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Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-21, 08:00 PM
As you can see from my signature, I am an aspiring game designer. I have just posted a Project Overview (http://oraclehunter.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/project-overview-gold-glory/) for a Heroic Fantasy RPG I'm developing called Gold & Glory.

For ease of reading (and quoting!) I've also posted it in spoilers below:
I began work on a new project recently so it seemed an appropriate time to introduce what (I hope) will be a regular feature of this blog: The Project Overview.

The Project Overview is a post designed to cover the most important features of any game I'm producing: The Purpose, The Highlights and The Mechanics.

The Purpose covers the type of game I'm creating and the sort of Players I'm catering towards. Additionally I will include important “axioms” that I'm building the game around, so that its design goals are clear from the outset.

The Highlights detail the most “marketable” features of the game. These are choices I've made that I have either do not see in similar games or have been done badly. Ideally, if someone asked you “why should I play this game” you should be able to answer the question by rattling off the Highlights listed here.

The Mechanics serves to give an in-depth view of the rules that will form the backbone of the game. While by no means complete, this section should give you a solid conception as to how the major components of the game operate and at least hint as to what I expect the final game to look like.

The Purpose
Gold & Glory is a Heroic Fantasy RPG which is aimed at capturing the sort of Players who have been brought up on Dungeons & Dragons, whether it was the Red Box or 4th Edition. While this is ostensibly the goal of Wizards of the Coast's D&D Next (and innumerable other systems – fan-made and official – over the years) I believe Gold & Glory will bring a fresh perspective on the situation. If you've read my posts on D&D That Never Was you have already seen the keystone of Gold & Glory: the Three Pillars of Dungeons & Dragons. I have taken the whole of Dungeons & Dragons and done my best to boil it down into three concepts that could be said to be true of any edition or version of the game:

(1) The Player Characters (“PCs”) are adventurers who rely on each others' diverse talents to overcome obstacles and survive danger (The Pillar of Adventuring Parties)

(2) The PCs explore dungeons (The Pillar of Dungeon Crawling)

(3) The PCs fight monsters (The Pillar of Dragon Slaying)

Starting from these three pillars I have constructed a game which not only holds these concepts at its heart but tries to incorporate the concerns and desires of Players of contemporary versions of Dungeons & Dragons without alienating Players who still play older versions. A difficult task, to be sure, but I have confidence in my approach.

The Highlights
Gold & Glory has several features that should distinguish it from other Heroic Fantasy RPGs:

Characters can ether be built off unified Classes or assembled piecemeal from components
While huge unified Classes were a hallmark of TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, the most popular modern versions of the game (3rd Edition and Pathfinder) have instead encouraged “Build-Your-Own Characters” through Feats and Multi-Classing. While this approach permits Players to make precisely the sort of character they want, the vast array of choices can be daunting to Players who are unfamiliar with the system or simply don't want to be bothered with that level of customization. To satisfy these two sets of desires, Gold & Glory will primary feature Characters made up of components: Race, Profession, Primary Combat Role, Secondary Combat Role, Fighting Style, and Exploration Knack. Taken together you can build anything from a street-fighter who's killer instinct and quick knives keep his friends alive to an aristocratic wizard, skilled with sword and spell who prefers to “lead from behind” in a tussle. Additionally, Players can choose which aspect of their characters to level-up first and how far: if you want to focus on picking locks you no longer have to become an excellent back-stabber as well. Classes are made up of all these components but gain a slight advancement boost to make up for their bundled nature.

Killing monsters is not the driver of character advancement
Many people have showed concern over the “murder-hobo” aesthetic found in novice Dungeons & Dragons Players: they drift from town to town, killing everything and looting their bodies, with little concern for larger matters. To counter this type of behavior (and to encourage PCs to go on plot-driven adventures) recent editions of Dungeons & Dragons have encouraged the awarding of “Quest XP” or even “Roleplaying XP” while some DMs (myself included) have simply stopped tracking XP from monster kills entirely. Gold & Glory goes one further by tracking advancement based on the value of the treasure you find (Gold) and the renown you gain for accomplishing great deeds (Glory); killing all but the most infamous monsters nets you 0 XP. This feature will refocus the game on Heroes performing feats central to most fantasy literature and implicit in Dungeons & Dragons from its beginning.

Advancement is more than just gaining Levels
In the TSR days of Dungeons & Dragons, 10th level Characters focused on making strongholds replete with followers. At the time this was seen as the end of the character's life but when Wizards of the Coast took over Dungeons & Dragons they dropped it to encourage higher level adventuring. However, I have seen among Players a persistent desire for characters to be more than just a bundle of magic items and attributes; indeed, many 3.PF Casters focus on making powerful fortresses or even dimensions of their own at higher levels. In Gold & Glory, the ability of characters to alter the world around them is at the heart of the system: everyone can spend their Gold and their Glory to attract followers, gain titles, and even open taverns or workshops of their own. How each character chooses to spend their Gold and their Glory becomes part of their character as Feat or Prestige Class selection did in 3rd Edition.

The Mechanics
In keeping with the roots of Dungeons & Dragons, Gold & Glory will use an array of dice, from the humble d4 to the mighty d20, to resolve narrative conflicts. However, I am taking the best from D&D Next by utilizing its “Advantage/Disadvantage” mechanic to streamline play. While “permanent” features (e.g. magical items, class features) will provide the traditional +X to Success, combat effects (e.g. spells, darkness) will use the Advantage/Disadvantage system to cut down on the math that needs to be done mid-combat. Sensibly, Advantages and Disadvantages will cancel each other out at a 1:1 basis to permit tactical “stacking” of combat bonuses and penalties.

Skills have been refined along similar lines with the d20 + (Attribute Modifier) becoming only half of the story. In Gold & Glory your Skill Rank (Novice to Master) will be reflected by the degree of Advantage you gain on that Skill Check. Likewise, situational modifiers that can impair your activity (e.g. improvised lockpicks for Open Locks, a rickety bridge for Balance) apply Disadvantages to your rolls. Taken together, the balance of Advantage and Disadvantage reflects how well trained individuals can cope with adversity as compared to rank novices.

Overall, I have simplified combat from the heights of its complexity while doing my best to preserve (and enhance!) the tactical choices available to Players who want them. Each character's Fighting Style (e.g. Sword & Board, Brawling, Sorcery, Faith) and Primary/Secondary Roles (e.g. Defender, Slayer, Controller, Support) determines the bulk of their in-combat options. These three components offer a mixture of damage bonuses and combat options (e.g. inflicting status effects, granting bonuses to allies, moving opponents and/or allies) for all characters so that each character can choose a mix of combat abilities that they're comfortable with. A major feature of combat in Gold & Glory is the Stance mechanic: at the start of each of their Turns characters can choose 1 of the Stances they know to operate until the start of their next turn. Stances reflect the “combat posture” of a character and how that affects their attacks and the space around them. Stances therefore give everyone a meaningful decision to make every Turn, even if it is simply to keep using one of their Stances for an additional Round. Importantly, none of the combat options in Gold & Glory are intended to become obsolete; options at higher levels with be more focused (and therefore more powerful) than lower level ones instead of being strictly superior to the choices you made at level 1.

On that note, Magic is divided up into three mechanical sets: Combat Magic (e.g. Sorcery, Faith), Low Magic and High Magic. Combat Magic is “at-will” magic that can be selected as a Fighting Style and is therefore limited mostly to combat usage (although a Fire Blast could obviously set something on fire). Combat Magic users gain Willpower Points which they can use to temporarily alter their Combat Magic in form (e.g. convert a single-target bolt of lightning into a large blast of deadly electricity) or in effect (e.g. inflicting a status on the target, granting themselves Advantage on the attack). Low Magic closely resembles Vancian Magic of early editions of Dungeons & Dragons by requiring preparation of a selection of spells in advance that take one round to cast and can be interrupted by the Caster taking damage. Importantly, Low Magic is prepared from a pool of “spell-points” rather than a set number of Spells Per Level so that Low Magic Casters can tailor their prepared spells before every adventure. In order to ease bookkeeping, Low Magic spells have a basic duration of five minutes (or one Combat) but can be Sustained for longer if the Caster is willing to take Disadvantage per Spell Sustained on all actions. High Magic covers ritual magic so powerful that simply casting one of these spells is an adventure in itself. Everything from causing earthquakes, controlling the weather, or lifting a castle into the air is covered with High Magic so that high-level Casters who want to use their powers to alter the world have a way to do so without making these powerful effects seem pedestrian by overuse.

Character advancement is still handled by Levels which are earned by Experience Points (“XP”) tallied at the end of each adventure. However, XP is not gained by slaying monsters but rather by accumulating treasure (“Gold”) and performing great deeds (“Glory”) which can, in turn, be spent between adventures in many ways. In addition to traditional adventurer recreations (e.g. making trophies, bragging in taverns, buying gear), Gold and Glory can be spent to earn titles and followers, to build workshops and strongholds, and even to produce useful items to use in the next adventure. Unlike in previous editions spending these points do not reduce your overall XP so that you don't need to make a choice between getting stronger and having useful tools.
I appreciate any and all comments regarding any aspect of this proposal. After all, I am trying to make a game that you (yes you) will buy :smallsmile:

Moreb Benhk
2013-07-21, 08:09 PM
It looks interesting. I'd find it hard to get a real grip on things without specific examples to look at. The high level advancement seems to imply you're going the more traditional power capped at ~lvl 10 and gaining followers type route vs the go superpower of 3E. Is this the case? Or are you doing an either/or thing(you can has strongholds instead of further advancement) or is it a both/and thing (you get strongholds + further advancement)?

