View Full Version : Shameless Crosspost: Incredibly Complex Homestuck RPG (PEACH)
Yuki Akuma
2010-12-25, 03:21 AM
Yes, again. I make no excuses but that I thought it deserved it.
Three weeks ago, me and a few friends started toying around with the idea of making a homestuck RPG. This is our progress so far. It's not perfect but it's quick, it's relatively simple for a full RPG, and it's hopefully fun.
The deliciously stark white PDF, with actual bookmarks, for those who can use it: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FUMEPQF9
And the do it yourself .doc version for those without Adobe. I dunno, it seemed plausible. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JJH323EJ
This is an alpha version so far. It should be fully playable, but it has not yet been playtested, as it's only been in some form of existence for about 22 days. The system is, so far as I know, entirely unique, yet should prove fitting to Homestuck, using a d4 and d13 system. This is best simulated with a pack of playing cards. We've included several areas of character advancement, and even a couple monsters tossed in for good measure, but as of yet, this game is mostly the bare bones. I've got plans for working with my friends on developing oh so many other fun things, but I thought I'd get this out there and get some opinions on the fundamentals at the same time.
I cannot promise that this game is entirely balanced, and it expects a certain level of existing familiarity, with both the objectives of Sburb, and the vagaries of role playing games. However, I think that one simple piece of advice can cover a multitude of sins, at least in Alpha, and that is: A GM's job is not to see that the PCs triumph over every challenge effortlessly, nor to prevent them from succeeding. It is to challenge them to the point that they succeed at the important things by the thinnest margins possible. It's not easy, and it'll take some practice, and depending on your GMing style, you might hit a few monty hauls or a few total party kills, but with persistence as your watch word, hopefully it'll work.
Anyway. I hope that people enjoy this. We've got some plans for expanding in various directions after this, that we wouldn't mind hearing some interest in to prioritize, including
The Writer's Guide: Ideas on how to GM. How to use consorts, guardians, and sprites as ways to let your players work together even while the characters are separate, how to introduce new wrinkles into players' lives via paradox space, or screwing up games, and so forth.
The Felt: A Monster Manual of sorts, including a number of pre-made monsters, and a good selection of new abilities to give to monsters.
The Medium Almanac: A guide to more information on creating lands, the architecture of Derse and Prospit, and so forth. This will be primarily speculation, unless Hussie decides to go into more detail on things.
The Questbed Diaries: A guide to higher level character creation, to god tiers, fraymotifs, and so forth. Probably will require more information about God Tiers, so this won't be done as quickly and easily as the others. This is gonna involve a lotta speculation until we get some more information on things.
Naturally, these will all be in addition to any updates to the main system itself.
And, under the category of 'Oh yeah, dream on', maybe, just maybe, if we do a good enough job with this game, Andrew Hussie himself might dance down from the heavens and bless us with the stamp of legitimacy, maybe even see about actually making this thing something worth money. It'd be nice, but I figure I'll keep working on this regardless, since it's been the most fun three weeks of my life.
If you do playtest, and you have any particularly strong insights, or any interesting powers that you made, well, I can't promise you money, but we could see about a playtesting credit in the book or some such. It's up to you if that sounds remotely worth it.
If you have any questions, hell, I've got nothing better to do than answer them.
http://formspring.me/Ajoxer There, made a Formspring account to make it easier to compile answers to questions.
Yep!
I didn't write this post but I worked on the game and as it's Christmas I'm lazy.
Vadin
2010-12-25, 03:43 AM
On first read through, I have several reactions:
Oh god, someone else knows this?
Oh god, someone made it into a GAME?
Oh god, it's really quite a good read!
A very clever core mechanic that I've always quite enjoyed, to be sure. Card decks are marvelously simple.
You left out shorter units of time, though, such as the 'hay-second,' 'millisecond,' and 'petty second.' All aforementioned units are partial seconds, though I suppose you do make it explicitly clear that this does indeed mean I should be rounding these all up to whole seconds...
Yuki Akuma
2010-12-25, 03:45 AM
A lot of the mechanical things like the system just sorta happened. We started with "Okay how can be make 413 a game mechanic?" and settled on the d4:d13 thing, then one of Ajoxer's friends (Saiai, if you must know) mentioned that using cards would work, meaning people wouldn't need to use computer dice rollers, and...
Yeah.
We tried to make as much of the game reference as many traditional games (cards, chess, billiards, etc.) as possible, too. Because it's very Homestucky.
For example, the number of ranks on the Echeladder? Number of pieces in a regulation chess set.
Edit: Oy, no nitpicking units of time. :smalltongue:
Vadin
2010-12-25, 03:52 AM
It's odd you would pick 413 as a starting point. It just happens that that's my address, the number typically appended to my usernames, and something of a recurring theme.
Pshaw, not that odd. It's a very significant number, for countless reasons.
But yes, I would be Ajoxer, and I'm grateful to anyone interested in critiquing this. My hope is for people to use the Formspring account for questions which will fit there- They are kind of strict on length, so more detailed questions will probably have to be asked here- so that I can compile answers to such things.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Iituem
2010-12-25, 08:25 AM
So much for those of us born on the sixth of December. Looks good! Certainly very in depth, and I love the 4:13 mechanic.
