ITT: you provide constructive feedback and ideas to the poster above you, and only then do you submit your idea. Only reply to up to 3 people total to avoid the annoying wall of text "I must reply to Everyone" post.
In this way it doesn't become a masturbatory cycle of PC without anyone actually communicating.
My idea:
The fitharm
Runes. The pact ancient.
The fitharm are the people of the letters, who long ago made a pact with the spiritual world for power. In exchange for the ability to call on spiritual power without constraint or need to justify the call like traditional shamans, they would adhere to stict tennents and life styles, tending to the needs of the animistic world.
This deal was struct by the spirits of law and negotiation on behalf of their peers, and the runes are the literal words in that contract. The relative worth of the materials used in the rune determine the power of the effect.
For example, you can scratch a rune into the dirt to call water, but you'll get a handful of drinking water at most. Carve that same rune into a gem encrusted platinum plate, and you'll get a flood.
This tradition is a closely guarded secret as it requires strict adherence to the rules of the contract. Violating the deal impacts all practitioners in some way, so they tend to police themselves heavily. Rarely are outsiders allowed to take up this magical contract for this reason.
>>47665746
I think it'd a relitively good magic system. The relative value to effect sort of thing seems somewhat arbitrary, but it justifies a lot of stuff, like why rare artifacts are treasures instead of just wood, etc.
I'm assuming this is just a method to create a nice magic systems for enchantments.
>>47665820
Thank you. Yes, it's just one system out of many, and it comes from a culture of noted warriors. Relying on magic to do the work for you is considered weak, but they see the runes as a craft , much like smithing out carpentry.
>>47665954
I would have asked you my own question but I'm at work, I'll let somebody else take thread question foe me.
Here's a question for the thread since nobody else is;
What is a good breaking/smaller unit for dollar bills in a gonzo magic city setting? For background, the city's dollar bills look like monopoly money but cannot be burned or stained, they cannot be chemically altered somehow. But I wasn't really sure I wanted a breaking unit to be made by the city council government- so instead I was thinking ciggerettes and casino chips might be used instead of cents as a way to enforce the noir or gritty sleeze.
>>47668605
Houses and hotels from monopoly?
Marbles, I understand they come in several different sizes, they may also have been popular during the time period you are trying to emulate.
Bullet casings and actual live rounds? Obvious example is that they may be worth more than the currency you are using, so spent casings might be more useless, but that assumes there is a massive supply of them otherwise it values them higher, per unit, than the currency they represent.
>>47669265
>Marbles
>using colorfull marbles of many sizes and colors as money
that soundsbeautyfil
heres my idea, i want to make a game where the elfs are brow sluts and the orcs are green honorable savages.
>>47672844
That sounds incredibly generic and, while solid, something I would absolutely try to avoid. Might I suggest making the orcs into gray-skinned industrialists, and the elves into Pacific Islanders?
My idea is a character who has pledged himself to pursuing the love and affection of a lady that has actually found love in the arms of another (he doesn't know this yet.) I don't care for the cuckoldry, but I do enjoy watching my characters suffer until someone tries to inject hope and happiness into them.
>>47672966
That relationship could easily become a polyamorous triad or v. This is a dynamic you've never seen in fiction and could make a great character development as long as your table doesn't speed about it.
I have no new idea since I'm op. Next person can just critique anyone else here.
>>47672966
You remind me of my players.
Each time I start a campaign they tell me how they want their character to suffer this time. It's starting to depress me.
bump for more
>>47665746
The secrecy of the tradition interests me somewhat, especially since things that are "written in stone" might be hard to hide without lots of effort. It gives a good reason for them to look for rarer elements; but if they commonly use them, how do they justify this to the outside world? Or do they mostly write their runes on less-rare materials?
>>47672844
If the elves are brow sluts, does that mean they have huge eyebrows? I like that. Eyebrows are often ignored in character design, and I think it'd give your elves lots of personality.
For the orcs, think of exactly how noble and how savage you'd want them. What are their feelings about the technological achievements of other races in the setting - shunning, curious, afraid, misunderstanding? Are they savage as a choice, out of tradition, or simply due to seclusion from other groups? Is their greenness relevant to their culture, as a source of pride or shame, or is it simply another attribute to them? Do they vary in greenness? Familiar concepts are not bad, but it's how you twist them that make all the difference.