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-21, 08:26 PM
It looks interesting. I'd find it hard to get a real grip on things without specific examples to look at. The high level advancement seems to imply you're going the more traditional power capped at ~lvl 10 and gaining followers type route vs the go superpower of 3E. Is this the case? Or are you doing an either/or thing(you can has strongholds instead of further advancement) or is it a both/and thing (you get strongholds + further advancement)?
The unique style of advancement makes this question a bit complicated to answer, but I'll try anyhow.
As mentioned, every character is made of up the following components:
Race: Self-explanatory. Grants you "racial abilities" and a bonus to HP
Profession: What you do for a living. Determines your Professional Skill, the multiplier for your base HP, and provides a variety of "professional skills" such as spellcasting, armor/weapon usage, etc.
Primary Combat Role: How you mainly contribute to combat. You pick 2 "feats" from your Primary Combat Role which affect how you interact with the battlefield.
Secondary Combat Role: What you can "pinch hit" for in combat. You pick 1 "feat" from your Secondary combat Role.
Fighting Style: How exactly you fight. Your style can give you advantages with weapons (e.g. Sword & Board style makes you better at using a shield), new combat maneuvers (e.g. Dual Weapon allows you to attack with both hands at the same time) and similar features. Combat Magic is a Fighting Style.
Exploration Knack: How you can help with exploring a dungeon. Selections include Dungeoneering (e.g. trap-finding, secret door locating), Dungeon Crashing (i.e. breaking stuff good), Divination (using magic to get information), and Invocations (at-will magic that does "special effects" stuff like levitation or remote manipulation).

Each of those 6 selections has an independent Level System of 1-5. Whenever you gain enough XP to level you can choose to level one of those components. As an example, a character could look like this:

Heinrich the Hammer
Race: Human 1
Profession: Soldier 3
Primary Combat Role: Defender 2
Secondary Combat Role: Slayer 2
Fighting Style: Great Weapon 4
Exploration Knack: Dungeon Crashing 1

In 3.PF, Heinrich would be equivalent to a LV 13 character, theoretically.

The deal with the Class Option in Gold & Glory is that Players who don't want to worry about all those components can select a bundle and level them all up at the same time. To compensate, Classed Characters get to Level 6 components for the price of 5. So, if it takes 200 XP to raise one component from LV 1 to LV 2, it would take a Classed Character 1000 XP (instead of 1,200 XP) to reach LV 2. This means a "LV 5" Classed Character is equivalent to a LV 30 character -- or something similar.
The "stronghold" component of the game runs alongside the "leveling" component so that everyone has a chance to build up their character's assets while also improving their skills.

Raineh Daze
2013-07-21, 08:34 PM
Would you have to build strongholds and gain followers and all that? Or would there be something else that you can do if you don't feel like going from an RPG to a 4X game? :smallsigh:

I mean, I like Civilisation and all (and SM's Alpha Centauri is awesome) but it's not really the sort of thing I'd want to suddenly move onto.

Also, your level thing there concerns me. Everything caps at 5? Therefore, level 5 effects are logically the strongest (hopefully). Someone who focuses on getting ONE thing to 5, as opposed to levelling equally, is therefore going to get powerful abilities early.

Or they're not that powerful and levelling is kind of dull...

Currently, it's reminding me of White Wolf's stuff, only with less things to get to level 5. Especially if it's the first option, where things start to be orders of magnitude better.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-21, 08:35 PM
Well, it, ah, could be interesting. Yet Another Fantasy Heartbreaker... I like the idea of having good stronghold rules, and simpler combat is always a good thing. The big draw sounds like the character creation process, though, which sounds great in the first post and iffy in the second. "A class is made of 6 tracks advancing different areas" sounds cool; "characters alternate between taking levels of 6 different classes" less so. Also, wouldn't you quickly start outstripping your comrades if you dumped all your advancements into one area?

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-21, 09:20 PM
@Raineh Daze & @Grod_The_Giant

Would you have to build strongholds and gain followers and all that? Or would there be something else that you can do if you don't feel like going from an RPG to a 4X game? :smallsigh:
Of course you don't need to build a stronghold to get followers. But certain followers will be more useful if they have buildings to work with.

For example, if you're a Priest and build a Church your followers (congregants) will have a place to worship and stay while you go off on adventures. Without a Church they're just a bunch of people who have given up their livelihoods to follow you around.

Alternatively you can spend a bunch of Gold and Glory to get a Henchman (i.e. a NPC with adventuring abilities). These guys will be very costly and will, by definition, be weaker than you (why would an equal or superior follow you around?) so while it can be nice having an extra guy around, it won't be like the Leadership Feat in 3.PF. However, if that Henchman is a trained Alchemist and you have a Laboratory he can work on brewing potions while you're off on adventures or doing other things. Handy!


Also, your level thing there concerns me. Everything caps at 5? Therefore, level 5 effects are logically the strongest (hopefully). Someone who focuses on getting ONE thing to 5, as opposed to levelling equally, is therefore going to get powerful abilities early.

Or they're not that powerful and levelling is kind of dull...
The important thing to remember about Gold & Glory is that it is a game of Horizontal Character Growth instead of Vertical Character Growth. Leveling up will make you more powerful, of course, but mainly it will grant you new options (similar to how a 3.PF Wizard gets more spells as he levels). So someone who rushes to, say LV 5 Combat Magic, will have more Willpower Points ("WP") to fuel his magic with and some additional specialist options (e.g. use WP to ignore Resistances; use WP to Dimension Lock target) which, while helpful, aren't the same as getting Meteor Swarm.

Additionally, it takes more XP to get higher levels. Hypothetical Leveling Chart:
LV 1: Spend 0 XP
LV 2: Spend 200 XP
LV 3: Spend 300 XP
LV 4: Spend 500 XP
LV 5: Spend 800 XP

So if you rush one Component at the expense of others you will be progressively weaker in all the other components of your character.


The big draw sounds like the character creation process, though, which sounds great in the first post and iffy in the second. "A class is made of 6 tracks advancing different areas" sounds cool; "characters alternate between taking levels of 6 different classes" less so.
No no, Players don't need to alternate advancing levels; they get to choose which ones to invest their XP into.

In the Heinrich the Hammer example in Post #3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15666036&postcount=3), Heinrich got to choose which of his Components to advance at a time. Here's how it might have gone:
Heinrich likes smashing things, so he uses his first level up (200 XP) to improve his Great Weapon Fighting Style to LV 2. He forgoes advancing another Component at his next 200 XP and instead saves up 300 XP to get Great Weapon 3 for a sweet anti-Swarm stance and some other cool maneuvers.
By the time Heinrich gets his next 200 XP he's gotten sick of his fellow party members complaining about the clothies getting roughed up so he buys his 2nd Level in Defender. Now that his allies have stopped complaining he thinks about Great Weapon 4 but 500 XP is a lot, so he takes Slayer 2 for 200 XP so he can get a nice damage bonus with his weapon of choice.
By this point, Heinrich has accumulated a bunch of Followers ("drinking buddies") and would like to do something more with them. The DM points out that Soldier 3 includes the ability to enhance Henchmen in battle and so Heinrich spends his next 200 XP on Soldier 2 and the following 300 XP on Soldier 3. Using a little Gold and Glory he upgrades some of his drinking buddies into "spear carriers" who can back him up in battle with ranged attacks. Sweet!
Heinrich has gained 6 levels by now at a cost of 1400 XP. A Classed Character would be at LV 2 at this point but would have also gotten a level in his Race and Knack (which Heinrich didn't bother with). With 100 more XP, that Classed Character will become LV 3 in everything while 100 XP can't buy Heinrich anything. This is the price for being able to tailor your character like Heinrich did.
The point of the Component Leveling system is to give Players as much (possibly more!) control over the build of their character as any WotC or Paizo D&D Edition.

I hope that makes more sense :smallsmile:

Raineh Daze
2013-07-21, 09:39 PM
Of course you don't need to build a stronghold to get followers. But certain followers will be more useful if they have buildings to work with.

For example, if you're a Priest and build a Church your followers (congregants) will have a place to worship and stay while you go off on adventures. Without a Church they're just a bunch of people who have given up their livelihoods to follow you around.

Alternatively you can spend a bunch of Gold and Glory to get a Henchman (i.e. a NPC with adventuring abilities). These guys will be very costly and will, by definition, be weaker than you (why would an equal or superior follow you around?) so while it can be nice having an extra guy around, it won't be like the Leadership Feat in 3.PF. However, if that Henchman is a trained Alchemist and you have a Laboratory he can work on brewing potions while you're off on adventures or doing other things. Handy!

I... but... that's not what I asked at all! I was asking if you had to get followers and strongholds, not if you could have the one without the other. :smallfrown:


The important thing to remember about Gold & Glory is that it is a game of Horizontal Character Growth instead of Vertical Character Growth. Leveling up will make you more powerful, of course, but mainly it will grant you new options (similar to how a 3.PF Wizard gets more spells as he levels). So someone who rushes to, say LV 5 Combat Magic, will have more Willpower Points ("WP") to fuel his magic with and some additional specialist options (e.g. use WP to ignore Resistances; use WP to Dimension Lock target) which, while helpful, aren't the same as getting Meteor Swarm.

Additionally, it takes more XP to get higher levels. Hypothetical Leveling Chart:
LV 1: Spend 0 XP
LV 2: Spend 200 XP
LV 3: Spend 300 XP
LV 4: Spend 500 XP
LV 5: Spend 800 XP

So if you rush one Component at the expense of others you will be progressively weaker in all the other components of your character.[/spoiler]

... I do believe that rushing one thing at the expense of others is blatantly obviously going to lead to lopsided characters.

Horizontal character growth with only... six avenues it can go down, hard caps on the advancement for all of them, and nowhere to go from that sounds... incomplete. There's just not enough, especially because all of the six are being determined at character creation. Add to that the way half the avenues specifically tie into combat when that's only, what, 1/3 of the game? It doesn't seem broad enough for horizontal advancement.

Also, really don't compare levels to 3.X if it's horizontal advancement, that won't work well.

Ashdate
2013-07-21, 09:45 PM
I look forward to seeing how this develops! If you get something resembling a playtest, I'll run it for my group!

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-21, 09:54 PM
I... but... that's not what I asked at all! I was asking if you had to get followers and strongholds, not if you could have the one without the other. :smallfrown:
Oh! :smallredface:
Well no. There are several "easier" avenues too. I'll sketch out a few here.
Lifestyle: How comfortably you're set up. This covers things like having a permanent room in an inn, a silk tent and fine food while you travel. Mostly it'll be for RP but I've been thinking of making it have some positive effect on your HP and out-of-dungeon healing.
Wealth: How much cash you have available. Distinct from Lifestyle in that you can use it to buy gear, bribe guards or what have you. There's a conversion rate from Gold since merchants always take a little something for themselves when they buy golden idols and such from you.
Renown: How much people know you. This can be everything someone buying "the famous hero" a drink at a Tavern to giving you a bonus to Intimidate rolls.