Mattarias, King.
2010-12-25, 08:40 AM
:smallbiggrin: As someone working on my own system, I must say, this is pretty sweet. I love Homestuck, I love RPGs, and this is just a really, really fun-looking system. I'm inspired to work more on my own, knowing I have things of this amazing quality to potentially compete with! :smallbiggrin:
Of course, I'd definitely be up to playtesting this with my group of friends when Break ends. They're all huge HS fans too. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of the 4:13 mechanic.
One question though- I haven't read through everything quite yet, but how would you prevent players with metagame knowledge of HS from just prototyping their sprites with really lame things and bulldozing through everything? :smallconfused:
:smallbiggrin: As someone working on my own system, I must say, this is pretty sweet. I love Homestuck, I love RPGs, and this is just a really, really fun-looking system. I'm inspired to work more on my own, knowing I have things of this amazing quality to potentially compete with! :smallbiggrin:
Of course, I'd definitely be up to playtesting this with my group of friends when Break ends. They're all huge HS fans too. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of the 4:13 mechanic.
One question though- I haven't read through everything quite yet, but how would you prevent players with metagame knowledge of HS from just prototyping their sprites with really lame things and bulldozing through everything? :smallconfused:
Nothing but the GM's desire, really. But the weaker the monsters, the less the players will be challenged. A player is defined by their enemies, and if all of your enemies are gender-bent squiddles, then your universe, and your godhead that you'll achieve by creating it and triumphing over it, will be similarly diminished.
Plus if you start doing that ****, you never know when you're going to roll a 13, the mouse is going to slip, and whoops now all your enemies are prototyped with Uber Prinny Baal or some godawful thing. Sburb will find a way.
Mattarias, King.
2010-12-25, 09:12 AM
Nothing but the GM's desire, really. But the weaker the monsters, the less the players will be challenged. A player is defined by their enemies, and if all of your enemies are gender-bent squiddles, then your universe, and your godhead that you'll achieve by creating it and triumphing over it, will be similarly diminished.
Plus if you start doing that ****, you never know when you're going to roll a 13, the mouse is going to slip, and whoops now all your enemies are prototyped with Uber Prinny Baal or some godawful thing. Sburb will find a way.
:smallconfused: Ouch. Yeah, you've got a point. Sburb likely isn't the most forgiving of that sort of cheatery.
Again, I really like what guys have done so far. Can't wait to see more- Not to mention playtesting it! :smallbiggrin:
Technical question though: Not to get wildly off-topic, but... What do you need to make a bookmarked PDF and all that? :smallconfused: That's one aspect of things I haven't quite figured out.
Well, at least in Adobe Acrobat 9.0, it's easy as pie. Go to the page you want to bookmark, open bookmarks, click the little gear in the upper left of the panel, select New Bookmark, and it should create a bookmark to the page you're on. Quick and easy!
And yes. You can see evidence in the game-
Spoilers for Homestuck
Sure, the trolls started with all kinds of extra bennies, freakish mutations, powerful magic, and top level items.
And then they got their asses prototyped with an emissary of the outer gods. That wasn't pleasant.
And then when they had just won... bam. Ace from hell.
Mattarias, King.
2010-12-25, 09:32 AM
Well, at least in Adobe Acrobat 9.0, it's easy as pie. Go to the page you want to bookmark, open bookmarks, click the little gear in the upper left of the panel, select New Bookmark, and it should create a bookmark to the page you're on. Quick and easy!
And yes. You can see evidence in the game-
Spoilers for Homestuck
Sure, the trolls started with all kinds of extra bennies, freakish mutations, powerful magic, and top level items.
And then they got their asses prototyped with an emissary of the outer gods. That wasn't pleasant.
And then when they had just won... bam. Ace from hell.
:smallbiggrin: Thanks. I'll look into that.
And yeah, good point. Things never seem to go right, even when you try to be careful about it. Makes for a more interesting story that way, which is what I'd want if I ran this. What's that, rolled a 13 while trying to prototype your lame action figure? Whoops, looks like you just put in that Grand Zamboa figure. Have fun with a boss that can throw galaxies!
...Likely a worst-case scenario, I think, possibly worse than a first guardian, but I get what you mean. There's no such thing as perfect planning in HS, even for the genre-savvy.
Vyren
2010-12-25, 08:05 PM
:smallbiggrin: Thanks. I'll look into that.
And yeah, good point. Things never seem to go right, even when you try to be careful about it. Makes for a more interesting story that way, which is what I'd want if I ran this. What's that, rolled a 13 while trying to prototype your lame action figure? Whoops, looks like you just put in that Grand Zamboa figure. Have fun with a boss that can throw galaxies!
...Likely a worst-case scenario, I think, possibly worse than a first guardian, but I get what you mean. There's no such thing as perfect planning in HS, even for the genre-savvy.
