039
It doesn't really look any less busy than the original, if anything I didn't notice a few of the section headers in the first pdf due to confusing it with the "Enhancements" header. I'm gonna have to steal this technique for myself.
While we're on formatting, the large bolded Step 3 text looks odd without any smaller text beneath it before jumping to 1 Point Enhancements.
>>43945039
It's probably be gonna be a really good thing once you put the pdfs together, but right there it only added to the confusion really. See picture for why.
I'd change the font (maybe), make it smaller, right align it and drop the line. It's not key information, just a small reminder. There's enough lines already, it's a harsh separator of the text, making one believe it's a new section, when it's really just a continuation on the next page.
Once you change it up a bit, it's gonna be a really good help.
>>43945039
I can't straight off recall any product that would have used repeat section markers in page headers. To take one easy example where they could have used it would be D&D spell lists, repeating the level category, but they don't.
Chapter indicator however can be seen in just about any edition of D&D. That's something only in bigger page count products though, looking through a bunch of ~40 page pdfs none bother putting a chapter indicator on their pages.
>>43945432
Yeah I agree, I'm going to edit that.
Here's how to do it with Word 2010:
1. On a page where you want to change the Heading, move your cursor to the beginning of the first line.
2. Go to the Page Layout tab, select Breaks, choose Section Breaks and click Next Page. Do this for each page where you want to start a new header.
3. Click on the header that you want to change. If you've created a Section correctly, you should have the option to unselect "Link to Previous". This allows you to start a new header that will run until you repeat this process for a new section.
>>43945552
Well I am trying to put together a more polished product, so I'm considering the overall look and flow of the work as I'm writing down rules and such. The actual idea does come from a real product though: the Reign: Enchiridion handbook uses it along with little indicators of how many pages each section goes. I've attached an example which also shows the chapter name in the footer, which I'm also using here.
>>43911352
In classes, does
>choose two abilities
mean you get "Force" and two others, or that Force counts as an ability?
>>43945754
You'd get 'Force' and then choose two other abilites
>>43945432
>>43945538
>>43945552
The attached PDF is a slightly updated version. I changed the header wording so that when a section is continuing onto another page it says so, and I removed the divider lines from the continued section headers. The font is also slightly smaller. Let me know what difference, if any, it makes.
>>43942109
My thought is that since you'll already have the Info for the creature out,'it'll save cross referencing. There'd just be a list next to their stat block.
>>43943681
It's a good trope, and one of the few ways you can kill a character without the player getting annoyed at all the effort going to waste or them just not investing at all.
Right now I have status effects of Prone (can't move without standing first), Hindered (penalty to actions), Stunned (can't use major actions) and Bleed (Doubles Stamina loss).
>>43947753
>It's a good trope, and one of the few ways you can kill a character
Doesnt have to be killing. Fate uses its rule to handle nonfatal take-outs as well.
>Bleed (Doubles Stamina loss).
Neat way of doing bleed.
>>43948181
I just meant in general.
And yeah, I didn't want to do a DoT mechanic, helps keep down on book keeping. I'm also considering adding Dazed (can't use Technique) and Drained (penalty for being out of Mana)
>>43948587
How are you handling Mana in general? Is it a bookkeeping thing? Are there variable costs for magic or is 1 Mana = 1 Spell? And does it mean you aren't using 4e's At-Will/Encounter/Daily economy?
>>43949641
Right now I'm pulling a system from a [spoilers]quest[/spoilers] I ran, which does entail some book keeping. Most spells are utility things you would use before or at the beginning of a fight, or during an Event. Things like Sharpen, Light, Enhance Senses. Think Folk Magic from Runequest 6. Basically anyone can do basic things, but higher edge stuff is controlled by the State. Even then there are few instances of throwing Fireballs and the like, most stuff is pretty reasonable. And since Everyone has Mana (barring some races) and it acts as a natural Barrier, spell casters aren't usually the bane of Martials, and since it doesn't cast from HP Spellswords don't get gimped.
The basic process of casting a spell is:
>Draw the related Sigil on Vellum (or any other animal matter) using metallic ink
>say the trigger word
>Spell burns up the the closest Sigil that corresponds to the word (VERY painful if written on flesh) and pulls Mana from the one who speaks the word.
>Spell is cast originating from the Sigil.
Usually combat mages will have some way to drain Mana from foes or look for vulnerable foes such as other casters. They also usually have an assistant to do the Marking for them so they can have their hands free to fight.
That's why Humans had so many slave races in the past, with Elves the most recent and Half-Sentients before that. They have all since been freed, usually related to a big war in an attempt to get willing Allies.
>>43949641
And as far as AEDU? I liked it for balance, but I wasn't really sold on it.
Drafted out a crit table for disabled and destroyed
body part effects. I'm Not sure about how beam weapons critical damage might plan out.
No dying.
What's a good "starter" enemy? Something I can just throw a varying numbers at the Level 1 person or party to gauge how the mechanics are meshing? I'd like to avoid the whole "goblin" thing, but I'm torn between Giant Rats, Wolves or some kind of simple Bandit? Alternately I could just write up a Generic Statline but that wouldn't tell me anything.
>>43954664
Simple bandit sounds good to me. "A fighter in similar physical condition but barley competent skill."
My fine friends, I could use a little advice for a homebrew. I'm doing a dark fantasy dice pool kind of thing, think World of Darkness but with better combat.
Here's my dilemma:
Now, the basic system I have in mind is Attack Pool - Passive Defense (to keep the dice pools from getting to Exalted-level bloat), but dice pools favor the attacker in this scenario. Is there a way to "even the odds" without using straight-up opposed rolls?
Okay /hbg/ I need help on my system.
I made a super simple 4-stat based system and essentially the dice are for the difficulty while the stats act as safety nets.