Additionally you can convert (at a discount, naturally) Gold to Glory (via Boasting -- buying drinks in taverns and paying bards to inflate your role in adventures) and Glory to Gold (via Trophies -- taking worthless items from adventures and tying them to the tale, giving them value to collectors) which give you bonus XP as a by-product. This lets PCs manage their Gold and Glory values if they want.

I'll also have some sort of Training Mechanic where you can spend Gold and/or Glory and practice under a Tutor. This converts Gold/Glory to pure XP at some better discount as the conversions described above.
In short, Gold & Glory gives more options for Players who want them, but also has "easy outs" for the legendary "Simple Player" who just wants to go into the Dungeons and hit Dragons with sticks :smalltongue:


Horizontal character growth with only... six avenues it can go down, hard caps on the advancement for all of them, and nowhere to go from that sounds... incomplete. There's just not enough, especially because all of the six are being determined at character creation.
Care to elaborate? How many different components would you like? I'll note that gaining a level usually (maybe always) gives you a list to make choices from -- like the Feat system in 3.PF. So a LV 2 Defender, for example, might choose between 6 different "feats" with half of them Stances and the other half like more traditional Feats. Every level of Defender will have a new list of 6 Feats to choose some number from.

I feel this will give Players at least as many choices on character customization as a Tier II 3.PF Character but I may be missing something.


Also, really don't compare levels to 3.X if it's horizontal advancement, that won't work well.
Yeah, you're right. I shan't do it again :smallsmile:

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-21, 10:20 PM
No no, Players don't need to alternate advancing levels; they get to choose which ones to invest their XP into.
That, ah... that is alternating levels. You get to choose, but... in your example below, Heinrich takes two levels of Great Weapon Fighting style, one level of Defender, and two levels of Soldier. It's not necessarily a bad way of doing things-- it worked in 3.5-- but it does sound more like 3e multiclassing than anything else. A "class," then, would be some sort pre-made build-- take one level of soldier, one level of Great Weapon Fighting, two levels of Defender, one level of Solider...

I would suggest moving in a more point-buy direction, to be honest. That's what it sounds like you're talking about-- Heinrick spending XP to buy new abilities. Exalted might be a model, strange as it sounds-- you can spend XP to buy new active abilities (charms), new chassis elements (more dots in skills and abilities), or more worldbuilding-y stuff (followers, resources, and so on).

If you're looking at horizontal advancement, Mutants and Masterminds does a fantastic job of that. Your (power) level directly limits how big your numbers can be, and thus what is and isn't a threat to you, but advances fairly slowly and largely by the GM's whim. Meanwhile, you're using your XP to either buy new abilities or upgrade the ones you have-- and since their maximum power is capped, you're forced to broaden.

Other Thoughts

Glad to know that there are options to convert between your three forms of reward. Might be tricky to make sure they're balanced in power, though.
Your experience chart needs work, obviously-- it's way cheaper to pump one ability to level 5 than to level all six to level 2.
What's the distinction between Combat Roles and Combat Styles, in terms of abilities? Also, is there a difference between your primary and secondary styles?

Moreb Benhk
2013-07-21, 10:52 PM
I note you start level 1 in everything, effectively starting at level 5? So there are four steps of growth in any direction?

erikun
2013-07-21, 11:41 PM
You mention in the blog that you're trying to attract the sort of players who've played various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, so I'm curious as to which editions of the system you've played. Can you say how the editions were different, and how you'd like G&G to be similar to - or at least attracts players from - each edition?

Your leveling up concept does not strike me as simple at all. Bundled classes require the same level of selection and customization as the non-bundled choices; they just need to be made less frequently (but require more choices when it happens). This isn't the AD&D leveling system, where I can just grab my class's new values and roll HP with a level up, and not worry about anything else.


Heinrich the Hammer
Race: Human 1
Profession: Soldier 3
Primary Combat Role: Defender 2
Secondary Combat Role: Slayer 2
Fighting Style: Great Weapon 4
Exploration Knack: Dungeon Crashing 1

In 3.PF, Heinrich would be equivalent to a LV 13 character, theoretically.
Assuming that a character starts with 1 rank in everything when they begin ("first level"), this would be a 8th level character.


The advantage/disadvantage system sounds like it could work well, especially if you can gather multiple "advantages" and perhaps trade them in for bonus effects. For example, gaining one advantage means you could roll d20 twice and take the better result, or pull out a called shot for extra damage. Two advantages means you could do both. Or if you don't have an advantage, could could take a called shot and suffer a disadvantage.

The concept of gaining Gold and Glory (good choice for system name, by the way) sounds like an interesting concept. Being able to trade in one for the other, or cash both in for XP, sounds like a very interesting way to handle things.

Jerthanis
2013-07-22, 12:20 AM
I don't really like the component system you propose. Some people are going to play like Heinrich who play around in the shallows of each component, raising his Combat Role just to avoid falling behind and generally just taking what seems good at the immediate moment without planning or optimization.

But there will also be players in the same group who treat XP spent on anything other than Primary Combat Role or maybe Exploration Knack to be total wastes of experience points, since it's not directly contributing to your role in your group and your survival.

In fact, your primary pillar "Adventurers depend on each other to..." seems to suggest that this attitude is the correct one, since it develops your specialized tools that you contribute to the group the fastest.

It also seems like your third pillar of combat is at the forefront because more than half your components affect combat exclusively, and the examples of most of the other components are going to affect combat as well. I mean, I assume Elf levels is where you'd find their trademark immunity to sleep and resistance to charm effects, which are combat powers. With this focus in mind, it seems like your "Exploration Knack" component seems almost like your dumping ground for the "Dungeon Delving" pillar because those abilities are harder to classify.

OTHER than the component system however, I like the concepts you mention for most of the rest of the system. Components may be workable in an actual finished product, but it's definitely the most worrying thing from what you've presented so far.

Autolykos
2013-07-22, 02:33 AM
Wow, if you want to build "D&D, but better", and prevail with it on this already oversaturated market, you're up for quite a challenge (even though there's lots of room for improvement in D&D). There are literally dozens, perhaps even hundreds, out there that tried. Most have some great ideas, but fall short in other areas (or just in marketing, which is the saddest way to die). And if on some off-chance you're successful, you've got that certain Wizard living by the Coast coming your way with The Copyright Hammer. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it won't be easy.

Now for some specific advice:
- The Component System basically tries to break out of the straitjacket named Class System, but it only goes half way and makes everything complicated and confusing. Why not get rid of the whole mess in favor of a more comprehensive Skill System plus some kind of Feat Tree? You could still bundle these up in neat packages labeled e.g. "Fighter I" or "Wizard IV" with a fixed XP cost that can be used as a base by new/lazy players.
- The "XP for killing monsters"-mechanic is IMHO one of the most critical design flaws in D&D (mainly because of the bookkeeping), and getting rid of it is definitely a good thing. I'd go with a pure "XP for objectives/reputation" approach (like Shadowrun's Karma) and use gold to pay teachers. Midgard has an interesting mechanic there, where you have a fixed exchange rate between money and XP and can pay up to 2/3 of your XP costs in gold (by hiring a teacher).
- Fixing the magic system is also important, D&D's is absolutely horrible. But I'd need some testing to know how well yours does.
- I'd love good rules for fortress building, as I've always wanted to run DF on tabletop. Would make for a great sandbox campaign. But please make it optional.

Good "Luck"!

Morty
2013-07-22, 07:23 AM
Hm. Interesting. The advancement system does look like it's a bit too complicated for its own good, but maybe it works better in practice. Straddling the line between class-and-level-based advancement and point-buy advancement is always risky.

I'm also not sure how I feel about the "Glory" part. It does look like it forces characters to achieve notoriety, which stifles some character concepts. What if someone wants a character who is powerful, but largely anonymous and lacking infrastructure?

DeltaEmil
2013-07-22, 07:40 AM
Killing monsters is not the driver of character advancement
Many people have showed concern over the “murder-hobo” aesthetic found in novice Dungeons & Dragons Players: they drift from town to town, killing everything and looting their bodies, with little concern for larger matters. To counter this type of behavior (and to encourage PCs to go on plot-driven adventures) recent editions of Dungeons & Dragons have encouraged the awarding of “Quest XP” or even “Roleplaying XP” while some DMs (myself included) have simply stopped tracking XP from monster kills entirely. Gold & Glory goes one further by tracking advancement based on the value of the treasure you find (Gold) and the renown you gain for accomplishing great deeds (Glory); killing all but the most infamous monsters nets you 0 XP. This feature will refocus the game on Heroes performing feats central to most fantasy literature and implicit in Dungeons & Dragons from its beginning.How is this going to stop the murder-hobo stuff, if gold gives xp? Won't it encourage the player characters to kill everyone in towns, taking their money, go to the next town, and then kill everyone to get more money, and therefore more xp?

Morty
2013-07-22, 07:55 AM
Yes, I can't say I understand the "XP for gold" idea either. Why not simply give out XP for accomplishments?

PairO'Dice Lost
2013-07-22, 11:41 AM
How is this going to stop the murder-hobo stuff, if gold gives xp? Won't it encourage the player characters to kill everyone in towns, taking their money, go to the next town, and then kill everyone to get more money, and therefore more xp?


Yes, I can't say I understand the "XP for gold" idea either. Why not simply give out XP for accomplishments?

Gold giving XP goes back to 1e AD&D, where 1 gp = 1 XP (and potentially more for thieves if you're using the rules for that). It can encourage PCs to kill people in town, I suppose, but most townsfolk wouldn't have all that much money and those that would have a lot of cash would have more protection. And if this does happen (which it never did outside of evil campaigns when I ran 1e), there are consequences to wanton theft and murder that PCs actually have to worry about in this system since they're not effortlessly better than the town guard.

The larger effect is to encourage less murderhobo-y tactics in the field: rather than trying to kill everything they can see, they're incentivized to try to avoid combat, sneak past monsters, take their treasure, and get out alive, because killing a monster gets you very little XP compared to taking its treasure; slaying a great wyrm might give you only double-digit XP while getting its hoard back to town gets you several thousand.