Dam, dude. now I'm just thinking about what I would prototype and stuff if you did run this game. Man and what if I slipped on the mouse while I was prototyping Lucian's Sprite? we'd end up with Eldrad the sprite and then all imps would be the biggest ***** forever.
Now I need to finish reading through the rules, which by the way are well thought out and I thank Autocthon you guys put this together.
Mattarias, King.
2010-12-25, 09:17 PM
Dam, dude. now I'm just thinking about what I would prototype and stuff if you did run this game. Man and what if I slipped on the mouse while I was prototyping Lucian's Sprite? we'd end up with Eldrad the sprite and then all imps would be the biggest ***** forever.
Now I need to finish reading through the rules, which by the way are well thought out and I thank Autocthon you guys put this together.
:smallbiggrin: Hahahah, oh gods, yeah, that'd be a problem. Yeah, things like that might be stuff that crops up if/when I run this game for you guys. :smallcool:
Was actually thinking of the idea of a homestuck RPG, will read and get back with my thoughts, so far it seems promising.
Yuki Akuma
2010-12-26, 07:48 AM
Was actually thinking of the idea of a homestuck RPG, will read and get back with my thoughts, so far it seems promising.
And someone else thought of it before us. But they did an awful Gamma Worlds thing, not an actual complete system. :smalltongue:
Playtesting has begun, starting on things, heard some issues, might end up modifying things a bit to make it more appealing to customize your race a bit. If there's one thing that frightens people, it's taking negatives in a game you've never played before. X3
Django
2010-12-28, 02:58 AM
I am enthused without limit for playtesting, if there's a chance I can participate! Izzere any details about any of what would be tested out?
Cute_Riolu
2010-12-28, 06:51 AM
I would also be exceedingly interested in a game of this. Do tell! :D
Oh, heck, test anything and everything. Personally, though, I believe that the best way to test would be to actually play through a normal game- Maybe test it by being a powergamer, that sort of thing, but generally, this game is meant to have a bit of an active balancing act going on with the GM, and I'd like to know the best ways to encourage that.
A brief summary of my first playtesting session
We have Rick, the conspiracy theorist, Rain, the technowizard, and Kate, the flight fetishist. Rain gets her CDs, Rick gets his CDs, his dad brings him brownies, Kate goes to get hers from her sis, Rain traps Rick in his basement with an alchemiter, Rick loses brownies to a shadowy government agent, Rick gets a David Duchovny sprite, Kate recreates The Birds, Kate smacks her sister in the face with a keyboard and is responded to with a piano, Rain looks a bunch of stuff up on Gfaqs, Rick gets a dossier from a cyan shadowy government agent who gets shot, he enters the Medium, Kate has a stupid modus that is going to make her getting into the medium a bitch, Rick is in the Land of Thunder and Shadow with a Duchovny sprite. I think that's everything.
Vyren
2011-01-04, 03:59 PM
A brief summary of my first playtesting session
We have Rick, the conspiracy theorist, Rain, the technowizard, and Kate, the flight fetishist. Rain gets her CDs, Rick gets his CDs, his dad brings him brownies, Kate goes to get hers from her sis, Rain traps Rick in his basement with an alchemiter, Rick loses brownies to a shadowy government agent, Rick gets a David Duchovny sprite, Kate recreates The Birds, Kate smacks her sister in the face with a keyboard and is responded to with a piano, Rain looks a bunch of stuff up on Gfaqs, Rick gets a dossier from a cyan shadowy government agent who gets shot, he enters the Medium, Kate has a stupid modus that is going to make her getting into the medium a bitch, Rick is in the Land of Thunder and Shadow with a Duchovny sprite. I think that's everything.
This sounds awesome. And wait, Rick's entry item was a dossier? how did that work?
Essentially, he was given a dossier, containing The Truth of all of the conspiracies. With the help of Duchovnysprite and google, he arranged it across his basement, and managed to figure out the entirety of the conspiracy, conclusively proving it, once and for all.
Saving him from the meteoric firestorm which incidentally destroyed all life and civilization, including the conspiracies.
Second session
Starting out, Rick found a smear of bone meal from his father's disappearance. Entering his father's room, he listened to one of the many convenient bugs, which recorded the disappearance of his father. At the same time, Rain came into conflict with his guardian... DOC... after power went out, seeking a generator. A kindly old man who styles himself after Tesla, fills his house with Tesla Coils, and who powers his house with the corpse of Thomas Edison, covered in magnets, strapped into a generator, and read daily violent rhetoric against him. Kate, in the mean time, was taken by her sister to the SKY MALL, confronting her terror of heights, repeatedly, getting bird seed, and buying a Chuck Norris picture, after her rick astley picture took off for a life of vigilanteism after a poorly nouned command. Rick discovered his father's secret hidey-hole, and learned a bit more about his planet, and Rain bonded with Doc over programming and mutual decrying of Thomas Edison.