My ideawhich is more for a vidya RPG I'm hacking together than a traditional RPG because I'm a total plebis that many mechanics revolve around money. The majority of spells and special techniques are cast by spending money. Defeating a foe or performing well in something doesn't net you any EXP, but cash; at designated points, cash can be used either to level up (through paying for lessons) or to purchase attribute-improving items. There may be certain goalposts in the plot where, rather than having to collect plot tokens, players are required to pay money to proceed; or they could possibly use bribery as a way to avoid encounters or twist them to their advantage. Falling in an encounter results in significant loss of cash on-hand, but running into an encounter with barely any money gives less options for specials.
>>47678580
Its a plausible idea simply because spending a form of points to improve your character is a core fundamental of most RPG systems.
Your challenge will be finding an interesting way to build a character using one source of currency and whether or not that character is trying to improve himself on a budget and thus has to make harsh in the moment decisions about replacing his amputated hand with a rocket fist or getting reverse jointed jumping legs to get around the next roof top running mission.
Check out some different money systems, Odin Sphere comes to mind as the only game that made you track your individual coinage(since certain rare coins could be used for something that normal ones couldn't).
Darkest Dungeon also has a lot of character choices via cash, you've got one big cash pool and a lot of characters to take care of, weapons and armor to buy, skills to learn or improve, behaviors to encourage or decourage, diseases to remove and stress to relieve.Rereading your idea it reminds me a lot of Outlaw Star, "Hey Gene want to go mine out 3 asteroids today? They'll pay us 5,000 a piece" "Nah, lets just go fight the super enhanced murder cyborg thats wanted by the locals instead"
I don't really have anything I need feedback for, at the moment, I'll just take an IOU
>>47678580
>Money for training.
>Bribery.
Combine them. Make the available trainers NPCs, and the more time and money you spend with them the more helpful they will be story wise.
Consider making the time you spend a cost too. Like you can get lucrative but time sensitive procedural quests, and spending time training has an opportunity cost.
On money, consider the option of money as an incentive for some open gameplay. Like the money's there whether you fight your way to it, talk/bribe your way (taking a small hit for an easy victory), or sneak/climb/puzzle over to it.
>Money is XP AND MP
It's not like your medium is all about immersion, so it could be fine, but pulling xp and mp from the same pool rarely works well in practice. People can be drastically underleveled if they blew their load on spells. And worse they might end up having to blow more cash on spells to keep up to par. This can create a vicious cycle if not done carefully.
You could tie an additional resource back to money. Maybe a "debauchery" bar that fills as you spend is used to cast stuff. This could also create an incentive to make a bunch of small purchases if you're strapped for gold (so you can't buy the big stuff) but need debauchery.
>Checkpoints
Maybe each area has merchants with progressively higher level shit? Maybe getting to the next level costs a shitload of debauchery to discourage players from grinding, carrying a bunch of gold with them to the next place, and exhausting merchants too early? But also as a gameplay incentive to spend coin on bullshit and partying between clearing challenges and have it feel rewarding rather than wasteful.
I'll also second the other anon about the party dynamic thing.
>>47681955
Thanks for the suggestions! I like the idea of individual coinage, it could add some variety to the techniques. Also, you've made me take character building and party dynamics into account a bit more; I always had roguelikes (in general) in mind, but that gives me something to look at for a good way to handle resource management and character attributes.
>>47682239
Time-sensitivity is a great idea, thanks! I do want to avert situations in which players are stuck without cash or forced down a path when they're weak, so time-sensitive quests that pop up randomly could be a neat way of encouraging them to take some risks (and, like the other poster suggested, make harsh in-the-moment decisions) without making it impossible to proceed.
Just to make sure I get you on the next point: you're saying that it's important not only to have multiple locations where players can make cash, but different ways of grabbing it? Maybe as well, there can be situations where it's possible to steal cash, but avoiding it will sometimes provide opportunity for cash later?
I was always afraid that there could be situations with players ending up stuck. Just for reference, what other games have used xp and mp the same way? My own ideas for fixing the issue at first would be making previous levels always available to help play catch-up (but with smaller rewards compared to more dangerous stages), to add a level of separation by making specials based around items purchased rather than by directly paying, or by making level-ups rarer, larger events that aren't always required for progression. (I'm starting to realize that the last will be tricky to mix with character building...)
Might be stupid, I'm not quite sure if I totally understand the debauchery mechanic. What I'm getting: spending cash to cast spells fills up this bar. And points from this bar have to be used to purchase some things, making it necessary for players to mix up their game and not pinch pennies?