Morty
2013-07-22, 01:26 PM
Everything it solves can also be solved by giving out XP for actual accomplishments. It looks like a pointless legacy mechanic to me.

Ashdate
2013-07-22, 01:41 PM
Everything it solves can also be solved by giving out XP for actual accomplishments. It looks like a pointless legacy mechanic to me.

I think the problem with simply saying "award quest XP" is that you then need to figure out how the system handles quest XP. D&D has traditionally, been very poor at doing this, largely thanks to a few editions where the best way to gain levels was to be a murder-hobo. The result is that experience rewards for non-combat situations have been largely arbitrary.

The advantage to tying it to gold (aside from modifying behaviour) is that as a DM, you can then set the pace of advancement better than "you need to help five farmers to gain a level". I think treasure has always been a bit of a sore spot in D&D too, so tying it to advancement might kill two birds with one stone, since you can (likely) easily set the pace via the amount of treasure you hand out.

PairO'Dice Lost
2013-07-22, 01:51 PM
Everything it solves can also be solved by giving out XP for actual accomplishments. It looks like a pointless legacy mechanic to me.

Granted, quest XP is probably a better approach, I was just pointing out that it doesn't necessarily encourage the murderhobo approach because we already have a case study of a game where it doesn't.

On the other hand, tying XP to gp has one tangible design benefit: you don't need to have any sort of Wealth By Level guidelines, or worry about high-level low-wealth characters, because wealth and XP have no choice but to increase in lockstep; the vast majority of XP is going to come from gp, and parties who get most of their XP from combat are going to be lower-level for longer and thus item dependency and wealth disparities and such won't enter the picture for a while.

Morty
2013-07-22, 02:34 PM
I think the problem with simply saying "award quest XP" is that you then need to figure out how the system handles quest XP. D&D has traditionally, been very poor at doing this, largely thanks to a few editions where the best way to gain levels was to be a murder-hobo. The result is that experience rewards for non-combat situations have been largely arbitrary.

There's nothing wrong with that, though. It lets the GM set their own pace.


The advantage to tying it to gold (aside from modifying behaviour) is that as a DM, you can then set the pace of advancement better than "you need to help five farmers to gain a level". I think treasure has always been a bit of a sore spot in D&D too, so tying it to advancement might kill two birds with one stone, since you can (likely) easily set the pace via the amount of treasure you hand out.

Right, except that it creates a situation in which the PCs who get rich easily become powerful more quickly than those who overcome greater challenges, but earn less riches.


Granted, quest XP is probably a better approach, I was just pointing out that it doesn't necessarily encourage the murderhobo approach because we already have a case study of a game where it doesn't.

On the other hand, tying XP to gp has one tangible design benefit: you don't need to have any sort of Wealth By Level guidelines, or worry about high-level low-wealth characters, because wealth and XP have no choice but to increase in lockstep; the vast majority of XP is going to come from gp, and parties who get most of their XP from combat are going to be lower-level for longer and thus item dependency and wealth disparities and such won't enter the picture for a while.

I suppose it is a benefit, although tying wealth and experience so tightly has its own drawbacks. Namely, it essentially forcibly removes the high-level low-wealth characters from play.

Icewraith
2013-07-22, 02:50 PM
Previous editions just killed off your high level low wealth characters because their numbers weren't high enough so this seems like an improvement.

The trick is everything's tied to economics, but it also sort of solves the issue of characters getting too much wealth too early. However, if your stuff gets stolen or your stronghold blown up do you lose levels? How did that work in 1e?

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-22, 03:28 PM
I suppose it is a benefit, although tying wealth and experience so tightly has its own drawbacks. Namely, it essentially forcibly removes the high-level low-wealth characters from play.
But it doesn't sound like that's what's happening here. There are three distinct currencies for increasing character power, and it's possible to convert them.

Ashdate
2013-07-22, 03:42 PM
Right, except that it creates a situation in which the PCs who get rich easily become powerful more quickly than those who overcome greater challenges, but earn less riches.

I find it curious that you would be in favour of letting the DM "set the pace" (via non-combat experience), yet somehow not see the above as an example of the DM doing exactly that.

DeltaEmil
2013-07-22, 03:57 PM
Killing monsters is still the most effective thing to get their money (and therefore xp, which simply means money is now only a xp-token). It has the benefit that now you don't have to worry about the monster trying to stop you from getting away with its money.

I would guess that this will be a system where combat is extremely and brutally lethal, mishaps happen where the combatants can slice off their own arms, magic might lead to demon gribblies appearing out of nowhere and taking the magic user away to their hell and pain dimension, healing takes months or is impossible, every opponent can make you fall ill with tetanus and wound fevers, goblins are actually magical demon monsters from a dark and twisted unseelie realm that can steal the souls of virtuous men and women, dragons are unbeatable terrors from the sky that bring fire and ash to those that do not worship them, undead horrors skulk in forgotten tombs, and a simple house cat can tear off your stomach and make your guts fall out, and other horrible stuff to make player characters rather focus on sneaking, stealing, and scooting away, instead of slashing, skewering and stabbing opponents (and townspeople).

So, Warhammer Fantasy. But less deadly.

Raineh Daze
2013-07-22, 04:09 PM
mishaps happen where the combatants can slice off their own arms, magic might lead to demon gribblies appearing out of nowhere and taking the magic user away to their hell and pain dimension, healing takes months or is impossible, every opponent can make you fall ill with tetanus and wound fevers

If the system is set up like that by default, I have to say I'd write it off. PC's being unable to even perform at their chosen profession without somehow killing themselves? That's just... bad. :smallsigh:

Well, unless it's Paranoia. But I don't see how you'd get time to kill YOURSELF.

DefKab
2013-07-22, 06:03 PM
I'm seeing some very interesting things here. I'll try to be brief, as I could probably talk for hours on some of these points.

Firstly is the XP/Gold/Glory system... I think this has the potential to be brilliant, but for me the issue comes with the separation of the matters... XP, Gold, and Glory can all be used for the same thing, from what I gather, but are doled out separately, and therefore, are treated as separate entities. Might it be an easier solution to give out 'Glory' and that glory can be spent on either improvements to your character's skill, (During this quest, I learned the importance of a good spell!) equipment, (Look at all the treasure the beast had!) or story perks (The king rewarded us with a keep in his country!). With a proper eye for balance, you could establish High Power Low Wealth Characters (by using it mostly to improve the character), Low Power High Wealth Characters, or even pure support and story characters, spending all of their Glory on in-character favors and friends.
Hell, I could even see this change per party, if the DM doubles the equipment and Advancement costs, it'll encourage the players to get story rewards with their glory. Same for tilting the other axis different ways...

Character Advancement: This does worry me, a little. I'll just echo the fears of others, with such low caps, and tiny classes, it may feel different, but mechanically, it's the same... Why not offer all tracks, skills, feats, classes, whatever you call them, at the same time? Those that prefer the sneaky classes will still only pick up sneaky feats, but they wont be restricted to their original choices. You could even make certain feat trees to support focusing on a particular path, while still keeping character creation completely open...
The only issue here, is learning curve, and I suppose that's something that you'll have to figure out yourself.

I'm loving the Henchman and Follower ideas, but I see them as more of an abstract condition, more than an extra PC like Leadership bestows. I imagine my party being in a dungeon, with the followers hanging off-grid, and providing temporary buffs and debuffs from afar, like withering ranged damage, or tossing the eventual cure spell when needed. Combined with Story rewards, your character might not be powerful on his own, but when he has his entourage, he's got a supreme advantage...

Lastly, I'll echo an above statement on Advantages and Disadvantages. Singly, I love the mechanic, it's nice, swingy, and on average a simple +5 bonus. However, stacking them makes it a nice Tactical element, as you aim to keep your party's advantages above the disadvantages the enemies are sending your way. However, what if we could spend Advantages on unique manuevers that other games dont handle so well? For instance, I could trade in my Advantage for a trip attempt, instead of an attack, and that would give Advantage to my Buddy the Rogue, who uses it to fuel his Sneak Attack for a damage boost. It might let you do manuevers easily, without having to worry about sacrificing advancement for it (like 3.5) or make it clumsy (like 3.P).
Just a couple thoughts.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-22, 06:33 PM
It seems like a lot of people have questions and concerns about the Component System. Let's see if I can clear some things up.
First of all, a Class is something defined in the book; it is a pre-assembled collection of Components that a novice Player can pick right off the shelf. I will even include a "suggested character build" as you see in 3.PF Classes. Here's an example:

Wizard Class
Race: [Player's Choice]
Profession: Arcanist (i.e. Vancian Caster)
Primary Combat Role: Controller
Secondary Combat Role: Slayer
Fighting Style: Sorcery (i.e. Arcane Combat Magic)
Exploration Knack: Invocations (i.e. Arcane Utility Magic)
At LV 1, Wally the Wizard gets to choose his Race, 3 LV 1 Spells from the Arcanist Spell List, 2 Controller Feats, 1 Slayer Feat, his element of Sorcery (e.g. Acid, Ice, Fire, Lighting), and 1 Invocation. He does not need to have a deep understanding of the rules to choose the right mix of Components -- I've done that already. While this is more complicated that a 1st Level 3.PF Fighter I hope that by dividing the "feats" into sub-lists tied to Components it will be easier for a novice to navigate than 1001 Feats.

At LV 2 (1,000 XP), Wally makes the following choices: 1 Racial Ability, 3 LV 2 Spells from the Arcanist List, 2 more Controller Feats, 1 Slayer Feat, 1 Sorcery Feat, and 1 LV 2 Invocation. Wally did not need to decide whether to spend or save up his XP while accumulating those 1,000 XP nor decide whether it was better to get Arcanist 2 first or Invocation 2. While Wally does lose out on the benefits of specialization (as many of you have noted) he remains a rounded character that advances slightly faster than a custom-build character.