Rick brought his father's tapped-out personal communication device to the basement, and searched for batteries, but was without the necessary ones. After working a little bit to figure out what to prototype the Duchovnysprite with, he got jumped by a Bone Imp, wielding a gun, and his beloved stuffed mother, who died in a mysterious elevator and bullet-related accident. As he fought the creature furiously, Kate got Rain installed into the game. As the last of the three important items was placed down, Rick revealed his mysterious psychic powers and managed to smear the imp with a conveniently ejected cruxite dowel. **** got a little crazy as Kate played around with tesla coils in a bizarre electro-city orgy, and a bit of craziness saw Rick's mother resurrected as Momsprite, good as new, and with awesome FBI training. Also maybe she's into porn, I didn't ask.
Rain chased the punch card after it fell down the roof- long story involving a poor spot choice for the totem lathe- and was retrieved from the chimney unharmed, quickly going to prototype the Edison-Corpse generator with the protosprite, creating an ungodly Mecha-Edison Sprite. Rick left his house, into the chill air outside, retrieving several of his father's possesions, and seeing the distant glow of the Corpse Buildings, eyes piercing the night. Rain summoned her Cruxite Artifact, a copy of ~.A-O, THE (PROGRAMMING) LANGUAGE OF THE FIRMAMENT, and set up and compiled a program for transporting the house into another dimension.
Mecha-Edison and Doc overcame their differences to build a magnetic force-field, slowing the approach of the meteor enough to allow for time for the compiling to finish, as meteors rained down on Kate's home city, where she was doing her sister's bidding. At the same time, Rick was consulting with his mother, learning about the facts behind the gates, and their ultimate goals. In an exciting few moments, the computer finished compiling seconds away from the meteor crushing Rain, and everything for about a mile in every direction, Sis's bird flock took off as their building was knocked down by a nearby collapsing building, taking off and carrying them out to sea, to safety... for now.
Now, they're preparing to get moving, and start exploring, and have begun crafting their equipment. Rick, out of his father's equipment, created the SAM FISHER FINERY, the MICHAEL WESTON WARDROBE, and the RANDOM TASK COOKING CLASS, things so crazy I shan't even begin to describe them.
Vyren
2011-01-09, 04:27 PM
That sounds like the campaign is shaping up rather nicely. I especially like the bits with the Tesla coils and Mecha-Edison. Can't help but feel since her family has been torturing that corpse for a while now that the sprite might take revenge somehow.
Anyway, I'm a bit puzzled on something unrelated right now. I live in a dorm with my fellow college friends and I have a question. If we were to do a Dormstuck scenario, how would the building situation work. only one of us lives in a different tower from the others and I live in the room right next to another of my friends. Basically, what would get transported to the medium? just our individual rooms? and I just realized we would have to be completely coordinated since the first summoned meteor would ill us all.
That sounds like the campaign is shaping up rather nicely. I especially like the bits with the Tesla coils and Mecha-Edison. Can't help but feel since her family has been torturing that corpse for a while now that the sprite might take revenge somehow.
Anyway, I'm a bit puzzled on something unrelated right now. I live in a dorm with my fellow college friends and I have a question. If we were to do a Dormstuck scenario, how would the building situation work. only one of us lives in a different tower from the others and I live in the room right next to another of my friends. Basically, what would get transported to the medium? just our individual rooms? and I just realized we would have to be completely coordinated since the first summoned meteor would ill us all.
Well, my first solution would be to move across the country from your friends.
But that may be a bit pricey.
I'd say yes, transporting individual rooms would work out just fine, although you might consider transporting entire blocks of the dorm at a time- Divide it up equally, that sort of thing.
As for the perfect coordination, you could have the meteors stay relatively small, so that they would only kill you, personally. :-D
Today's game went as such. Rick and Rain began taking on more imps, Rain having a rather difficult time with a Copper imp, until it made the mistake of picking up one of the tesla coils, resulting in it being turned into a fine pile of grist after being struck by a lightning bolt, after it had tried to beat Rain's head in with his mother and father's urn. (Doc wanted to save money on cremations.) At the same time, Rick began placing the various necessary items in Kate's house, for her to join them in the Medium, and arsed it up something fierce before drawing a graveyard king on his Punch Designix-placement, managing to drop it and bounce the house around so as to place all four of the key items- Totem Lathe, Cruxtruder, Alchemiter, and Punchcard Designix- together into Kate's room.
Kate, in a display of true player masochism, proceeded to prototype her new Chuck Norris poster together with her Meme Chart, creating the Memetic Chuck Norris Poster. Rick, distracted by Momsprite, left, and in the meantime, Kate DID THE BAD THING. Rick proceeded to get attacked by an angry ??? Imp, who proceeded to roundhouse kick him in the goddamn chest. After a brief but furious fight, Momsprite put down the ??? Imp with a trio of rounds, and Kate was roundly castigated for her actions. Rain prototyped his mother and father with the Edisonsprite, which frankly had an effect freaky as it was heartwarming, producing an ANDROGYNOUS MADISON SPRITE.
Kate proceeded to produce her cruxite artifact, which turned out to be a dark blue Golden Snitch, in a predictable sneer in her face about her inability to fly. She proceeded to attempt to take her life in regret for her actions in creating what is going to be an ******* of a final fight, but ended up realizing her ability to fly, grabbing the snitch, and being transported to THE LAND OF RAIN AND LIGHT, a world filled with the light of ten thousand casinos that never close...
