Artisan
2006-07-26, 07:05 AM
Hey there. Artisan here, and in a fit of boredom, I decided to start working out a simple, loose RPG system. Don't ask me why, I just did. Right now all I have is an overview of how the system works; in subsequent posts I will show how to run combat, magic and other such things with the system. BEar with me it seems garbled, and feel free to ask if you hae any questions.
Well, without further ado...
The ISIR System
ISIR is my attempt at making a simple, generic game system with an emphasis on image and description. ISIR stands for "Intent, Skill, Image, Resolution", and is a description how each player's turn goes:
[hr]
How a Player's Turn Works
Intent:
The player decides, in a few words, what he wants to do. This should be realitively simple and to the point at this stage ("I want to hit the guy" or "I'm going to try and sneak us into the club")
Skill:
At this point, either the player or the GM decides what skill is appropriate for this action. If a player can make a case for a skill one would not normally expect to be applicable, a GM can allow it (or he can veto it, if it'stoo tenuous). For example, in a fight scene, a player (and his Swashbuckler character) could just use his Combat skill, but he decides to make a case and try to let the Gm allow him to use his Agility istead, stating that, since the scene was described as 'crowded and strewn with debris', his chaarcter could use that to his advantage in the fight, jumping and tumbling over it. The Player takes a number of dice equal to the associated Attribute of the skill).
Image:
At this point, the player can choose to describe what he is doing. This can affect the dice in one of three ways: Firstly, a character can choose to 'Play it Safe', getting a greater chance of succeeding his action for some manner of mild inconvenience (for example, the task takes longer or he is distracted while doing it). Secondly, te player can choose to 'take a risk, decreasing his chance of succeeding for some sort of bonus (causing extra damage, completing the task quicker than normal etc). Thirdly, the GM can choose to either reward an imaginative, detailed description of what the character does with extra dice (normally two) or take away dice from the character's 'skill pool' (the number of dice he would normally roll) for unimaginative descriptions or poor roleplaying (hjowever, this is not necessary, particularly if the players are new to the game)
Resolution:
At this point, when all the other steps have been fulfilled, the player rolls the dice in his skill pool and tries to get equal to or under his rank in the skill on each of his dice (for example, if he has skill rank 3 in Ettiquete, he has to get a 1, 2 or 3 on each of his dice). For each dice he rolls under his skill, he gets a 'success'. If the player chose in the Image phase to 'play it safe' his skill goes up by 1 for that action (from a 3 to a four, for example), while if he chose to 'take a risk', his skill goes down by 1 (from a 3 to a 2, for example). The GM has secretly noted the number of successes the player needs to get if he wishes to succeed. If he gets over that Target Number, the action is a success, if not, the action fails.
Attributes
These ae the 'vital statistics' of the Character, they determine how many dice a character rolls when making an action. They range between 1 and 10, with 1 being 'completely inept', 4 being 'Average' and 10 being 'superhuman', although a GM might wish to increase this range for certain campaigns, such a superheroes or heroic fantasy. For most games, I recomend that the players be allowed to spend 12 points to increase their attributes, on a 1-for-1 point basis, above the base 1.
Brawn Used for determining actions of strength and stamina
Agility Used for determining actions of nimbleness and dexterity
Wit Used for determining reactions and snap decisions
Reason Used for determining actions of intelligence and logic
Bearing Used for determining social and actions of force of personality
Skills:
Skills are either talents a chaarcter has naturally ( a 'knack') or have trained for (formall or informally). A character has 20 points to raise individual skills, on a 1-for-1 basis, above the base 0. A character can use a skill that is at rank 0, but when they make a roll with that skill, only every two 1's he rolls count as a single success. The Gm is welcome to add and remove skills as he sees fit - the following list is supposed to be relatively generic for most games.