To succeed you just need to get a higher number than the die
Example
Stealing the keys of a drunk men is fairly easy so roll a 1d5+Your agility skill. If the result is higher than five you succeed.
Problem is I don't know how to apply it in combat.
Can any anon help in making a super-simple combat system? main stats are Strength, Charisma, Mind, and Skill. Need for it to be based more on common sense than anything else, that's why I'm so reluctant in having base HP or something like that.
>>43951170
How do beam weapons work in Hard;Suit? Super hot lasers which melt anything they hit, or light that has mass and energy?
>>43955378
Mind explaining how the system works in a situation and why the dice pools favor the attacker?
>>43955515
The most common mechanic I see that is similar to yours is roll over x to hit, something like 1d20+Strength, 10+ hits. If you don't want to use any kind of HP, you could keep things narrative instead of having complete stats and let the GM determine when the enemy is defeated.
>>43954736
I think I'll make a quick Thug and maybe some kind of Wild Dog, to test some ideas for Animal Companion stats. I want to get Combat Basics down and then I'll move on to some other things like hard stating Races and Classes
>>43955378
The passive defense could remove dice from the pool.
fun fact
the delete function is working again!
>>43908114
Unless your dice mechanic spits out two numbers like ORE does that won't work.
That being said, three in every four homebrews I've started writing has been cut short with "fuck it, I'll run it with ORE." I fucking love that system.
>>43902531
If you use a pool system, one controller sacrifices a die to win the tie. If they're friendly they simply resolve the tie naturally (whoever wants to act first can - if it's two players, they can discuss it, if both combatants are controlled by the same person they simply choose) and if the combatants are opposed, one must sacrifice a die. If both are players, it's the first to declare it; if one's the DM, the player can choose not to do so to forfeit and the DM-controlled combatant must sacrifice (forcing their hand, essentially). That sounds really convoluted, I know; I'm trying to write it better in my own system, but I'm having trouble with the wording.
>>43955378
If you're attacked you can at any time drop dice from other pools to defend yourself, sacrificing capability for survivability. This depends on you actually having dice available and not bummed-out at the time of the attack, so you can overcommit and not have the dice to defend yourself. Let them roll against one another if they choose, or sacrifice dice at a 2:3 ratio (every two dice you sacrifice is 3 dice from the attack, rounded down).
>>43954664
I think bandits would be a good idea. Its flexible enough that you can roll in other things to test, such as racial mechanics, weapon stats, and such.
>>43960940
>Unless your dice mechanic spits out two numbers like ORE does that won't work.
>That being said, three in every four homebrews I've started writing has been cut short with "fuck it, I'll run it with ORE." I fucking love that system.
Yeah I mostly posted that to pimp ORE, since as far as I'm concerned it's not played by nearly enough people.
What ORE games do you play? Hardly anyone in this thread plays them so it's a little tricky to get mechanical feedback on a lot of the stuff I post, since most readers will think I'm talking gibberish.
Is Roll & Keep based around d6 with 4 being a simple success a good idea?
The game is meant to be low-scale investigation (I'm hesitant to namedrop 'Noir' because it's a super specific aesthetic most miss) with minor supernatural elements, so I'd say the range d6 gives should be okay, and R&K means it'd probably cut down on the usual BUCKET 'O DICE issue.
Thoughts?
>>43962816
And now you've hit upon the core issue of most homebrews and new systems in general; People play way too few different games.
If everyone trying to make a new game had at least one campaign of Spirit of the Century, Legends of the Wulin, Apocalypse World, and REIGN under their belt things would look much better.
>>43963106
Havent tried running a investigation game, but I know that a system that's designed to handle it, because handling glues needs special treatment compared to ordinary rpg challenges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUMSHOE_System
For roll and keep you can use anydice.com to look at statistics. Use the
output [highest Y of Xd6]
to make XkY. Another way is to
output {1..Y}@Xd6
If you wanna include exploding dice make
output {1..Y}@Xd[explode d6]
>>43963126
I agree, but most of us gotta settle with having read the systems, and that's barely enough. Maybe we should make a list of iconic rpgs that's good to have read, or even go a bit further and make some summaries over the good and possibly bad stuff.
>>43963298
>I agree, but most of us gotta settle with having read the systems, and that's barely enough. Maybe we should make a list of iconic rpgs that's good to have read, or even go a bit further and make some summaries over the good and possibly bad stuff.
Include Synnibar as an example of "this is how not to make a homebrew. Do not be Raven c.s. McCracken."
>>43963298
A list of RPG systems along with their core mechanics and short comments on both the pros and cons and systems would make a pretty nice pastebin, and helpful for budding brewers to look for inspiration. Might strengthen the impression that only rpgs ever get discussed here though.
>>43963555
Or possibly an editable google doc.
>>43963618
so someone should start one
basically a google table with links to doc on the columns for easy referencing
>>43963630
I'd definitely contribute some system knowledge.
>>43964630
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXquCh4NZ74xGS_AmWzyItjuvtvDEwIcyqqOy6rvGE0/edit
Dont use google docs much, but here's one.
So I'm doing out the basics for races, and I'm doing 2 positive Traits, one bonus to a skill and one negative trait, but I'm at a loss.
I can't think of a Negative Trait for Humans or Bastlings (otter/cat people who live in and around rivers). I want them to be things that tie into the actual physical makeup of the races rather than things they would get from their culture, but outsider culture is an option.
An example of a race I have done is Dwarves
Dwarves:
+Friend to All: Despite a Dwarf's personal demeanor, the base assumption is that Dwarves make fast, reliable friends. This works to their advantage for traders and merchants, as well as for less honest sorts. Dwarves get a nature Advantage on Sincerity and Perform Checks for first impressions.