Vyren
2011-01-13, 11:16 PM
well I think if I were to do a Dormstuck game I would probably give a little more time on the clock for entering the medium but have just one giant **** everything meteor so we would have to be organized and get stuff done quickly. My dorm building is four connected towers so if we did play we could easily divide it up to individual towers. the only problem might be getting my friends to stop slacking off and drop the alchemizer already cuz my counter is down to a minute and the lazy ******* haven't gotten around to putting it somewhere.
In our fourth session, we're introduced to a new character: Fyre Jacinth, a young girl living in the depths of Siberia, in an underground biogenetics base, with her beloved... caretaker, ZUB. Awaking at a seemingly normal hour for Siberia, she found her friends hard at work: Kate's sprite splitting up, excitement, and Rick taking on a pair of Grey Ogres, horrifying alien-like beasts. After a brutal battle that left Rick nearly flattened after one blow, Rain finally managed to get his **** together and wiped out one of the ogres with a thrown tub, the other one eating skillet.
After a surprising amount of discussion, Kate became the new server player for Fyre, a decision as unwise as it was foolhardy. Kate proceeded to then start placing down items, and nobody explained a damn thing to poor Fyre even as she worked quickly to release her cruxite artifact, a seed that seems like it will only grow when exposed to sunlight. She prototyped her sprite with a trance cd, creating the RAVESPRITE, narrowly avoiding becoming the YOG SOTHOTH sprite through a GM who felt the players were facing enough horror as it was.
Kate did rather a lot of alchemiting as Fyre tried to prevent herself from dying, and went to retrieve a nuclear energy cell from her guardian, to try and help solve the longstanding energy problems addressing the portable devices of the characters. Kate, in an ill-fated attempt to help, fell asleep and ripped the elevator out of its socket, awakening her Dream Self in Derse. Rick, after having travelled through the first gate, meeting one of his consorts, and saving a small town from a Black Pawn with an Ak-47 and a posse of imps, and far more legal regulations than weaponry skill, tried to help in an even more ill-fated attempt, and sent Kate through a piano-made hole in her flying house, giving her only a few moments to wake up, as Fyre desperately tries to modify her jetpack in time to reach the surface through the elevator shaft.
Gralamin
2011-01-14, 03:07 AM
Going to give it a read through, and I'll check some math, just in case. I'll let you guys know anything relevant.
Edit: So um, quite quickly I've generated a lot of problems with how the rules are written. And my messages on it are frankly, quite frank. I don't know if you want me to post a huge amount of text ripping apart your product, or if you would rather I PM it, or do it in small chunks, or what.
If you want to, go for it. I am aware of a number of problems so far, mostly to do with making it easier to read.
Yuki Akuma
2011-01-14, 08:19 AM
By all means, tell us how bad Jann is at writing rules text.
Gralamin
2011-01-15, 02:13 PM
Sorry, was busy for a few days there, anyway, here is the document I cooked up:
Okay, so I have a lot, but it's mostly editing mistakes, ambigutity, unclear rules, and a horrible lack of organization. By far one of the most common problems is you are using terms, before you define them enough to give proper context. An example is the number of Echeladder rungs that I ask about further down.
Luckily, some proof reading can go a long way.
Issues I noticed
Intuition:
Rolling under on stat, then multiplying, then seeing if you beat a high DC is unintutive. Right now,for example, to beat a DC 40 Test, I would need to roll a 4*10 (or a 4*11, or 4*12, or 4*13). Which means that yes, I need a high skill (10, 11, or 12), but I need to be on what seems like the edge of failing to succeed.
Example: If I want to break the world record for the 100m dash (DC 40), I would need to have a high speed or strength, (Though I can't seem to figure out what the stat is used for, since Skills and Stats have different maximums), with a speciality in dashing, and was of rung 21. I would need to roll a 4 on my d4, and a 10, 11 or 12 on my d13 (Which is incredibly close to failure).
Okay, figured this out eventually. You should really seperate out formulas, for example:
Degree of Success = D4 * Relevant Stat
I would also move the 413 thing over to the previous paragraph: It is confusing there, and should be with the rest. (Assuming you are supposed to roll a 4 on the d4, and a 13 on the d13) In fact, I would suggest rewriting this section similar to what follows, just to clarify information:
Basic Rules
Conflict is determined by rolling a d4 and a d13. Normally, this requires the use of a computer RNG system, since d13s aren’t naturally occurring (Exception: see "Deck Method"). Your D4 determines degree of success, while D13 determines if you succeed.
Roll your d13, and if you roll equal to or less than your rating in the appropriate skill for the task, you succeed. Rolling a 1 means an automatic success on your skill roll, though not necessarily succeeding at the task. If you roll a 13, you will always fail, but the failure is due to no fault of your own, and the GM gets a bit of carte blanche to get mean. If you should roll a 4 on your d4, and a 13 on your d13, your failure is reversed, and you end up succeeding grandly, but in an entirely accidental manner of the GM’s choosing, for which you should receive no credit. This does necessarily allow you to succeed at your task.