Now, it is true that this is not as simple as an AD&D Character but, IMHO, the "character building" portion of the game is just too rooted in the culture at the moment to leave it out. As the 3.x Tier System shows, versatility really does matter in a RPG environment and I could not find a way to create a Class as simple as the AD&D Fighter that would be relevant in a game with a 3.PF Sorcerer. So yes, this is a compromise but I think one which will provide the greatest good for the greatest number.
That said, it does seem like a lot of people have a general concern for having 5 levels per Component being too low. I disagree for a couple of reasons:
No Empty Levels: In 3.PF there are many levels for many classes where all you get is some BAB, HP and Saves. In G&G every level gives the Player options for customization. With that in mind, I'm confident I can fit ten levels of a 3.PF character into five levels of a G&G character.
Every Component is a 3.PF Class: As several people have noticed, the Component system looks just like a 3.PF multi-classed character. This is intentional as, in my experience, I found most of my fellow Players took some sort of multi-classing (including Prestige Classes) to get a diversity of options and powers. In fact, Prestige Classes is where people went to get neat abilities that were outside of Feats or Spells -- and most of those Prestige Classes were about 5-10 levels. So don't think of Elf 2 as just being +HP; think of it more like 3.PF Fighter or Thief 2.
That's how I see it, but I would like to hear if I've missed anything.

* * *

As far as I can see, the concerns I see about the Gold/Glory system seem to center around these issues:
High-Power, Low-Wealth Characters
Killing for XP
DM Pacing

I'll address them in the spoilers:
High-Power, Low-Wealth Characters
As others have mentioned, I explicitly have the Gold:Glory conversion system to permit Players to tailor their Character's balance to however they prefer. Additionally, I am making magical items less central to high-level characters by investing so much of a character's abilities into their levels. This means you can actually play an "impoverished" Hero without carting around several kingdoms' worth of magical items.

I can say more on my plan for Magic Items if anyone wants; when I drafted the post, it didn't fit my Big Picture approach.

Killing for XP
While killing may be the fastest route to gain treasure, it is also the riskiest since you risk your life with every fight. Additionally, unlike in many other editions of D&D, you don't gain anything from killing your common Orc: he won't be carrying around much money, and there's no real Glory in doing so. Indeed you will be better able to survive dungeons by avoiding killing and getting the the treasure rooms where the good stuff is.

Importantly, Magical Items do not have Gold Values. Looting a Staff of Power from a Lich is its own reward; you don't get extra XP for having it. So there's that to consider.

Finally, a hypothetical party might decide to simply loot a town for its money but there are a few problems:
Towns that a party of adventures could destroy don't have much Gold, let alone in great concentrations.
Burning down towns makes it hard to spend Gold or Glory
So I don't really worry about G&G producing PCs that burn down towns for money any more than previous editions encouraged PCs to locate a Magic Shop and murder the proprietor for his goods.

DM Pacing
Gold and Glory can be used to pace adventures just like XP has always been used. If the DM decides the game is going too slowly he can easily supplement their XP by granting Glory as Quest Rewards (which is rather its point) or ignore these systems entirely as I and others have done in previous editions of D&D. The power of Gold/Glory is that it is more than a plot-tracking mechanic; it gives the Players additional resources with which they can interact with the game world.

And finally, some direct responses to pointed concerns :smallsmile:

@Erikun

You mention in the blog that you're trying to attract the sort of players who've played various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, so I'm curious as to which editions of the system you've played. Can you say how the editions were different, and how you'd like G&G to be similar to - or at least attracts players from - each edition?
I have personally played AD&D (1st & 2nd Edition), 3.0, 3.5, PF, and 4e. I won't get into the ins and outs of all the different systems (that's a thesis-length project!) but I had hoped my "Purpose" section had laid out how I planned to attract them: by providing the core D&D experience (as enunciated in my Three Pillars) with mechanics aimed to appeal at the 3.PF crowd. That said, I hope that the "stream-lined" approach will bring TSR Era D&D Players back to the fold (like Scott Kurtz said during the 4e Podcasts) and that my Horizontal Character Growth will appeal to 4e Players.

@Jerthanis

I don't really like the component system you propose. Some people are going to play like Heinrich who play around in the shallows of each component, raising his Combat Role just to avoid falling behind and generally just taking what seems good at the immediate moment without planning or optimization.

But there will also be players in the same group who treat XP spent on anything other than Primary Combat Role or maybe Exploration Knack to be total wastes of experience points, since it's not directly contributing to your role in your group and your survival.

In fact, your primary pillar "Adventurers depend on each other to..." seems to suggest that this attitude is the correct one, since it develops your specialized tools that you contribute to the group the fastest.
I'm not quite sure what the objection is here. Is it that it is possible to optimize in G&G? Or is it that Specialists will leave Generalists in the dust?

If it is the latter, then I have some tricks in store. For one, "survivability" is spread out amongst several Components: Race and Profession determine HP, Profession and Combat Role provide Defenses, and Exploration contains miscellaneous Dungeon Survival abilities. Additionally, most "survivability" choices (but not HP) will need to be made at the expense of versatility: Profession, Combat Role and Exploration all contain new things you can do mixed in with the "survivability" aspects mentioned above and you can only choose so many. So yes, you can make the total tank who cannot die, but hopefully your DM doesn't simply send you on adventures where "not dying" is all you need to do to win :smalltongue:

Secondly, this is a game of Horizontal, not Vertical, Character Growth; LV 5 powers are not "win buttons." Here's a sample of some Defender Stances

LV 1 Defender (Intercept): Once per Turn, when an enemy moves adjacent to you, you may Slide 1 square (5') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy. If you hit, the enemy ends its movement.
LV 3 Defender (Takedown): Once per Turn, when a flying enemy moves within 2 squares (10') of you, you may Slide 2 (10') and make a Basic Attack against the enemy. If you hit, the enemy falls Prone on the ground and ends his movement.
LV 5 Defender (Repel Charge): Once per Turn when a charging enemy, size L or larger, moves within 3 squares (15') of you, you may Slide 3 (15') and make a Basic Attack against the enemy. If you hit, the enemy stops his movement and takes 5 Ongoing Damage of an appropriate type (Save Ends).
As you can see from the Samples, higher level options are more powerful, but more limited. While "Intercept" is good against any opponent, "Takedown" works only against flying opponents and "Repel Charge" requires not only a charging opponent, but it needs to be Size L+. Naturally being able to end movement and deal Ongoing Damage is much better than just ending movement but that doesn't mean a LV 5 Defender is only going to use his LV 5 Stance.

Specialization provides advantages, to be sure. You can get the abilities you want faster and, with proper teamwork, execute devastating actions. Since I want to encourage teamwork, this seems like a proper outcome for the system.

Did I address your concern or did I miss something?

It also seems like your third pillar of combat is at the forefront because more than half your components affect combat exclusively, and the examples of most of the other components are going to affect combat as well. I mean, I assume Elf levels is where you'd find their trademark immunity to sleep and resistance to charm effects, which are combat powers. With this focus in mind, it seems like your "Exploration Knack" component seems almost like your dumping ground for the "Dungeon Delving" pillar because those abilities are harder to classify.
A valid concern, to be sure. One thing to remember is that Racial Abilities can be for combat (e.g. immunity to sleep), exploration (e.g. detect secret doors) or both (e.g. low-light vision). Likewise, while Profession will have combat options, it will also interact strongly with the Skill System. It is true that combat is a large focus of character design but I think it is balanced by these aspects I've mentioned above and by the Gold/Glory system of external advancement.

I do not plan on making 4e's mistake of building a brilliant combat system and then neglecting everything else :smallsmile:

Moreb Benhk
2013-07-22, 06:50 PM
How will spells compare to these other abilities? Because horizontal growth goes right out the window if mages are getting higher level spells.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-22, 07:07 PM
How will spells compare to these other abilities? Because horizontal growth goes right out the window if mages are getting higher level spells.
Not at all! It depends on the spell selection. The intent is to make Low Magic comparable to other abilities while, naturally, still being magic.

Admittedly, this is one of the trickier aspects of the game but I've made my life easier by splitting magic up:
Combat Magic: At-Will Spells for killing guys in combat.
Exploration Magic: Most of the "Dungeon Utility" spells ranging from Augury to Levitate.
High Magic: Big spells like Earthquake, Overland Flight, and Control Weather. Also "permanent" spells like Animate Dead.

Low Magic is going to be what's left, but pruned of purely combat effects (e.g. Divine Power, Prismatic Sphere) and most single-target buffs (e.g. Flight, Mindblank) to avoid the 3.PF Magical Arms Race. That said, I will keep Mass Buffs (because it helps the party), Mass Debuffs (e.g. Web). But this is all first-draft stuff -- I'm saving it for when I have pretty much all of the other Components sketched out so I can figure out the appropriate power level.

Additionally, remember that Vancian Spells are going to be short duration (unless Sustained, which imposes Disadvantage on other actions) and require a full Round to cast regardless of level. This should keep them from dominating combat as they did in 3.PF Nova Casting without making them as useless as 4e Rituals.

Raineh Daze
2013-07-22, 08:18 PM
*SNIP*

Can you please not use Low Magic/High Magic like that? It's kind of confusing, since it's normally used to refer to low magic availability within a setting. :smalltongue:

Besides, Grand Magic instead of High Magic sounds far more impressive. Then something like Common Magic, because seriously--group buffs/debuffs and healing are probably going to be the most commonly used things, between armies and sheer normal life. Even harvests could benefit from that. XD

Water_Bear
2013-07-22, 08:20 PM
There are definitely some good ideas on display (if 4e had looked like this, I would probably have moved over) but in the same way that a team's performance is determined by the quality of it's worst member I believe that a game in beta should be evaluated by looking at it's weakest points.

So here are some pointed questions about aspects of the game which look a little weak.