+Wanderlust: The desire for adventure is as innate to a Dwarf's psyche as the desire for food or water, as such they are born with a natural ability to figure out where they are and how to get back to where they were. Dwarves can always locate North and gain Advantage on Survival checks to find their way.
+2 Sincerity
-Small: Dwarves are of a naturally diminished stature, and while that rarely deters them from a fight or adventure, it can make certain tasks difficult and most armor must be specifically sized for them. Dwarves are at a Disadvantage when using Reach Weapons and can not use Armor sized for normal races.
So: thoughts on races? What are good disadvantages for Humans and Bastlings?
>>43965432
I've requested access, but you should really make it viewable and editable by the public.
>>43965527
I remember the humans having some being-good-with-animals-trait, what else do they got? What does bastlings have? It might help.
I think I got it now
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXquCh4NZ74xGS_AmWzyItjuvtvDEwIcyqqOy6rvGE0/edit?usp=sharing
>>43956892
The way i'm thinking Beam weapons work is that they are laser based weapons that cut through the material they hit. Weapons described as 'fusion' are simply guns that fire a beam for a split second, destroying materials the beam collides with.
Sustained beam weapons use a huge amount of energy and a large battery pack is required to field them for an average battles but when used melt most materials, cut through hulls like butter and ignite fires.
I'm also thinking about including specialized microwave beam emitters that invisibly cook pilots and scramble electronics
>>43965786
Humans have Animal Companion (they get a pet), Saddle & sail (balanced while riding or on boats), +Animals
Bastlings have Animal Instincts (advantage to reflex), riverfolk (advantage to swimming), +Senses
Humans take have a habit of trying to use every new race they find as a slave race until some internal faction wants to free them and some war gives them the perfect platform to do so. They are INSANELY good at Domestication, and some people fear that they are slowly domesticating other races. I'm thinking either Human Nature (have to pick some flaw like greedy or brash) or Once Bitten (A disadvantage when dealing with former slave races).
Bastlings are basically Cat/otter-People who are a more stable offshoot of Dusklings. Dusklings are basically humans who are born with a bunch of random body mods like vestigial wings and horns and weird skin color and animals ears and stuff. Bastlings typically come out looking mostly the same, like Mihra from FF mixed with Otter like features. I'm thinking something like Capriciousness for them.
>>43965961
I may have said this before, but I really appreciate that you are giving Humans some actually unique traits, that being something that most game settings struggle with. It makes me think a lot of Lord of the Rings, where humans are shown as being closely bonded with their mounts and beasts of burden.
>>43965961
Some ideas for Dusklings:
Carnivorus; can only live on meat
Short attention span; during any lengthy, repetitive task, the Duskling WILL get desperately bored and try to distract itself.
>>43966420
That was my aim. I usually play humans in every RPG I play, and it got REALLY old seeing them always being a lukewarm cop out. It started to feel like Humans were only in Fantasy games out of obligation. Then I read an idea in a HFY thread about the idea of Humanity being the only species that domestics other creatures, and the idea went from there. This is also why 90% of my races are offshoots or distant relatives of Humans, that way they get to be the precursor race for once.
>>43966444
Carnivorous
I like this, but I'm unsure how to make this challenging for the player to work around, maybe I can roll it and Short Attention Span together somehow?
>>43966518
Oops, forgot my name.
>>43965909
Looking at the other effects, maybe have 7 - 10 do instant death, 4 - 6 is internal fire + destroyed part, while 1 - 3 as stuns, exposed hull or knocked prone? That would make them feel very dangerous due to their penetrating power.
More progress on Enhancements. New stuff is on pages 13-15.
What I'm doing here is teaching the reader how to actually approach building an Enhancement, and the fundamental theories behind not just how they work but why they work and what it means to have them.
How am I doing?
>>43967348
Dang got the point totals wrong on page 15. Oh well, the message stands.
Updated my rules for holding Gunpla Battles using gunpla. First 3 (or I guess 4 at the moment) are the main rules, and is perfectly playable using just those. The rest are extra rules to makes things harder or detailed. Ignore the terrible formatting for now.
Main changes are:
Reduced Battle Phases to only 2 rounds, it was 3 before.
Tried to make determining line of sight be easier by just saying "180 degrees to the front of the gunpla".
You need a lock on in order to deal damage cards now, which you get when a target is in your line of sight for two rounds consecutively. It isn't explicitly mentioned, but hopefully using the coins would help make keeping track of locks easier.
Removed terrain from the basic game entirely and moved it to the Advanced rules, added proper rules for it too.
My main beef with my original rules was every time I see any mecha anime, the battles are always fast and hectic. The Wings of War rules are great for simulating unpredictable movements, but it definitely isn't fast. Hopefully the new rules will help encourage more movement during battles, with the emphasis on avoiding locks and reacting to the others faster.
I want to work on the special weapons and systems next, because listing everything out seems impractical, especially because I've been looking at so many 'create your own thing by combining tags' things lately. So thanks to you guys for that particular inspiration. Any tips on tag systems you may have learned before I continue on?
My current plan is to have several categories, then tags within those categories. Some tags may force you to take a flaw which penalizes you for using the system. Using high powered systems will expend Boost, which are non-renewable and also used to negate damage, thus making Boost valuable and imposes a usage limit on certain systems.
>>43963298
>>43963503
>>43963555
>>43963630
Probably my favorite resource.
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21479
>>43967271
I'm wondering what kind of interesting death effects a beam weapon could inflict after 7+ so far I have as ideas:
>7: Internal fire, -1 CHARISMA Permanently, Panic Test or pilot death
>8: ? Pilot death
>9: ? Pilot death
>10: Atmosphere 1d10 meters around the suit is superheated and expands, nearby suits are knocked prone.