Next determine your Degree of Success as follows:
Degree of Success = D4 * Linked Stat
A few sample difficulties to compare to are below
2 - Something trivially easy. Walking, hearing a rock band.
5 - Something of mild difficulty. Lifting a moderate weight, fighting off a cold.
10 - Something of moderate difficulty. Throwing a shot-put.
20 - Something of great difficulty. Creating an exceptional painting.
30 - Something of remarkable difficulty. Getting elected to high office.
40 - Incredible human feat. Breaking a world record.
50 - Transhuman feat. Shattering world records, solving Fermat's Last Theorem, engineering faster than light travel.
If your Degree of Success is higher then the difficulty of the task, you succeed at the task.
Deck Method
It should be noted, of course, that there is one form of random generation that would allow you to play this game without a computer: Get a regulation deck of playing cards. Each number card is worth its face value, Aces are worth one, Jacks are eleven, Queens are twelve, and Kings are thirteen. The suits then determine your D4. Clubs are 1, Diamonds are 2, Hearts are 3, and Spades are 4. Remove the jokers, don’t ever use this system if your GM has been a Las Vegas card dealer, and make sure to shuffle after each draw.
Fractions
If you end up, for whatever reason, with a fractional value, for whatever reason, round up to the nearest whole number. No matter how low the fraction may seem. We’re watching you. Not all the time, just when you’re doing fractions.
I'd also use a different term for succeeding at a task, and succeeding on a check, because that is confusing.
Also, I noticed in Chapter 3 that you seem to of moved Degree of Success over to something to do with the d13, and made d4 magnitude. Which contradicts your basic mechanic.
Unclear rules
Preface: I assume you all know how this is supposed to work, the problem is you haven't expressed it clearly.
How precisely do Skill maxes increase? Is it supposed to follow a progression like this?
{table=head]Rung|Max
1|3
2|3
3|4
4|4
5|4
6|5
7|5
8|5
9|6
10|6
11|6
12|7
13|7
14|7
15|8
16|8
17|8
18|9
19|9
20|9
21|10
[/table]
If so, I suggest including a table, because it isn't intutively easy to tell it does that. In fact, I was reading it as if it would instead follow:
{table=head]Rung|Max
1|3
2|3
3|4
4|4
5|4
6|5
7|5
8|5
9|5
10|6
11|6
12|6
13|6
14|6
15|7
16|7
17|7
18|7
19|7
20|7
21|10?
[/table]
Since it appeared the distance between increasing the max was getting larger.
Skills, with the exception of Strife, are linked with two stats to be rolled when you use it.
Remove "two stats to be rolled", you never roll a stat in your stated mechanics. Instead say something like:
Each Skill has two linked stats, except Strife, which can be linked to any stat. At character creation, choose one of the linked stats to use as your linked stat for that skill. You normally cannot change this choice. When you roll a skill check, the choosen linked stat should be used to determine Degree of Success, as described earlier.
On attributes
You refer to Attributes and stats interchangably. It would be better to choose one term and stick with it. You should also state the hard max of 13, and the hard minimum of 1, when you define them.
Character Creation
How high of a rung can you reach? Is it 21, or 24, or unlimited?
Since there is one Race for all characters, Race should not be in character creation, and instead be a seperate section.
As a side-effect, your race’s equivalent to blackjack attempts to reach a score of 18, with far-reaching consequences.
This is from Racial Memories. Having read homestuck, I have no idea what this means, because the absolute lack of context with the rest of the ability leaves me lost.
As a note, character points may be occasionally granted during the game to purchase things when it’s not intended that purchasing them should increase your Echeladder rung.
This shouldn't be here, it should be in the advancement section.
Increasing all three of these numbers, minimum, average, and maximum, by one for a single attribute costs one Race Point
numbers looks like it's part of the list. Use brackets instead. Also, the sentence structure is awkward.
For one race point, you may increase all three of these numbers (minimum, average, and maximum) by one for a single attribute.
Specialness
These rule texts are actually fairly good. Though I have no idea how the duration chart relates, and you constantly conflict your own stated definitions.
Basic example: Lesser curse, on page 11.
Your degree of success on the d13 determines how long the curse lasts, and the d4 determines the magnitude effect
You stated before that d4 is the Degree of success, d13 only determines how it succeeds.
I'll give this secion a more thorough read through when the basic mechanic errors are fixed.
Combat System
Initative: Uhhh, How do I roll a stat? Do I roll d4 and multiply by the stat, or do I roll 1d<Stat> or what? This is completely undefined.
Please do not use "And so forth". It's terminology only likely to make sense to designers. Generally it's better to say something like "+ Modifiers from Specialness"
Why is combat chapter 4? Since it refers to items in later chapters, shouldn't it come after those chapters?
For reference, damage multipliers are added to the damage total separately. For instance, if you do 50 damage, and have both a graveyard king and some power that doubles damage, you do 150 damage- 50 for the original attack, 50 for the Graveyard King, and 50 for the power.
