Grod_The_Giant
2013-04-16, 04:27 PM
I've played with my homebrew game system, the Simplified TAbletop Roleplaying System (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=262434) a fair bit now, and it has been fairly well-received, at least among my friends. But I, as creator, am not satisfied. It's still a bit too dependent on GM fiat for my judgement, mostly due to ill-defined boundaries between abilities and (custom-designed) skills-- even as creator of the system, I flip-flopped a lot on how much you could do with an untrained skill.
The solution, I decided, was to scrap the idea of "skills" altogether. Or almost altogether. My plan is to have all actions in the game be arbitrated by abilities. Want to hack the computer? Roll Intelligence. Want to fast-talk the duke? Roll Manipulation.
Skills, I'm thinking, will take the form of something more like traits in the old draft. You'll be able to purchase a skill in, say, hacking, letting you make Intelligence rolls to hack computers at advantage. On the upside, this is simple. On the downside, it makes it easy to be really good at your chosen focus-- our hacker might have 7 Int and his skill, giving him about a 90% chance to succeed. Hmm... (Also, possibly, skills might let you use a different stat for a given use, so you could, say, roll Smarts to look for evidence)
I'm also revising my ability list slightly in order to take the change into account. I want 10 abilities to match the d10 die; this number isn't really negotiable. Unfortunately, I've only come up with 9 that I really like, and one maybe. So, playground, I ask for:
a) your opinion on the ability distribution I do have
b) suggestions for a 10th ability/new uses for my maybe
c) a 5th common use for Dex and Manipulation
Skills
Agility
Physical Coordination
1. Acrobatics
2. Jumping
3. Melee Attacks
4. Riding
5. Stealth
Awareness
Perception and insight
1. Examination
2. Perception
3. Reading People
4. Recognizing falsehood
5. Tracking
Dexterity
Fine motor skills
1. Driving
2. Lockpicking
3. Ranged Attacks
4. Sleight of Hand (includes pickpocketing)
5. ???
Manipulation
Persuasion and deception
1. Deception
2. Disguise
3. Persuasion
4. Provocation
5. ???
Physique
Physical strength and toughness
1. Athletics
2. Exerting force (lifting, pushing, and breaking)
3. Fortitude Saves
4. Physical Health
5. Wrestling
Presence
Personal magnetism
1. Intimidation
2. Knowing People
3. Leadership
4. Making friends
5. Social Health
Smarts
Knowledge and technical skill
1. Computers
2. Crafting
3. Knowledge
4. Medicine
5. Science
Speed
Reactions and movement
1. Initiative
2. Movement Speed
3. Physical Defense
4. Reflex saves
5. (Attacking multiple foes)
Will
Mental strength and toughness
1. Concentration
2. Emotional Control (Social defense)
3. Magic, psionics, and similar abilities
4. Mental Health
5. Will saves
And the maybe-possibly-10th score,
Wits
Common sense and experience
1. Memory/experience
2. Streetwise
3. Survival/nature/animals?
4. Improvisation?/Try things at disadvantage?
5. ???
A brief system summary
Mechanically, STaRS is a players-roll-all-the-dice system. Abilities (and, in the older drafts, skills) are ranked from 1-10. Players attempting an action roll a d10 against the relevant ability or skill, and if their roll is equal to or less than their rank, they succeed, with degrees of success based on 3's.
Difficulty is modulated via advantage (roll twice and take the best result) and disadvantage (roll twice and take the worst). Two sources of advantage or disadvantage tend to shift scale.
What a character can do is modulated via scale. Characters start at human level damage resistance, strength, and so on. Tasks may be trivial (auto-success), difficult (roll), or impossible. Powers and items can change that, so a super-hero can, say, lift a 100 pound weight as a trivial action, and a tank with a roll.
Everything's point-buy.
The solution, I decided, was to scrap the idea of "skills" altogether. Or almost altogether. My plan is to have all actions in the game be arbitrated by abilities. Want to hack the computer? Roll Intelligence. Want to fast-talk the duke? Roll Manipulation.
Skills, I'm thinking, will take the form of something more like traits in the old draft. You'll be able to purchase a skill in, say, hacking, letting you make Intelligence rolls to hack computers at advantage. On the upside, this is simple. On the downside, it makes it easy to be really good at your chosen focus-- our hacker might have 7 Int and his skill, giving him about a 90% chance to succeed. Hmm... (Also, possibly, skills might let you use a different stat for a given use, so you could, say, roll Smarts to look for evidence)
I'm also revising my ability list slightly in order to take the change into account. I want 10 abilities to match the d10 die; this number isn't really negotiable. Unfortunately, I've only come up with 9 that I really like, and one maybe. So, playground, I ask for:
a) your opinion on the ability distribution I do have
b) suggestions for a 10th ability/new uses for my maybe
c) a 5th common use for Dex and Manipulation
Skills
Agility
Physical Coordination
1. Acrobatics
2. Jumping
3. Melee Attacks
4. Riding
5. Stealth
Awareness
Perception and insight
1. Examination
2. Perception
3. Reading People
4. Recognizing falsehood
5. Tracking
Dexterity
Fine motor skills
1. Driving
2. Lockpicking
3. Ranged Attacks
4. Sleight of Hand (includes pickpocketing)
5. ???
Manipulation
Persuasion and deception
1. Deception
2. Disguise
3. Persuasion
4. Provocation
5. ???
Physique
Physical strength and toughness
1. Athletics
2. Exerting force (lifting, pushing, and breaking)
3. Fortitude Saves
4. Physical Health
5. Wrestling
Presence
Personal magnetism
1. Intimidation
2. Knowing People
3. Leadership
4. Making friends
5. Social Health
Smarts
Knowledge and technical skill
1. Computers
2. Crafting
3. Knowledge
4. Medicine
5. Science
Speed
Reactions and movement
1. Initiative
2. Movement Speed
3. Physical Defense
4. Reflex saves
5. (Attacking multiple foes)
Will
Mental strength and toughness
1. Concentration
2. Emotional Control (Social defense)
3. Magic, psionics, and similar abilities
4. Mental Health
5. Will saves
And the maybe-possibly-10th score,
Wits
Common sense and experience
1. Memory/experience
2. Streetwise
3. Survival/nature/animals?
4. Improvisation?/Try things at disadvantage?
5. ???
A brief system summary
Mechanically, STaRS is a players-roll-all-the-dice system. Abilities (and, in the older drafts, skills) are ranked from 1-10. Players attempting an action roll a d10 against the relevant ability or skill, and if their roll is equal to or less than their rank, they succeed, with degrees of success based on 3's.
Difficulty is modulated via advantage (roll twice and take the best result) and disadvantage (roll twice and take the worst). Two sources of advantage or disadvantage tend to shift scale.
What a character can do is modulated via scale. Characters start at human level damage resistance, strength, and so on. Tasks may be trivial (auto-success), difficult (roll), or impossible. Powers and items can change that, so a super-hero can, say, lift a 100 pound weight as a trivial action, and a tank with a roll.
Everything's point-buy.