>>43970518
Fuelcells overheats and explodes, chunks of hardsuit fly everywhere, randomly hitting (and damaging) nearby suits.
>>43970653
Filled in the beam weapons and changed explosive damage to be more panic inducing than fire causing
So I rolled up a Test Character and a Thug for him to fight, gave the character my theoretical starting Trait Spread for a Squire class (2 Weapon Proficiencies, 2 Weapon Traits, the rest weren't important for the test) and the thug I just have a proficiency and a Trait. For the Thug I gave him Assualt (+1 to attacks if you attack the same target last turn) and the PC I gave Set-Up (a Parry Trait that gives a penalty to attack next turn for 1 Tech point) and Free-Hand (an Unarmed Trait that gives +1 to Parries for 1 Tech point).
His Weapon Proficiencies were Swords and Unarmed, but I gave him a Knife (Sword Template, Knife Blade, Brace Grip), so he could only perform Techniques with Unarmed moves. This worked out because his Unarmed Style was highly defensive and his Traits were Parry based.
The Thug had a Blackjack and a Shiv (Blunt Template with Shoddy and Sword Template with Knife Blade and Shoddy respectively), but was still getting a +1 from Affinity Bonuses.
The encounter took place in a small Alley, the PC had higher Reflexes and so went first, he Prepared an Attack for when the Thug charged and ended his turn.
The Thug charged, hoping to get that sweet sweet +2 to attack, but triggered an attack from the PC, which was a nice hit despite the Thug's attempt to Parry. When the Thug got his swing he succeeded by 1, but since the PC was using his Unarmed skill to parry he activate Free-Hand and forced a tie, which goes to the defender, he then popped Set-Up to take advantage of his next turn using the second of his 3 Technique Points.
The thug attempted a parry, but between the roll and the Set-Up he had little chance, and was brought down to a measly 1/3 of his Stamina.
On his turn he popped Assault, and landed a light hit, and tried to back off some, since the PC was out of Reactions and Technique. But his choice of venue back fired and the PC had a straight shot for a charge,
Coupled with his Set-Up and the overkill was egregious.
Cont.
>>43971716
All in all not a bad showcase of mechanics, but I did have to tweak how Stamina was damaged, taking it from DoSx2 to DoS, and I need to figure out a simplified way to express Attack Bonuses, Parry Bonuses and Block Scores. I also need to work on Armor so I can see how that interplays with the damage calculations, I may need to move back to DoSx2 if I want any degree of flexibility with armor, as always there is much work to be done. I need to make Templates for Shields, Spears, a real template for Unarmed Attacks rather than just using an existent Weapon Template and switching out the Affinities.
I need to work on guns, higher level combat so I can see how mechanics work together when players have more traits and gear. All this fun stuff.
>>43971716
>>43971809
>forgot my name again
Well that's embarrassing, stupid phone.
>>43971809
Im not sure I know your core mechanic, but I can help with the math if you tell me. Your system have a lot of moving parts, making average hard to calculate, but it's really variance you need to keep track of.
>>43972053
Right now the core mechanic is 1d10+Weapon Style (between 8-14 for a level 1)+Affinity Bonus (usually 1, maybe 2) against either Protection(again, 8-14) +Endurance(4-7) for a block or 1d10+Weapon Style+Affinity bonus for a parry.
Count up Degrees of Success, and add Might(4-7) if they Blocked, Finesse(4-7) if they Parried - the enemies Armor Rating and either Endurance (4-7) if they blocked, Agility(4-7) if they parried.
All the modifiers can be easily written out in a small stat block and each Attack resolved by 1 dice roll (1 each if the opponent parries) to determine if it hits and how much it does.
So it boils down to Roll+ Mod vs Defense, and then DoS+Mod vs AR.
A little ugly to explain, slick if everything is written out.
I have an issue with organization.
Let's use a campaign setting as an example.
How would you organize the details your coming up with for your setting? Where would you start, as far as writing out each detail of the setting? How do you systematically write out a setting to make it look professional on a single document?
>>43973792
There is no answer to this question, sorry mate. I have struggled with it myself.
The only possible solution is to just start wherever you think apporpriate; cosmology/creation myth is usually a normal starting point, followed by races or ethnicity and maybe religions. From then on you'd work on nations, then towns and so forth, going further and further down in size and level of organization.
My only real piece of advice I have is when you start writing, try to find a certain pattern and stick with it. For instance, if you write about nation X you begin with government, a note about religion and military, then the people and a few cultural details. When you write about nation Y, follow the same path. If you start a new nation talking about their culture and then move on to government and then military and then the people and then religion its going to be weird and hard to read.
>>43972248
Been doing some math on the variance for the attack, and my various methods dont agree, but a simplified way of looking at it is saying it's 1d10+1d7+1d2+1d4 to include step two. This gives a variance of 3,71
Is there a roll in
>Count up Degrees of Success, and add Might(4-7) if they Blocked, Finesse(4-7) if they Parried - the enemies Armor Rating and either Endurance (4-7) if they blocked, Agility(4-7) if they parried.
or is it just a simple addition and subtraction, and can DoS be negative from a successful block yet still result in damage?
If yes to both then you dont need the second step, just add the relevant stats to the first roll, rather than having the second step.
But I imagine that succeeding on block negates the attack. This means half of all outcomes will result in zero "stamina progress". Half is of course skewed if unequal opponents. Anyways, the variance here becomes 5 with a simplified view of 1d10+1d7+7+1d2-(1d10+1d7+7+1d2), yet looking at the values a DoS of 7 can easily be done. Weighting the die a bit we use 1d{1..7,1..5,1..3} along with the usual simplified view for 1d4+3+1d{1..7,1..5,1..3}-(1d4+3) for the second step. You can see http://anydice.com/program/7276 a distribution of damage and work armor from there. Included some more as well.