This should probably be in the basic mechanics, and should probably be worded slightly differently: I first read it as if you have double and triple, you would add 2x+3x = 5x, but you mean to do it the D&D way, where 2x+3x=4x.
Movement That looks like Frctions, which you just used for swimming and Climbing. I suggest a table, or at least a header of "feet (move/full)".
Jumping is handled as such: Roll a Movement roll
Why say that? Wouldn't saying "When Jumping, Roll a movement roll" work the same? When you use the colon form, it seems a lot like a long definition, or a list is coming ahead, but I don't see that. Also you have an IE in the Jumping rules that should be an EG. You are giving an example (EG), not saying "That is" (IE).
Element Diagram I have no idea how I'm supposed to read this. Is it supposed to be some Triforce like thing?
In Fire: "Imposes a damage penalty of -2." Sentence fragment, combine with previous sentence. "to a max of 4 subtracted from an enemy's final damage roll." Redundant - much easier to just say "to a maximum penalty of -4". Also Increasing a penalty is ambigious, it's unclear if you are adding 1, to the current negative penalty (increase the value), or if you are adding 1 to the number that is being subtracted, ie: subtracting by one. Simplier to say the penalty worsens, or some similar text.
Earth has similiar problems to fire, as does Water, Air, Time, Space, Force, and Mental.
Quantum should say "applies against this attack".
Why is the penalty duration for tier 1 and 2 all the way down at the bottom, after the tier 4 stuff? It would make more sense between the diagram and the the definitations.
Drugs, Disease,... Just needs a bit of a better flow to it, instead of haphazard. Pretty simple and understandable though.
Alchemitting
Grist: What the heck am I drawing from? How do I know what rank each is? Do I just assign it in order I draw, or? Should you switch between GM and Player rules so frequently in this section? Shouldn't you move some of the rules around to make it clearer?
Your players can store an amount of each kind of Grist equal to their Cache Multiplier (Determined by their rung, found in chart 8.1) times the grist’s Value Multiplier (Found in chart 5.1). Thus, you always have room for one grist of a kind, no matter how rarified it may be.
This is an example: You switch from talking from the GM perspective ("Your players") to the Players ("you") mid paragraph.
Once I reach Random grist types, I see that by Drawing you meant roll d4 and d13, 35 times, discarding duplicates, and then just assign somehow? But the information should be near each other, not mostly through the chapter.
Everything between this and Experience is pretty much fine, but why is Experience all the way at the end? Also, why doesn't the table have Rung and Total Spent Experience required in seperate coloumns? (Also, Total XP spent would probably work just as well).
Overall looks pretty good, other then being incomphrensible at times, though I haven't checked any numbers.
Yuki Akuma
2011-01-15, 02:20 PM
Experience is all the way at the end because Jann plays Exalted.
Everything else we'll have to work on to clarify. Thanks for that!
Well, I'd been quite worried that your comments would be darn mean, but you've organized them well, explained them, and I think that'll be very helpful for editing, since you seem to have a good idea of what would be useful. I haven't read through the whole thing, but I shall, and I do intend to use it for editing- We've gotten some editing done, but I admit that I'm no ace editor, I simply don't trust anyone else to move as quickly as I will. I'm more than grateful for the assistance, though.
Gralamin
2011-01-15, 03:17 PM
Well, I'd been quite worried that your comments would be darn mean
Well they were "meaner", but I realized I was being too harsh, since so few people were working on it. So when I was not half asleep, I went back and brought it a bit back into where it should be.
, but you've organized them well, explained them, and I think that'll be very helpful for editing, since you seem to have a good idea of what would be useful. I haven't read through the whole thing, but I shall, and I do intend to use it for editing- We've gotten some editing done, but I admit that I'm no ace editor, I simply don't trust anyone else to move as quickly as I will. I'm more than grateful for the assistance, though.
No problem then. A useful trick is to try and read it as if you weren't the developer. Hard to do, but catches so many errors.
Well, thank you for that kindness, as it did wonders for my being able to gracefully accept these suggestions in the spirit in which they were given.
And it's the nice thing about doing something indie like this, you can afford to toss it up on the web and have random smart people critique it, instead of finding someone highly specialized in critiquing things that they have a personal stake in. A big part of the playtesting is just finding what about the writing is unclear, and correcting it.
Doing some of that editing now. Gralamin, would you like that to be put as your name? I'm adding you as an Editing Aid, but if you've got a different choice for a credit, I'm happy to hear it.
Going through in order, just responding to the (very few) things that I should. Anything not responded to here, I am editing to proper shape in the document.
1: Pretty sure I caught all the attribute mentions in the book, that was thankfully one of the things I remembered, but I might've missed it. Definitely sure they're all replaced now, though.
2: The Racial memories and Racial Handicap thing about blackjack is a minor joke. You normally reach it at skill rung 21, so if you reached it instead at rung 18, there is some sort of strange connection with your race's equivalent of blackjack. It's a joke, and an amusing little bit of racial fluff, and I really don't know how I could explain that in the document without killing that joke stone dead. :smallwink: I did alter Racial Memories to make the parallels a bit more obvious, though.