Athletics (Brawn)
Acrobatics (Agility)
Combat (Brawn OR Agility)
Computers (Reason)
Crafting (Reason)
Defence (Brawn OR Agility OR Wit)
Disguise (Bearing)
Empathy (Bearing OR Wit)
Ettiquette (Bearing)
Interrogation (Brawn OR Bearing)
Investigation (Reason)
Knowledge (Reason)
Ledgermain (Agility)
Medicine (Reason OR Wit)
Notice (Wit)
Performance (Bearing)
Profession (Any of the Attributes - GM's Discretion)
Quickness (Wit)
Research (Reason OR Bearing)
Survival (Brawn OR Wit)
Stealth (Agility)
Trickery (Bearing)
Vehicle Use (Agility OR Wit)
Willpower (Brawn OR Bearing)
Please note, I have left the skills 'Combat', 'Crafting', 'Knowledge', 'Performance', 'Profession' and 'Vehicle Use', intentionally vague. This is because these skills cover a wide array of abilities and doctrines; when you invest points into this skill, you choose a specific area to train in - how specific the area is is up to the GM. For example, if the GM decides that the campaign will involve a lot of combat and little 'off the battlefield' work, so he decides to have the very narrow specifications for the 'combat' skill (such as 'swords', 'axes' and 'bows') and very loose specifications for crafting ('smithing', 'carpentry' etc.). Personally, I would prefer to se a 'thematic' approach to each of the 'specialisation' skills - you choose a loosecategory based on how the character was trained. For example, one could have combat: knight or craft: Engineer. This allows a player to make a case for using a skill more easily than normal.
Qualities:
All characters have something 'special' about them, from the mundane (such as 'powerfully built') to the extreme ('Grand Archmage of the Blue Star'). During character creation, the GM can decide to allow the players to have a certain number of Qualities. The GM states the number of dice that can be put into Qualities, and the player divides those dice amongst whatever Qualities they want, with GM's discretion (for example, if the Gm decides that each player can have 3 dice of Qualities, a character could put 2 into 'Knight of the Realm' and 1 into 'Humble'), During the game, a player can choose to 'invoke' a Quality, if he can make a reasonable case for it, add add the Quility's dice to his own skill pool. For example, during a phase where a character's looking for information, he can invoke his 'Contacts' Quality, worth 3 dice, and add 3 dice to his skill pool.
A Quality, in itself, can be anything from an intrinisc ability (such as the natural gifts bestowed upon an Elf), a skill or ability the character has trained for years for (auch as being the practicioner of a secret type of magic) or even a special item or companion (like a magic sword or a plucky sidekick). In the case of the third, each dice you put into it describes an aspect of the Quality (for example, a Sidekick that has two Quality dice invested into it might have 1 in Combat Trained and another in Loyal). It's up to the GM how many Quality dice he chooses to give the players, but it is probably better to start on the low end (3-5) and award more as rewards for completed missions/adventures.
[hr]
How's that, so far?
Well, without further ado...
The ISIR System
ISIR is my attempt at making a simple, generic game system with an emphasis on image and description. ISIR stands for "Intent, Skill, Image, Resolution", and is a description how each player's turn goes:
[hr]
How a Player's Turn Works
Intent:
The player decides, in a few words, what he wants to do. This should be realitively simple and to the point at this stage ("I want to hit the guy" or "I'm going to try and sneak us into the club")
Skill:
At this point, either the player or the GM decides what skill is appropriate for this action. If a player can make a case for a skill one would not normally expect to be applicable, a GM can allow it (or he can veto it, if it'stoo tenuous). For example, in a fight scene, a player (and his Swashbuckler character) could just use his Combat skill, but he decides to make a case and try to let the Gm allow him to use his Agility istead, stating that, since the scene was described as 'crowded and strewn with debris', his chaarcter could use that to his advantage in the fight, jumping and tumbling over it. The Player takes a number of dice equal to the associated Attribute of the skill).
Image:
At this point, the player can choose to describe what he is doing. This can affect the dice in one of three ways: Firstly, a character can choose to 'Play it Safe', getting a greater chance of succeeding his action for some manner of mild inconvenience (for example, the task takes longer or he is distracted while doing it). Secondly, te player can choose to 'take a risk, decreasing his chance of succeeding for some sort of bonus (causing extra damage, completing the task quicker than normal etc). Thirdly, the GM can choose to either reward an imaginative, detailed description of what the character does with extra dice (normally two) or take away dice from the character's 'skill pool' (the number of dice he would normally roll) for unimaginative descriptions or poor roleplaying (hjowever, this is not necessary, particularly if the players are new to the game)
Resolution:
At this point, when all the other steps have been fulfilled, the player rolls the dice in his skill pool and tries to get equal to or under his rank in the skill on each of his dice (for example, if he has skill rank 3 in Ettiquete, he has to get a 1, 2 or 3 on each of his dice). For each dice he rolls under his skill, he gets a 'success'. If the player chose in the Image phase to 'play it safe' his skill goes up by 1 for that action (from a 3 to a four, for example), while if he chose to 'take a risk', his skill goes down by 1 (from a 3 to a 2, for example). The GM has secretly noted the number of successes the player needs to get if he wishes to succeed. If he gets over that Target Number, the action is a success, if not, the action fails.