A point to be made, the calculations was made with the stats being variables to look on a more global scale, any inequality will pretty much just push the damage by that amount.
Using 2*DoS opens the space up a lot more, but remember you have a base variance from 2d10 that can result in a huge difference already. A lucky (+6 has 10% chance) comparably strong (net of +5) attacker will get a doubled DoS of 22! This is a crazy swing, but then again, it's Mr Badass being lucky, so I guess it's okay from that point of view.
>>43974377
I'm sure this comes up a lot here. But what do you guys use to make character sheets?
>>43967348
You're doing good, the walkthrough should work. Though you should probably modify the Step 4 explanation to provide a motivation to actually take any drawbacks, as well as make it clearer than all Enhancements must cost atleast 1 point.
>>43968068
This should definitely get added to the OP, lots of ideas that can be used here. Regarding the OP, would you guys prefer it as is with links under greentext, or would you rather a pastebin for each section and have short summaries for each link?
I've been working on making the combat in my next adventure a little more realistic, and I've come up with a system I'm going to playtest in a weeks time. For stuff like damage, weapon cost and other fiddly stuff I'm using Pathfinder as a base. I wondered if any of you lovely people had ideas or critiques.
When a player wants to hit something, they must roll 1d20 and 1d6. The d20 determines a hit, which is treated as touch AC+ worn shield. The d6 determines where the strike hits. The player must call a strike to a body part as they roll. If they call for a headshot, they must roll a 6. To get a torso strike in they must roll a 4 or higher. Legs, arms and weapon are 3, 2 and 1 respectively. Damage isn't rolled, it is just the average roll of their attack multiplied by the modifier for the body part: Head is 2x, limbs are 1/2x and the weapon is zero. If they roll under their called shot they hit the opponent's weapon or shield, and if they roll a crit (natural 20, no need for confirm) they will disarm, trip, deal 2x damage or decapitate (instant kill against most enemies) depending on where they hit. I think this system is more dynamic and exciting than just straight number reduction, and gives players more agency in a fight.
Armour meanwhile functions as damage reduction (DR, roughly equivalent to the AC of the piece in the manual), and can be applied on a body-part by body-part basis. i.e. a character may have plate on their chest and head, and only leather on their limbs. Strikes to those parts are effected only be the relevant piece of armour, and damage is reduced by that stated amount. If the DR is greater than the damage dealt it does nothing except on crit, where the DR is ignored, as is the crit effect. I considered having individual limb health and that inflicting status effects, but that may be too complex and slow the combat down too far. Maybe just for PC's (whom I may make immune to decapitation).
Thoughts?
>>43976111
Sounds extremely similar to my project.
(I don't have a working computer, so I wouldn't be able to share some specifics I don't have memorized)
I like how the mechanics fit together. I roll a d8 to determine absolute hit location instead of the called shots you have, but the rest is almost the exact same. Other differences include locational hp along with locational armor, which is where some of my tactical decision making lies.
>>43975598
Just set up a google doc for resources so you can edit it constantly going forward. Give each link with maybe a paragraph explaining what it is and why it's important, and a list of RPG systems with interesting mechanics. Maybe a second one for wargames and tactics stuff, and one with stuff for worldbuilding, plus the project list as well; although at that point, we may as well just start a website for it.
>>43962816
Unfortunately, the only established ORE system I've played was REIGN. We've run some other ideas using that basis (width for speed and damage, height for hit location) including a Souls-esque experience involving an absolutely colossal amount of hit tables and creature design which I unfortunately have none of the notes for.. loss of notes was why we canned it.
Basic idea was that creatures' hit tables were adjusted depending on seemingly arbitrary factors, for instance if you were to simply attack a wheel skeleton head-on with a high-width set you'd encounter high damage resistance and ultimately deal a relatively harmless hit even with a very good attack, but if you're able to let it attack first with a set good enough to dodge that, then attack afterward with a lower-width set you'd get a boost to damage and lower-body hits would knock it over and render it helpless. Of course it took a lot of experimentation for my two players to find all this out, repeat for most creatures. I only let them discuss tactics around the bonfire, so death and retries were quite important, and I maintained that basis of lose all your XP on death, recover it by defeating the enemy that killed you - meaning you couldn't really grind effectively either.
Rolled sets were open, so everyone knew roughly what could happen, but actions were written on dry-erase cards then revealed afterward. So you had to kind of guess what set would be dedicated to what action when choosing your own, it was a lot of fun. I might work on it again, but it's a pain to write and to run.
Left my name on from elsewhere, guess I'll just keep it since I visit these threads daily anyway.
>>43965961
Rather than just "gets a pet" I'd have that give them a bonus to friendly interactions with not-entirely-hostile animals with some form of taming/befriending system using their Unity between them and a pet. Anyone can do it, humans are just better at it. I haven't actually read your system yet so I'm not entirely sure if that'd work out.
>>43976111
It seems pretty concise and easy enough to do. That being said, I'd have a torso strike be the easiest to land a hit with since it's the easiest to armour, especially with armour as damage resistance; followed by legs and arms on equal footing then the head, and deliberate strikes to the weapon being difficult to achieve (depending on weapon, which also adds in weapon differentiation immediately) but if you've been the victim of a weapon strike you can't parry with that weapon and suffer a malus to attacks on your next turn. Shields wouldn't fall to the defense negation, making them better than parrying, which they should be.
I'd also like to see a locational scatter mechanic for misses with ranged weapons - missing a part can scatter to any adjacent part (using the rolled number for direction, perhaps) and scattering to nothing can hit an adjacent combatant instead, which smoothly adds in potential to hit your allies by firing into melee which is something I personally quite like for balancing ranged combatants. If you fire with impunity into a fight you'd better have some absolutely legendary skills to back it up.