3: I'm working on rearranging the duration chart a bit. I was thinking it might be important for Mutations and Powers, but it seems naturally to only really be an aspect of spells. Spells DO work differently from other things, and I'll try to make that more clear, but among other things, they do not naturally get linked with a stat, so your skill is what matters most. Essentially, spells come with their own individual 'stat' used for the d4 roll, if it matters, as with attack spells, for one example.
4: Combat's place in the book. This is being reworked into the 'General system' chapter, and is intended to cover most of the more simulationist systems in the book. Movement, combat, resisting disease, etcetera. I think that there's going to be a certain question of flow no matter what way you read the book, so through the bookmarks, I'm trying to keep things as clear as I can.
5: The elements. Yeah, pretty much just a triforce thing, kind of a neat graphical effect, meant to keep it from looking too completely boring. I'd like to have a few flairs, yanno?
Yuki Akuma
2011-01-16, 03:29 PM
Psychic powers also come with their own "stat" - only mutations care about your stats. Whereas spells only care about your skills, and psychic powers care not one jot for either, mostly.
Dual update coming up! Kate, luckily, was saved at the last moment by her Sprite, which was really rather predictable. She spent a while adventuring in Derse, meeting the inhabitants there, including a WISTFUL VANDAL who was spraypainting anti-royalist rhetoric. In the meantime, Rick used the map he was given, finding the second gate, to Rain's house. After a fistbump together and a brohug, while Fyre fought for her life, creating a tree on her surface after jetpacking there. This tree shortly after was knocked down by the meteor, thankfully sending Fyre to the relative safety of the Land of Storms and Fury. Rick and Rain faced off against a pair of RAVEOGRES while Fyre took on a RAVEIMP, the three heroes handily wiping them out. Fyre prototyped herself the JINGOISTIC JACKET and the BOMBASTIC ARGUMENT STYLE, preparing herself. She managed to build up the house the rest of the way to the first gate, and all four, now awakened, prepared to enter their gates...
Whoopsie, no, Rick fell asleep! As it turns out, the three went on to explore their respective lands a bit more, making friends with some consorts, and learning more about the nature of their lands. After spending a while doing adventures, KATE and FYRE managed to join up to do a good old fashioned vault heist, nabbing a miniature version of the key that unlocks the Denizen's Palace, among other things. The group regrouped, and began discussing their adventures a bit, what they'd learned so far, and set themselves some goals. RICK had by this time woken up, with some strange reticience about his experiences therein...
The group awakes, prepared with a new plan from their dreams: They need to get to the Land of Storm and Fury, and find a Transportalizer that will let them get their physical selves onto Derse, and in the Queen's Bedchambers, to attempt a plan as disgusting as it is improbable: Seduce the queen and get her to take off her ring, giving them a chance to banish her. To accomplish this, they needed to complete their chain- Kate and Fyre entered a one Boonbuck Prospit Hold'em Tournament at a large casino, to get into the VIP lounge where the gate is, and Rick and Rain returned to Leonardo, to talk with him, and found out a method of getting a running Faraday cage to let them cross the lightning plains... That feels strangely verboten to say.
Kate and Fyre did poorly at first, barely winning their blind with a little luck and applied explosives. Then, on the next hand, Kate fell asleep mid-hand, which was balanced out by Fyre drawing a Graveyard King, thus disqualifying the other players on grounds of being blown the **** up. At the same time, Rick and Rain were confronted by a terrifying SILVER LICH, with CHUCK NORRIS PROTOTYPING. It proceeded to OPEN A CAN OF WHUPASS on them until Rick got TWO ****ING GRAVEYARD KINGS IN A ROW, SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE **** ARE THE ODDS ON THAT, LIKE ONE IN 2700, and butchered the thing in an Akira-esque feat of psychic slaughter. Retrieving the precious CAN OF GASOLINE, Leonardo GASSED UP HIS THUNDERBIRD HA HAH GET IT LIGHTNING TESLA CROWS THUNDERBIRD THAT **** WAS IMPROV'D BABY, and the group proceeded to CONTINUE ONWARD.
And everyone felt kinda odd about the fact that their dreamselves were the opposite gender and generally very different in personality.
We've been doing a lot of update work.
One of the most exciting things we've done involves a big of a tactics system- Which is a misnomer, probably, since it's essentially a way to use most of the non-combat skills in a way that lets them use their noncombat skills- Shenanigans, Lore, Enigmas, Pestering, Trolling, Larceny.
BarroomBard
2011-02-23, 03:21 PM
Here are some random notes that occurred to me:
Combat should probably feature the option to Abjure, Abscond, etc... to capture the feel of the comics.
In the Character creation section, when talking about handing out character creation points, it is unclear if "you" refers to the players making their characters, or the GM.
Also, did you consider using actually cards (or index cards) to use the captchalogue system? For example, each player gets a stack of index cards. On one, they write their Strife spectus, on another they write their Fetch Modus. They arrange the rest according to their Fetch modus, and place items on the cards, as a visual representation of their modus.
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