Coplantor
2011-01-26, 08:45 PM
I'm constantly thinking about possible settings, modifications to different games as well as homebrews and houserules. Today I was thinking about the Cthulhu Mythos and the RPG's thye've inspired, I always wanted to play a medieval fantasy game heavily influenced by Lovecraft. Instead of dragons and ogres, abominations from beyond and strange creepers from under the sea and great heroes almost pointlessly fighting these beings.
But then, I thought about the old "he who fights monsters" situation, and characters going insane reminded me of the ending quote from Shutter Island.
Now I want to develop a game in which the three most important stats to keep playing are:
Health: Just like in any other RPG that involves combat, it measures how much punishment you can take before fainting or bleeding to death.
Sanity: Key piece for a Lovecraft inspired game. Being unharmed means nothing if cant stop cowering or seeing things that are not there.
And my own adition:
Taint: Some monsters are tougher than others, and might require supernatural methods to defeat, and those methods will leave a stain in your soul as they will make you less human. As the Taint grows stronger in you, you loose your humanity and you slowly become the very thing you hunt.
If you are lucky, you die before becoming a monster, with just a little luck you might go insane and never realize that you are an abomination. But the unlucky few that lives long enough to become an aberration and keep their sanity intact will live a life of torment, being rejected or hunted for the rest of their days until they either die or accept what they are and become another threat for humanity.
Basically, each one of those stats would be derivated from the Major Atributes: Body, Mind and Soul
And so will the skills, body for physical activities, mind for knowledge and intuition related tasks and soul for will and magic.
As of right now, I'm trying to come up with a die mechanic for the game, I think I prefer something similar to d20. Roll, apply modifiers, compare to target DC, but maybe using 3d6 instead of d20, even the big heroes of this world shouldn't be as epic and larger than life than the DnD heroes, so having a clearer average roll would benefit the feeling of the game.
So, my dear homebrewers, fellow players, playgrounders in general, what do you think?
But then, I thought about the old "he who fights monsters" situation, and characters going insane reminded me of the ending quote from Shutter Island.
Now I want to develop a game in which the three most important stats to keep playing are:
Health: Just like in any other RPG that involves combat, it measures how much punishment you can take before fainting or bleeding to death.
Sanity: Key piece for a Lovecraft inspired game. Being unharmed means nothing if cant stop cowering or seeing things that are not there.
And my own adition:
Taint: Some monsters are tougher than others, and might require supernatural methods to defeat, and those methods will leave a stain in your soul as they will make you less human. As the Taint grows stronger in you, you loose your humanity and you slowly become the very thing you hunt.
If you are lucky, you die before becoming a monster, with just a little luck you might go insane and never realize that you are an abomination. But the unlucky few that lives long enough to become an aberration and keep their sanity intact will live a life of torment, being rejected or hunted for the rest of their days until they either die or accept what they are and become another threat for humanity.
Basically, each one of those stats would be derivated from the Major Atributes: Body, Mind and Soul
And so will the skills, body for physical activities, mind for knowledge and intuition related tasks and soul for will and magic.
As of right now, I'm trying to come up with a die mechanic for the game, I think I prefer something similar to d20. Roll, apply modifiers, compare to target DC, but maybe using 3d6 instead of d20, even the big heroes of this world shouldn't be as epic and larger than life than the DnD heroes, so having a clearer average roll would benefit the feeling of the game.
So, my dear homebrewers, fellow players, playgrounders in general, what do you think?