On using PF as a base: remember, nobody wants to ride in your helicopter if it's built out of horse dicks. If you find yourself altering each mechanic as you encounter it, you're a lot better off just ditching Pathfinder entirely than continuing on that course. All ideas here are fair game, use what you think fits.
>>43887900
I'm a little confused as to how zelda type dungeons can be converted to rpg format without becoming tedious
when I tried something similar with my group, it broke down into irrelevant skill checks and mindless bogging
>>43977815
I thought hard about the locational hp, but in the end it would just be too much to keep track of, and I consider it an acceptable break from reality. If the system works very smoothly I may institute it for pcs, but certainly not for un-named enemies. I'd be interested in seeing more details from your system if you find the time. Maybe I could put a d8 in instead of a d6, and keep the values just to make hits easier and to allow for an 8 to be an armour critical (auto ignore armour).
>>43978142
The reason I made weapon, arms and legs easier to land hits on is in my limited kendo and boxing experience they are the things that get hit most- I'm assuming the enemy is actively moving around and trying to parry/dodge. Given people will do anything they can to avoid being caught in the head, preferring to block with their weapon or limbs I laid out the locational values as above. I also want people to have a reason to go for the limbs, and them being easier will help. I think I will keep them as are at least for melee, but for ranged I agree that the torso should be the easiest target. Hmm, I suppose a 6 could still be a headshot, a 1 and 2 could be a hit to the extremities and all others could count as torso (still called). I like the idea of a weapon hit reducing their effectiveness, especially as I envisage it being used when they need someone alive.
As for shields I'm choosing to consider them as another tool the combatant uses to keep themselves taking a hit anywhere that matters, hence increasing AC rather than DR.
I don't know about hits scattering to adjacent opponents, but I would be interested in having a way for hits to fail other than just straight up missing. I really don't want to add too many rolls to each attack as my group has 5 people and I like small mob swarms, and I find some people can get very bored in combat. Perhaps if the d6 roll is only out by one it could automatically hit the next tier down, torso instead of head etc.
>>43978142
As for pathfinder, it's just what I know, and clunky mechanics aside I need a base for cash/xp/health/spell lists which is roughly balanced. I don't intend to be referencing the book except when leveling up and shopping.
>>43976111
If I can make a suggestion, allow the target to modify which numbers on the d6 represents which body part. For example, it is currently:
6 - Head shot
4+ - Torso
3+ - legs
2+ - arms
1+ - weapon, shield.
Say that the target does a blocking or defensive action. You could move the values as follows
Headshots are impossible
5+ - torso
4+ - legs or arms
1+ - Weapon/shields
Something to move probabilities around basically, and influence the result a bit better.
>>43977846
I personally dislike using Google docs due to the "guests" thing it has, which displays the name you used for a google account whenever you view the document. Logging off just for checking the document in anonymity can become quite the bother if frequent enough.
The RPG systems document is already up by the way, here: >>43965849
>>43979506
About google docs; Opening it in a private window (or whatever your browser calls it) is usually less hassle then having to log out and in again.
>>43979506
That's a good idea, I was considering allowing feats or skills which make attacking easier/more controllable for a cost to BAB, having the ability to go defensive would be good too, as a full round action maybe
>>43979506
It's easier to just never be logged into anywhere and not having them remember your logins. If I need to do any stuff in like google I login, do the things, and then log out. And probably restart my browser to kill any lingering cookies.
People looking for a critique on something less than 20 pages? I got time to kill.
Okay I added a write-up for One Roll Engine to the Google Doc. I may have gone a little overboard with it.
>>43978142
Well so far, anyone can get an animal companion, they just have to take a Trait for it (sure you can buy one, but you won't get as many options, it'll count as a generic NPC and not a Companion for purposes of Traits and Unity) and Humans get a very similar trait for free. The Animal Companion Trait humans get basically gives them a head start.
My idea right now is that Human's Animal Companion Trait let's them give commands as a free action, and use Unity and Companion Traits, the normal Animal Companion Trait let's you use give commands as a Minor Action, or a Free action for 1 Technique point. Buying an Animal let's you give commands as a Major Action, and when it's out of Stamina it just dies rather than taking wounds.
Commands are usually big things like Attack That Guy Specifically or Protect That Person or Run. Not individual actions. An animal you haven't given a command to will still try to protect itself or continue it's last given command.
I don't want an Animal Companion to be a bad choice or an Action Sink.
>>43979695
I never knew that, thanks for sharing. I still have some qualms on using Google Doc, but it's mostly personal. I'll try and convert the OP into one soon.
>>43980426
While that is definitely the way to do it, I've become much too reliant on cookies to change my habits at this point. Oh well.
>>43981094
I think it does a good job of explaining the system, though it is a slightly daunting wall of text. We'll probably have to try several formats and eventually gravitate towards the preferred one.
>>43980723
It'd be cool if you could take a look over Hard:Suit
Location >>43911352
>>43978561
My d8 actually covers areas like this:
1) Left Foot
2) Right Foot
3) Left Arm
4) Right Arm
5-7) Torso
8) Head
Each number gets an equal number of hp based on your total hp. When a location drops to 0hp, is unusable. When 3 drop to 0hp it's a kill. For example, your "hp stat" is 20, so it takes 20 damage to incapacitate your arm, and 60 damage minimum to kill. If hp was 10, it'd be 10 and 30. Once incapacitated, body parts are either open for severing (limbs), impalement (torso), or KO (head).
I chose these mechanics specifically because a)I like them and they accomplish what I want to do, and b) they'll translate well to a Monster Hunter module I plan to make. [Spoiler] So not only do I have a base game to design, but also modules for many of my favorite vidya. MH, Pokemon, and LoZ are all on the table. Others might follow. [/spoiler]
>>43980723
It's still in the beginning stages, but I'll never turn down critiqueeven if I haven't done anything for weeks.