What is the problem with vertical advancement?
Why is that such an anathematic concept?
Why is the Class system being replaced?
Especially if this supposed to be pulling in OSR fans, replacing streamlined front-loaded classes with a big mess is not helpful. Something like AD&D style Multiclassing and/or 3e/4e multiple choice class features + Feats + Skills seems entirely more sensible and much less work for you. Not to mention that even the "simple" option is much more complicated than most high level 3.5/PF builds even at 1st level.
What is the advantage to having Gold Glory and XP over picking one primary form of advancement?
Gold for XP makes a lot of sense for an Old School game because it rewards smart work over hard work, makes sandbox play easier and establishes baseline economic assumptions that are fairly robust in terms of worldbuilding (as ACK demonstrated fairly beautifully). Narrative XP awards make sense for New School games like Burning Wheel because it keeps players focused on character growth. And combat XP makes sense for a Hack and Slash because grinding mobs is the essence of the play experience. You'll note that none of the three goals play very nicely together, since adding additional ones dilutes the game's focus.
What does the word "skill" mean to you?
Apparently you have Skills which work like more logical D&D Next skills, plus some nebulous concept called a "Profession Skill" as well as other apparently different abilities you have confusingly also called profession skills. What are each of these things individually and why do they all have the same name?
What options are there for out of combat play?
Other than the stronghold / follower elements which seem to be powered by resources gained through combat and the still-unclear concepts of the Profession Skill / profession skills there doesn't seem to be much going on outside of the dungeon. Old School games moved beyond dungeon delving entirely by about Name Level (9th) and D&D 3.5/PF could handle that from level 1, so presumably there is some form of robust out-of-combat play in Gold & Glory right? Please?

In terms of advice, I would suggest buying Adventurer Conqueror King and looking very hard at everything they've done. It's hardly a perfect game, but it synthesizes a lot of newer D&D concepts like Feat/Skill customization and "point buy" class design with an Old School chassis and playstyle, as well as incredible trade / stronghold management / war subsytems more-or-less unique to itself. If any one game can help you get the formula here right, ACK would be it.

erikun
2013-07-22, 09:25 PM
So it looks like you're going for 3e levels or customization along with attempting to include non-combat situations much like 4e did. Roughly speaking.

Well the Gold & Glory concept is the one that most interests me: the idea that a character can work towards increasing personal value (Gold) or personal reputation (Glory) to increase their skills or level. I'm sure some people will be asking "Why can't I train in the woods for years raised by wolves to increase my stats?" at some point, so you'd probably want to explain the reasoning as to why not. I'd like to see the Gold & Glory idea expanded upon or refined a bit better, so to give people a good idea how acquiring wealth or becoming popular benefits the character directly.

The character creation/leveling still seems a bit unusual to me. Most of the conversation involves choosing from "feats" upon increasing a skill level, but most examples just list an ability gained upon gaining a specific level. To use one of the examples, I'm not sure if the LV 5 Defender grants the character Repel Charge, if it grants them a feat and Repel Charge is one of the options, or if it grants them Repel Charge and a feat of their choice. I ask because if Repel Charge is a feat that can be chosen (or not) at Defender Lv5, then it's possible for a character to pick something completely different... rather defeating the point of the Defender levels ultimately blocking movement of enemies. Unless all the Defender Lv5 feats end up doing the same basic thing, of course.

Also, I'd just recommend not calling them "feats".

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-22, 09:49 PM
Those, ah... upper level defender powers look kind of crap, to be honest. Defender is great, but truth be told, if I was grading them as 3e maneuvers or 4e powers, I'd put them all at the same level-- you're trading increasing power for decreased versatility. Which... may be ok, if you don't want any real increase in ability power, but they all do the same thing. Why take 5 levels of the class if I'm just getting the same power over and over again? I'd rather see something like:

1: Intercept: as you had it.
3: Takedown: Any opponent you hit with an AoO has to make a Fort save or be knocked prone.
5: Repel Charge: Foes attempting to charge through your reach must make a Ref save or take damage as if you'd set a charge against them and suffer an immediate bull rush attempt. You may push them the full distance without moving.

I still don't understand the component system. Do abilities come from class levels, and your "class" is really a package of dips? Or do abilities come from feats, and your components grant you access to unique lists of feats?

Morty
2013-07-23, 07:21 AM
I still don't see much point in the XP-for-gold system, but if it can be ignored, I guess it's not a problem. It's always better to have an option you can ignore than not get the option at all.

Jerthanis
2013-07-23, 02:59 PM
I'm not quite sure what the objection is here. Is it that it is possible to optimize in G&G? Or is it that Specialists will leave Generalists in the dust?

Essentially, you seem to be setting people up for failure by essentially creating a variation of 3.PF multiclassing and suggesting everyone put together their own component combos (opportunity 1 to gimp your character) and then choosing the rate at which you improve those components (opportunity 2 to gimp your character). Sure, you could choose a class, but even that is like a multiclass combo, and seems like the amount of XP required to reach higher level powers is going to cause huge gaps of the Classed characters gaining no advancement at all. In session, oh, say, 5 of a given game, the Classed character will be level 1/1/1/1/1 and the nonclass character will be something like 1/1/3/2/2. The Classed character will catch up in the next session I guess, but then immediately begin falling behind again until people are starting to hit max level and his more efficient levelling rate will make up for the nonincrimental gaps the classed character had to deal with.

Essentially, a classed character plays a level 1 character until they jump to level 7, while a nonclassed character appears to get to make that jump piecemeal, getting stuff like level 7 HP or Level 7 combat ability while the classed character has gained nothing so far. The advantage for classed characters seems only to come up once they're hitting level 20 when nonclassed characters are effectively level 15 HP, level 20 primary combat, level 15 secondary combat, and level 20 exploration.

3.PF multiclassing is almost nonfunctional, with the entire Prestige Class subsystem an inefficient band-aid on the gaping wound which is that system and seeking to emulate it is frankly a bit of a bizarre choice to me. The additional hurdles involved of piecemeal advancement where you are allowed to make sufficiently bad choices as to not advance basic qualities like Hit Points, defenses, or combat ability means the gulf between "oops" and "awww yeah" is going to be potentially astounding. Especially when certain components advance noncombat options and other components only advance combat options.

Also, it seems almost like the flavor mismatch of certain combos might be a potential for some oddities... It seems like you're sacrificing the archetypal nature of classes for a way to customize things in such a way that allows dozens of potential pitfalls in every direction.



Did I address your concern or did I miss something?

I remain unconvinced of the component system you propose being a good bedrock on which to form the foundations of character customization, but you have convinced me that by making higher level abilities no better (and in fact, often worse) than low level abilities, you'll mitigate some of the negative aspects of being allowed to take those high level abilities while still being at relatively low total XP values by forsaking other aspects of your character.

I like pretty much everything else you propose about this system, Stacking/Mitigating Advantage vs Disadvantage, the idea of a stance mechanic as central to your round-to-round strategy, The core idea of multiple ways of using your different advancement tracks to affect the world... I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting to mention because I really did like everything I read OTHER than the components.

I just don't see the appeal of that one aspect of the game.

DefKab
2013-07-23, 03:57 PM
I guess a question I have which might answer a few questions is how do you feel about System Mastery? Do we have the Ability to optimize, like in 3.5, where mastery is key? Or do you feel that everyone should be balanced despite their choices?

Icewraith
2013-07-23, 06:54 PM
While generally the XP system in G&G sounds interesting, a previous comment brought to my attention that it fails to handle a couple types of popular character archetypes:

1: Mysterious Wanderer. This character archetypally is focused on avoiding civilization or other people as much as possible (to protect them from his dark past) and maintaining a low profile. Worldly posessions are typically of little value to him. He certainly won't be paying bards to sing his praises, although I suppose he might get sort of the same effect by making anonymous donations to orphanages etc.

2: Wealth as a backstory. If the second you're born you're automatically included in your parents' staggeringly wealthy living trust are you essentially born with a ton of XP and tier four class abilities? Is it possible to separate coming from money and personal power or is every rich billionaire actually the goddamn Batman? Rich industrialists traditionally pay other people to guard their stuff while they acquire more money and overindulge crass physical desires. The concept works perfectly for Tony Stark, but J.D Rockefeller can become "Rockefeller: Evil Mecha Time Lord" just by monopolizing a few more banks.

3: The ascetic martial artist. The guy who, after being defeated, goes and trains on a mountain for ten years until he can punch people's kidneys out through their eyes. He doesn't gain personal wealth, he doesn't rescue any princesses, he mainly broods while meditating under waterfalls, perfecting his form, and breaking rocks in half with his face. While this is clearly a late-game character concept, the main issue is the disconnect between his method of becoming even more powerful and the "acquiring gold is your major form of XP" model.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but if you acquire XP when you gain money and acquire XP when you spend or donate money in a certain way, ignoring rule zero and letting the mechanics stand on their own you end up with "Gordon Gecko and Ghandi do the Tippyverse."

Also, whoever's playing King Midas is using some serious infinite loop cheese.

eepop
2013-07-24, 02:12 PM
I do not have any major questions. Just wanted to drop in to say I like what you have here and am excited to see more. If you ever stop to question whether what you're making is something people would want, rest assured there is at least one.

I'm fairly sure I could get my playgroup to test this when you have it in a playable state.

-------------------------------------------
Now on to the few specific thoughts I have

1) I love the way the component system is laid out, I would love it for making my characters. The Class system seems like it might still be more complicated than some players would like. That said, I think in this day and age thats a lot less of a problem, as I think doing something like having an online collection of pre-made characters can pretty easily cover the need for the grab-and-go characters that some people want.

2) I think Grod_The_Giant has some point in that the different Defender abilities were a little underwhelming. I don't think you have to go as far as what he suggested, but I think there is some room to have slightly better abilities when we're talking about spending a fairly significant amount of XP on them. Imagine a character that has Defender at 4, Great Weapon at 2 and his other components at 1. There should be an interesting choice for him between getting Defender 5 or (Great Weapon 3 + Knack 2 + Race 2 + 100 XP). With a Defender 5 like you had I can't fathom how that would be an interesting choice, it seems like everyone would just go for as even development as possible. I completely understand not wanting someone to beeline for a 5 every time to get some I win button, but at the same time, it needs to be a reasonable alternative to go from 4 to 5 as compared to spending 800 XP on several lower tier components.

3) How much are you planning to allow advantage/disadvantage to stack? 2d20? 3d20? 5d20? Unlimited?
Or were you merely saying that 2 advantages + 1 disadvantage is still advantaged, but 10 advantages is still 2d20?