Attributes
These ae the 'vital statistics' of the Character, they determine how many dice a character rolls when making an action. They range between 1 and 10, with 1 being 'completely inept', 4 being 'Average' and 10 being 'superhuman', although a GM might wish to increase this range for certain campaigns, such a superheroes or heroic fantasy. For most games, I recomend that the players be allowed to spend 12 points to increase their attributes, on a 1-for-1 point basis, above the base 1.
Brawn Used for determining actions of strength and stamina
Agility Used for determining actions of nimbleness and dexterity
Wit Used for determining reactions and snap decisions
Reason Used for determining actions of intelligence and logic
Bearing Used for determining social and actions of force of personality
Skills:
Skills are either talents a chaarcter has naturally ( a 'knack') or have trained for (formall or informally). A character has 20 points to raise individual skills, on a 1-for-1 basis, above the base 0. A character can use a skill that is at rank 0, but when they make a roll with that skill, only every two 1's he rolls count as a single success. The Gm is welcome to add and remove skills as he sees fit - the following list is supposed to be relatively generic for most games.
Athletics (Brawn)
Acrobatics (Agility)
Combat (Brawn OR Agility)
Computers (Reason)
Crafting (Reason)
Defence (Brawn OR Agility OR Wit)
Disguise (Bearing)
Empathy (Bearing OR Wit)
Ettiquette (Bearing)
Interrogation (Brawn OR Bearing)
Investigation (Reason)
Knowledge (Reason)
Ledgermain (Agility)
Medicine (Reason OR Wit)
Notice (Wit)
Performance (Bearing)
Profession (Any of the Attributes - GM's Discretion)
Quickness (Wit)
Research (Reason OR Bearing)
Survival (Brawn OR Wit)
Stealth (Agility)
Trickery (Bearing)
Vehicle Use (Agility OR Wit)
Willpower (Brawn OR Bearing)
Please note, I have left the skills 'Combat', 'Crafting', 'Knowledge', 'Performance', 'Profession' and 'Vehicle Use', intentionally vague. This is because these skills cover a wide array of abilities and doctrines; when you invest points into this skill, you choose a specific area to train in - how specific the area is is up to the GM. For example, if the GM decides that the campaign will involve a lot of combat and little 'off the battlefield' work, so he decides to have the very narrow specifications for the 'combat' skill (such as 'swords', 'axes' and 'bows') and very loose specifications for crafting ('smithing', 'carpentry' etc.). Personally, I would prefer to se a 'thematic' approach to each of the 'specialisation' skills - you choose a loosecategory based on how the character was trained. For example, one could have combat: knight or craft: Engineer. This allows a player to make a case for using a skill more easily than normal.
Qualities:
All characters have something 'special' about them, from the mundane (such as 'powerfully built') to the extreme ('Grand Archmage of the Blue Star'). During character creation, the GM can decide to allow the players to have a certain number of Qualities. The GM states the number of dice that can be put into Qualities, and the player divides those dice amongst whatever Qualities they want, with GM's discretion (for example, if the Gm decides that each player can have 3 dice of Qualities, a character could put 2 into 'Knight of the Realm' and 1 into 'Humble'), During the game, a player can choose to 'invoke' a Quality, if he can make a reasonable case for it, add add the Quility's dice to his own skill pool. For example, during a phase where a character's looking for information, he can invoke his 'Contacts' Quality, worth 3 dice, and add 3 dice to his skill pool.
A Quality, in itself, can be anything from an intrinisc ability (such as the natural gifts bestowed upon an Elf), a skill or ability the character has trained for years for (auch as being the practicioner of a secret type of magic) or even a special item or companion (like a magic sword or a plucky sidekick). In the case of the third, each dice you put into it describes an aspect of the Quality (for example, a Sidekick that has two Quality dice invested into it might have 1 in Combat Trained and another in Loyal). It's up to the GM how many Quality dice he chooses to give the players, but it is probably better to start on the low end (3-5) and award more as rewards for completed missions/adventures.
[hr]
How's that, so far?