Keep in mind there will be aircraft and weapon stat blocks to reference. Having those included will likely make it much more coherent.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-x7vMbcJeXps8ZaeTa2ovoXK2yoB7ICqcEmNKP1dlww/edit?usp=docslist_api
>>43975598
Thanks for the advice. I modified the Drawbacks step to explain why you might want them (specifically: "Drawbacks are negative aspects of an Enhancement—restrictions, limits and caveats that rein in its power. Drawbacks can help to bring an otherwise extremely powerful Enhancement effect down to Earth, and are useful for keeping point costs reasonable.")
I also added two more sections to that guide players through the design process: one for building Enhancements as Equipment, and another for building Enhancements as Disciplines, which allows you to create things like skill trees.
So, I've been fiddling around with some ideas for spells, and this is what I have so far for "unique" spells within the setting. I don't have their Mana cost or any crunch yet. I'd appreciate some feedback.
Spell Ideas:
Imprint: Creates an Imprint of a soul from an object placed within the Sigil. This Imprint is unique and reflects any individual who came in contact with the object within 24 hours. An Imprint will not directly reveal the identity of that person, but any Imprints taken from the same person will always match identically.
Breaking Bond: Removes all Imprints left by the caster within the last 24 hours. All Imprints removed by this spell show as a white circle. Any spell that Marks the caster is also removed
Memory Bond: Creates a perfectly detailed mental image of everything within the caster's line of sight. Through a Focus Test or additional spells, the caster may focus in on specific details or recall sounds, smells and sensations. This memory lasts until another memory is Bonded.
Mana Sight: Allows the caster to see Mana levels of everyone within their line of sight for 1 minute. Higher levels show as blue, lower levels pale to white. Mana Void or Mana Dead individuals do not appear at all. Those with Mana Sensitivity show as Red.
Enhance Senses: Enhances the senses, including balance, temperature and kinetic location. A Focus test must be made every turn, with difficulty based on outside stimuli to avoid becoming nauseous or overwhelmed.
Hound: The first living creature or Imprint in a straight line form the center of the Sigil, within 100 feet, becomes Marked. The caster can gather Imprints of the person from the Sigil, as though it were that person. The caster may make a Focus Test to attempt to locate the direction of the target, within 10 Miles.
Speak With The Dead: This spell targets any corpse laid atop the Sigil. If the corpse's mouth is intact enough to speak, it will speak the last sentence it had spoken in life.
>>43985116
Does your game have a Wizard class, or is stuff like this available to all characters?
It's a pretty good list-- more folklore-y than DnD type "the Wizard wields supreme cosmic power" type thing.
>>43986118
There is a class that starts with magic, but anyone can pick it up with varying degrees of legality.
Honestly the most common types of spell casters in the setting are Thaumaturges who go town to town using magic to make a quick buck or Druids who go town to town solving crimes for the government.
Whoa caught this right at the very end of the page.
>>43983110
Reading tonight, posting feedback tomorrow
>>43984084
Reading tomorrow, posting feedback then or the next day
last bump for tonight
This is not a bump.
I'm facing analysis paralysis /tg/. I need to divide spells in to no more than 6 categories, and then give each one around 6 quintessential spells for that category. What I have right now is something like this, go away, Sid, Wade, and Luka:
Conjuration (Make Something from Nothing)
>Summon weapons & armor
>Summon critters
>Create food and water
Exaltation (Make Something Greater)
>Heal & Repair
>Restore lost energy and resources
>Buff
Malediction (Make Something Lesser)
>Debuff curses
Transmutation (Make Something Different)
>pretty broad. Alchemy. Shape Stone, make objects glow, make warding circles that change the battlefield without regard to enemy or ally
Blast (Make Something Nothing)
Your flashy elemental bits. Fireballs, flame walls, shocking grasp, etc.
Seeming (Make Something Seem as Nothing, Nothing Seem as Something, or Something Seem Different)
Illusions, so things like
Summon Illusory assassin
Morale control
I could probably trim this down, like working blast and malediction together (you make fireball and it /takes health/), but then I feel like I could also mash blast and conjuration together (you /make fireball/ and it drains health). Ideas? Suggestions?
>>43995599
>What I have right now is something like this, go away, Sid, Wade, and Luka:
I don't understand this chain of words.
Looks like an interesting set of categories. I don't think typical attack magic would count just under "make something nothing" though. "Make something nothing" should be about removing something as a direct effect of the spell rather than a potential side effect of the spell being used on something.
>>43995847
Sorry, should have just wrote "Go away, Sid, Wade, and Luka" as the first words of the post, warning my players to not watch me tinker with the magic system. It's been harshly low fantasy up to this point, monsters but no magic, and last night I introduced a rough, shitty implementation of my magic system which I am filled with regret over
Thanks! I agree, I gotta think of a better way to break things up. It's just tricky. It gets harder when you wonder where most divination spells go (Exaltation or Conjuration, I guess).
I suppose I could even go so far as to remove categories altogether in favor of keywords, but I'm honestly not a fan of that.
>>43996068
I don't have much experience with RPGs, but the core concepts of each of your categories is pretty strong, follow those and you should be able to put everything in order. Blast is the only tricky category really, you might need to reserve it for high powered spells, regardless of it being for attacking (turn a radius into void) or healing (completely eliminate an illness). Alternatively you could have the spells be super pinpointed, such as "remove all iron in this bowl" or something. If it gets too tricky to use though then you should probably consider removing or replacing it.