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-24, 04:31 PM
Unsurprisingly, the Component & Class systems raise a lot of questions, so I'm going to try to answer the questions in a broad fashion:
First, I'll try to sketch out what a 1st Level Character will have to choose from:

Combat Role
Combat Role (Primary, choose 2; Secondary, choose 1)
Stance A
Stance B
Stance C
Bonus A
Bonus B
Bonus C
Examples of Stances include
Intercept: Once per Turn, when an enemy moves adjacent to you, you may Slide 1 square (5') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy. If you hit, the enemy ends its movement [Defender Stance]
Exploit the Error: Once per Turn when an enemy misses an attack you may make your next attack against that enemy with Advantage [Slayer Stance]
Staggering Hit: Once per Turn when you hit an enemy you can Push them 1 square (5') or knock them Prone (if applicable) [Controller Stance]
Bolstering Presence: Once per Turn, if an adjacent ally misses an attack he may re-roll that Attack [Support Stance]

Examples of Bonuses include
Dodge: ½ damage when hit by an attack that targets Reflex [Defender Bonus]
Brutal Strike: You can forgo Advantage on an Attack to make it Brutal and add +1[D] [Slayer Bonus]
I started with Combat Role because it is the core of the combat system. By choosing your Primary and Secondary Roles you get to determine how much you get to draw from the 6-choice list for every level of the Role. Each Role therefore has a total of 15 Stances and 15 Bonuses to choose from over the course of 5 levels in a Role and any given Character will have between 5 of the options (for a Secondary choice) to 15 of them (for a Primary & Secondary choice).

The reason I'm using Stances is to keep combat flowing. While I appreciated the depth of 4e combat having to keep track of all the possible things you could do on a given turn (with all of the Free, Interrupt and Reaction choices) definitely could slow down the game. Stances give you the same ability to react to events, but only have to have one "response" in mind at a time. Players who wanted to have a greater ability to react to battlefield conditions could invest more heavily in Stances while those who don't want to worry about such things can go straight Bonuses.

Grod_The_Giant noted that the Stances seemed underpowered from a "3e maneuvers or 4e powers" perspective, but that is intentional: 3e Maneuvers and 4e Powers were, in a real sense, a major source of your character's power. In G&G Stances are tactical options, not defining traits, of your character so they do not have to do as much. Additionally, I don't want higher level Stances to be Strictly Better versions of lesser ones for two reasons:

(1) It is less fun to get an "Improved" version of something you already have than to get a brand-new option.

(2) Replacing class features doesn't allow characters to expand as much as adding new ones.

Point #2 may require a bit more explanation than #1.
In 4e in particular you ran into the situation where you simply stopped using powers you gained early on: At-Wills stopped being important and you were constantly replacing Powers with improved versions of them. You never really got to do new and different things because you were so busy getting marginally better versions of existing powers -- and the books were filled with these Powers instead of new and exciting ones.

I don't want to waste time and space in G&G on "slightly better version of X" or several inferior versions of Y to provide the illusion of choice. Since you don't have to take a Stance at any given level you can skip Stances that don't appeal to you -- but if you think it would be nice to be able to ground flying opponents, take Takedown.

Races and Professions
Race & Profession Components will follow similar structures: each level grants a bundle of Features and permits you to choose 1 Option out of 4 choices.

Race
Race Features will be mostly additive Base HP bonuses (i.e. +x to Base HP) with LV 1 containing "natural" bonuses like Immunity to Sleep, Poison Resistance, and Darkvision. Depending on the Race I might add in other "racial advantages" like a free +Skill Rank in a particular Skill (e.g. Elf 3 gives +1 Skill Rank in Stealth, Dwarf 3 gives +1 Skill Rank in Dungeoneering) but I plan on putting most of those goodies in the Option Section.

Race Options will be all the neat Racial Feats you've seen in WotC D&D and choices to "focus" on a given Racial Feature (e.g. Hearty [Dwarf Option]: Poison Attacks made against you suffer an additional Disadvantage on their to-hit).

Profession
Profession Features will be the rare multiplicative HP bonus (i.e. y*(Base HP)) and the more common +Skill Rank. Advancing Profession is how I envision you can train up many Skills -- although certain Knacks may provide you with +Skill Ranks as well. The Feature +Skill Rank will always be limited (e.g. Thief 2 provides +Skill Rank to Stealth or Dungeoneering) to help link Professions with skill-sets.

Profession Options will be a mixture of Skill Tricks (e.g. Hide In Plain Sight) and Class Features (e.g. Turn Undead) with the occasional flavorful choice (e.g. Drill Sergeant: converting Fanatics into Spear Carriers costs 1/2 as more Gold as normal). The important thing is each level will include a +Skill Rank Option for any Skill so that Characters who want to be skill-monkeys will always have an option.
I'll make a quick note here as to the HP system I'm envisioning. You will have your CON mod of HP plus your Racial HP bonus to form your Base HP. Then you multiply it by the Profession HP factor to determine your actual HP. This system should give tough warriors (e.g. Dwarven Soldiers) a lot more HP than your frail scholars (e.g. Elven Wizards) with a lot more room between them than either a HD system or 4e's more regimented one.
That covers the big categories. Fighting Style and Exploration Knack will feel more like traditional Feat Chains as I envision as being far less central to Characters than Combat Role, Race and Profession -- but I hold open the option of changing my mind :smallbiggrin:
Now, while I don't think this set-up will make LV 1 characters or even leveling characters particularly labor-intensive to set up (I think G&G saves time by not having Skill Points to assign or 1001 Feats to look over, but YMMV) it does seem to me that making a "higher level" character from scratch might be worrisome.

At the moment I'm not going to worry about that because (1) it's way too early in the process to deal with and (2) unlike previous editions of D&D, LV 1 G&G characters should be fun to play. But it is certainly something for me to put in my to-do list.

I hope this addresses all the class-related questions since I've lasted posted. If I missed you or you don't like my answer, please let me know so I can try again :smallbiggrin:

* * *
And now, some personal responses

@Water_Bear

So here are some pointed questions about aspects of the game which look a little weak.

What is the problem with vertical advancement?
Why is that such an anathematic concept?
The primary reason is that Vertical Character Growth is strictly worse than Horizontal Character Growth from a Player Fun point of view.

Now hear me out. I draw this from personal experience and looking at the community responses to 3.PF and 4e gameplay. As a rule, people are excited by getting new things to do as they level, and less excited by "bigger numbers." People like playing casters with 1001 spells each of which can be used to do all kinds of things; classes like the 4e Ranger tended to be scorned.

Worse, Vertical Character Growth requires extra work on the system to keep things working. You saw this in 3e where the poor design of Monsters devalued AC for characters and in 4e where the "everyone improves the same" approach to counter it drew scorn from some corners. Since I'm a one-man design studio, I'm trying not to borrow trouble by focusing my efforts on where the greatest return for effort lies.


What is the advantage to having Gold Glory and XP over picking one primary form of advancement?
Gold for XP makes a lot of sense for an Old School game because it rewards smart work over hard work, makes sandbox play easier and establishes baseline economic assumptions that are fairly robust in terms of worldbuilding (as ACK demonstrated fairly beautifully). Narrative XP awards make sense for New School games like Burning Wheel because it keeps players focused on character growth. And combat XP makes sense for a Hack and Slash because grinding mobs is the essence of the play experience. You'll note that none of the three goals play very nicely together, since adding additional ones dilutes the game's focus.
Actually, I think you've misconstrued how advancement works in G&G. Leveling is done solely with XP; your XP is tallied at the end of each Adventure as the sum of your share of the treasure (i.e. the sum of the Gold values of those treasures) and your share of the Glory from the adventure. I envision Glory as mainly being awarded directly by the DM as a result of completing the Quest but I would also include a mechanic for "glory splitting" when it comes to bonus XP for killing Named Villains or being the one to rescue the Princess. Killing most monsters will award no XP as they don't keep much in the way of treasure on them (e.g. crowns, rings and tapestries; remember that Magic Items have no Gold values) and aren't important enough to have much Glory attached to them.

So G&G does not use three different advancement mechanics, it uses one (XP) which is awarded for stealing treasure and accomplishing Quests rather than mindlessly killing things. I think this behavior better reflects what most Players would like to spend their time doing in a Heroic Fantasy game, so I added incentives to encourage that.


What does the word "skill" mean to you?
Apparently you have Skills which work like more logical D&D Next skills, plus some nebulous concept called a "Profession Skill" as well as other apparently different abilities you have confusingly also called profession skills. What are each of these things individually and why do they all have the same name?
A fair point.

So, as I mentioned, Skills are rated from 1 (Untrained) to 5 (Master) where the Skill Rank is the number of d20 you roll for the test (using the Advantage system when rolling more than 1d20). At LV 1, all Characters start with one Trained (Rank 3) Skill associated with their Profession (e.g. Athletics for Soldiers) and can choose two Novice (Rank 2) Skills of their choice. When I said "Profession Skill" I meant that Rank 3 Skill at Character Creation.

Next, Skills in G&G are the mechanics through which the Players interact with the world around them that does no involve killing things. I plan on spending a lot of skull-sweat on making a good Skill List but at the moment I'm using these:
Athletics
Awareness
Stealth
Lore
Listen
Decipher Script
Search
Dungeoneering

Explaining all of these would take a bit too much time, but in short I condensed skills that everyone will use while exploring Dungeons into 3 Skills (Athletics, Awareness and Stealth) while separating out skills that, while useful, are not something every character will end up using. Of particular note are Lore (any Knowledge Skill that might be helpful in a dungeon), Decipher Script (I'm using a more abstracted Language System), and Dungeoneering (a hodgepodge of skills including Open Locks, Detect Secret Doors, and Disable Device).

Additionally, I have not included any Social Skills because Core G&G is explicitly a Dungeon-Crawling Game and any social interactions in a Dungeon are important enough that I'd rather roleplay them rather than use dice. In the "urban adventures" splatbook I plan to introduce a sophisticated Social Skill System but that is far, far into the future.