Minor updated version. Fixed some wording, and changed how the Penalty Bands and Ranges were presented. Instead of a letter, its now just a number, but still work the same: measure and for each full amount of the range of the weapon, -1 to your attack roll. But now you can look directly at the weapon stats, instead of looking at the stats and then a chart to translate them.
I want to convert Hellsgate over into the new system, but that will have to wait til later.
Lately I've been favoring the idea of focusing on Hellsgate to be a skirmish game, and use the Aegeos setting for a larger scale game.
>>43995599
Why not try just 3 main spells for each category with an 'upgraded' or better version of it later to create the full 6. These suggestions are more 'base magic' than high fantasy really
Conjuration (Make Something from Nothing)
>Summon a small quantity of an element (a pound of iron, wood, lead etc)
>Summon an item made of an element (steel sword, plank of wood, silver coins)
>Summon animals/insects (a quantity of small creatures appear and will obey their command of the caster for a period of time)
>Summon spirit (summon a dangerous spirit that will obey a set limit of the casters commands before disappearing)
>Summon food & water (create an amount of provisions to satiate one persons appetite, turns to ash in an hour)
>Summon life (give an inanimate object/corpse a facsimile of life for 1 day)
Exaltation (Make something greater)
>Fix objects (repair an item or object to a working state)
>Make an item or object better at its job for a period of time (knife becomes sharper, armour becomes tougher, food becomes tastier and more nutritious)
>Heal (seal wounds, stop bleeding, fix bones)
>Restore (cure mental illnesses, madness, restore a single memory)
>Empower (make muscles stronger, senses sharper, minds more acute)
>Increase the size or mass of an object
Malediction (Make something lesser)
>break objects (an item/object is rendered inoperable by magic)
>make an item or object worse at doing its job (knife is blunted, armour is thinner, food is less filling/nutritious)
>open wounds, encourage bleeding, break bones, spread/encourage disease
>induce madness, memory loss, paralysis
>weaken muscles, dull senses, reduce in intelligence
>Decrease the size/mass of an object
Infliction (Make Nothing from Something)
>remove a crucial element from an object/item (remove the salt from seawater, remove the heat from fire, remove the poison from a body)
>make an object vanish forever
opposite of Conjuration
Mash spells together for added effect
Quick bump while I prepare a post.
Looking for 'Base Type' and 'Traits' tag ideas to make special systems in >>43967872.
Quick explanation, Special Systems are what make a gunpla unique, they provide an action different from the usual move and reposition the rest provide. At the moment they are divided between Weapons (direct damage), Support (things other than direct damage), Booster (boosts performance for a limited time), and Passive (small but permanent bonus).
The tags themselves are divided between a 'Base Type' for the system to be build up from, and 'Traits' which modify the basic stats for the system. Stats are should be self-explanatory, but I'll explain them if requested. There are also Flaws, which are penalties that happen whenever the system is activated, though I haven't worked on those yet. I'll be working on Weapons first and work on the rest on a later date, but I'll accept any suggestions that you may think up, including for any of the other categories. Posting what I have in the next post.
>>44000120
Base Types
Ranged weapon
Damage: 2 cards
Range: <6 strides
Start up time: 1 round
Length: 0 rounds
Boost cost: 0
Melee weapon
Damage: 4 cards
Range: 2 strides
Start up time: 0
Length: 0 rounds
Boost cost: 1
Traits
Wide: Adds area of effect of 1 stride in a direction. All targets within range and in that direction gets hit. Add 1 boost cost. Cannot take Multi-Lock Trait.
Double Wide: Adds an area of effect of 2 strides in a direction. Add 1 boost cost, and take a Flaw.
Long Reach: Add a range of 1 stride. Reduce damage by 1 for each stride added.
Long Reach (High Output): Add a range of 2 strides. Take a Flaw. This trait can only be taken once.
Sniper: Ranged weapon specific trait.This weapon can hit anything that is within line of sight. Take the Increased Lock-On Time flaw, and one other. This system may not take any Increased Damage traits.
Increased Damage: Add 1 dealt damage card. Reduce range by 1 stride for each damage added.
Increased Damage (High Output): Add 2 dealt damage cards. Take a Flaw. This trait can only be taken once.
Berserk: Melee weapon specific trait. Add 3 dealt damage card. Take the Vulnerable flaw and one other. Range is reduced to 1 stride, and may not take any Long Reach traits.
Multi-lock: System hit additional targets. Add a /X modifier to damage dealt, with X being the maximum number of additional targets. X must not be higher than damage dealt.
Increase Length: System stays up longer. Increase length by 1 round. Increase boost cost by 1 for each extended length of time.
That's it so far. I'll probably be separating some of the traits into a 'Universal' category if repeats happen in different categories, but I'll think about that later.
I finally got around to properly writing out my core mechanic (~3 pages including math).
Is the wording clear and complete enough?
>>44000120
You could include mobility-based systems, like enabling roll maneuvers or a dash/jump.
Would this fall under the Support category?
Alright, so, I'm working on the business model for a wargame I want to launch.
Theme of the wargame is fast-paced trench assaults with mechs, game is named Trenchbreaker. I plan to launch with three factions, each of which will have four mechs, several commanders and artillery options, and one unique Infantry type each. Core of the business model is that, while each mech has three Rigs(weapon loadouts) it can equip, it only comes packaged with two of them. The other Rig, along with every Commander, Artillery battery, and Infantry type, is printed on cards that can only be found in booster packs. There's plenty of generic options but also a few faction specific cards, and ideally players will either trade them around, or build up enough of the exclusive cards for one faction that they eventually decide to start playing that faction too.
Essentially, I want to combine the experience of building a deck for a TCG with that of playing a wargame.
Would anyone be interested in a game like this?
>>44003205
This is basically how FFG does X-Wing. So there's precedence in the market.