What options are there for out of combat play?
Other than the stronghold / follower elements which seem to be powered by resources gained through combat and the still-unclear concepts of the Profession Skill / profession skills there doesn't seem to be much going on outside of the dungeon. Old School games moved beyond dungeon delving entirely by about Name Level (9th) and D&D 3.5/PF could handle that from level 1, so presumably there is some form of robust out-of-combat play in Gold & Glory right? Please?
Personally, I think I've put lots of stuff for out-of-combat play in the information already posted. That said, I'd like to hear what sort of stuff you things you feel 3.PF lets you do out-of-combat at LV 1 and, in particular, what it does well :smallsmile:


In terms of advice, I would suggest buying Adventurer Conqueror King and looking very hard at everything they've done. It's hardly a perfect game, but it synthesizes a lot of newer D&D concepts like Feat/Skill customization and "point buy" class design with an Old School chassis and playstyle, as well as incredible trade / stronghold management / war subsytems more-or-less unique to itself. If any one game can help you get the formula here right, ACK would be it.
Would you be willing to give me the highlights of what ACK does well that you'd like to see in G&G?

@Erikun

Well the Gold & Glory concept is the one that most interests me: the idea that a character can work towards increasing personal value (Gold) or personal reputation (Glory) to increase their skills or level. I'm sure some people will be asking "Why can't I train in the woods for years raised by wolves to increase my stats?" at some point, so you'd probably want to explain the reasoning as to why not. I'd like to see the Gold & Glory idea expanded upon or refined a bit better, so to give people a good idea how acquiring wealth or becoming popular benefits the character directly.
The easy answer is you can gain 200 XP per Year In The Wilderness but you will be missing out on all of the benefits of Gold and Glory (and faster advancement). I might even make the progression slower but, honestly, it's not something I think merits space in the Core Book of a game about adventurers going on adventures :smalltongue:

Also, if you have any particular questions about Gold/Glory please ask. Again, I am still very much in the "idea stage" for the game, so the sorts of questions you ask will be more helpful to everyone than if I just list off a couple pages of "scratch paper ideas" :smallbiggrin:

@Jerthanis

Essentially, you seem to be setting people up for failure by essentially creating a variation of 3.PF multiclassing and suggesting everyone put together their own component combos (opportunity 1 to gimp your character) and then choosing the rate at which you improve those components (opportunity 2 to gimp your character).
The concerns about Trap Builds are addressed by the Class Mechanic: beginners should choose Classes to avoid those very mistakes you noted. You do make a good point about beginners making bad choices within the Class Options and, I suppose, I can produce "Pre-Builts" in which their choices at Level 1 are all made and also at LV 2 through 5.


Sure, you could choose a class, but even that is like a multiclass combo, and seems like the amount of XP required to reach higher level powers is going to cause huge gaps of the Classed characters gaining no advancement at all. In session, oh, say, 5 of a given game, the Classed character will be level 1/1/1/1/1 and the nonclass character will be something like 1/1/3/2/2. The Classed character will catch up in the next session I guess, but then immediately begin falling behind again until people are starting to hit max level and his more efficient levelling rate will make up for the nonincrimental gaps the classed character had to deal with.

Essentially, a classed character plays a level 1 character until they jump to level 7, while a nonclassed character appears to get to make that jump piecemeal, getting stuff like level 7 HP or Level 7 combat ability while the classed character has gained nothing so far. The advantage for classed characters seems only to come up once they're hitting level 20 when nonclassed characters are effectively level 15 HP, level 20 primary combat, level 15 secondary combat, and level 20 exploration.

The slower "option" gain of Classes is designed to give Classed-characters more time to understand the game and their builds. While there will certainly be a gap in power between Component and Classed characters I intend to make the game closer to 4e in power-gap: the difference between Optimized and Unoptimized characters should be noticeable but an Unoptimized character is by no means doomed to irrelevance.

I'm not sure if this fully addressed the concerns raised in the above section, so please feel free to reply if I missed something again.


Also, it seems almost like the flavor mismatch of certain combos might be a potential for some oddities... It seems like you're sacrificing the archetypal nature of classes for a way to customize things in such a way that allows dozens of potential pitfalls in every direction.
My aesthetic judgment is that most Players prefer more rather than less customizability in their Heroic Fantasy games these days. While I have always liked the Strong Class System of TSR D&D one only has to observe the popularity of 3.PF (and the evolution of 4e over its life) to see that few people seem to find the Strong Class System desirable.

I'm not saying it won't be hard to get the Component System to be free of "flavor mismatch[es]" as you put it, but I believe it is within my abilities as a Game Designer to do -- and that the pain is worth it in the end.

@DefKab

I guess a question I have which might answer a few questions is how do you feel about System Mastery? Do we have the Ability to optimize, like in 3.5, where mastery is key? Or do you feel that everyone should be balanced despite their choices?
I do not want to build a game with System Mastery as one of its Design Goals because I believe the future of tabletop RPGs is in its newbies -- and newbies won't want to spend weeks of gameplay to have fun with a System Mastery RPG when they can already have fun with a System Mastery Board Game after a single multi-hour game.

In my opinion, that concern is orthogonal to the question of Balance. While I would like to avoid Strictly Superior Builds or Options (since that reduces the actual play space) I'm not about to construct a Harrison Bergeron of a game. There will be (and are!) sufficient opportunities for optimization for anyone interested in that aspect of the game but I would like to avoid possibility of allowing Pun-Puns which only avoid seeing play due to Gentlemen's Agreements.

@Icewraith

While generally the XP system in G&G sounds interesting, a previous comment brought to my attention that it fails to handle a couple types of popular character archetypes:

1: Mysterious Wanderer. This character archetypally is focused on avoiding civilization or other people as much as possible (to protect them from his dark past) and maintaining a low profile. Worldly posessions are typically of little value to him. He certainly won't be paying bards to sing his praises, although I suppose he might get sort of the same effect by making anonymous donations to orphanages etc.
You can already convert Gold to Glory and every Mysterious Wanderer has myths and legends that spring up about them. Oh, they might not know you are Bruce Wayne, but Glory will create a legend of Batman across the kingdom :smallamused:


2: Wealth as a backstory. If the second you're born you're automatically included in your parents' staggeringly wealthy living trust are you essentially born with a ton of XP and tier four class abilities? Is it possible to separate coming from money and personal power or is every rich billionaire actually the goddamn Batman? Rich industrialists traditionally pay other people to guard their stuff while they acquire more money and overindulge crass physical desires. The concept works perfectly for Tony Stark, but J.D Rockefeller can become "Rockefeller: Evil Mecha Time Lord" just by monopolizing a few more banks.
This backstory has been a problem in Heroic Fantasy ever since Wizards of the Coast introduced "Wealth By Level." No, G&G won't permit you to have extra money to start the game with, but it can sit in your backstory all you want.

Also, having money in G&G doesn't get you XP; stealing treasure from dungeons does. So the King who gains tithes from his vassals isn't a living god, but his vassals that adventure certainly gain something.


3: The ascetic martial artist. The guy who, after being defeated, goes and trains on a mountain for ten years until he can punch people's kidneys out through their eyes. He doesn't gain personal wealth, he doesn't rescue any princesses, he mainly broods while meditating under waterfalls, perfecting his form, and breaking rocks in half with his face. While this is clearly a late-game character concept, the main issue is the disconnect between his method of becoming even more powerful and the "acquiring gold is your major form of XP" model.
Training on mountaintops is not an attractive form of power-gaining in a game about adventurers going on adventures. See my response to Erikun for more.

@eepop

3) How much are you planning to allow advantage/disadvantage to stack? 2d20? 3d20? 5d20? Unlimited?
Or were you merely saying that 2 advantages + 1 disadvantage is still advantaged, but 10 advantages is still 2d20?
Off-hand I'd say unlimited, but 5 seems as a practical cut-off point as any.

TuggyNE
2013-07-24, 06:13 PM
I don't have a lot to say just yet, although I am watching this and considering it, but I did notice one thing.


Additionally, I have not included any Social Skills because Core G&G is explicitly a Dungeon-Crawling Game and any social interactions in a Dungeon are important enough that I'd rather roleplay them rather than use dice. In the "urban adventures" splatbook I plan to introduce a sophisticated Social Skill System but that is far, far into the future.

I think you mean unimportant enough. If it was actually important, you'd roll for it; that's the general principle of RPGs that use dice, isn't it? It's why combat, the most important aspect of 3.x, uses dice so much.

Moreb Benhk
2013-07-24, 06:37 PM
I'm wondering if you are conflating two implementations of vertical advancement in your abandonment of it.

1. You get bigger numbers. Which, I think you've correctly pointed out, isn't in and of itself hugely fun.

2. You get different-bigger abilities. This to me is the fun part, and why going up a spell level is minto, and where I think the 'bigger numbers' part can be helpful (if bigger numbers allow you to effectively do bigger/better things).

In your game, the way you've been describing Lvl 5 abilities vs Lvl 1 abilities (as I read it), is that Lvl 5 ones in terms of strict power level, are balanced with Lvl 1 abilities (they might have slightly more punch, but are consequently more situational). This to me is 'unfun'. When I level up, I don't want to effectively be taking Level 1 again, only this time I choose some different abilities.

To me it's like being able to do a multiclass 3E character, where I become 1 Wiz/ 1 Wiz/ 1 Wiz... etc. So by then end of it, I have LOADS of level one spells and spell slots. That looks.... dull.

Am I misreading it?

Oracle_Hunter
2013-07-24, 06:44 PM
I think you mean unimportant enough. If it was actually important, you'd roll for it; that's the general principle of RPGs that use dice, isn't it? It's why combat, the most important aspect of 3.x, uses dice so much.
9/10 times when you catch something like that, you'd be right, but here I actually did mean what I said.

Of course, to explain my position will involve philosophy so I'll spoiler it :smalltongue:
There is a lot of nuance in the word "important" when it comes to rolling dice in a RPG.

The common advice in RPGs is that "you shouldn't roll for things that don't matter." This is time-saving advice since you could, in theory, roll Balance every step you take or roll Diplomacy every time you order a drink at a bar. Since rolling dice takes time, saving those rolls for things that matter as opposed to trivia is a way to keep the game moving apace.

On the other hand, any seasoned DM will tell you to "never leave important things up to chance" -- if you need the Villain to escape at the end of Act 1 so that he'll be there in Act 3, don't put him in a situation where a lucky critical hit can put him down for the count. Additionally, the "really important stuff" in a plot is usually the most fun to roleplay: you don't want the villain's speech to just be a single Intimidate Roll.

Combat kind of falls in the middle. While every hit or miss isn't crucial, the aggregate number of them determines the life or death of every character in the fight.

My words were referring to importance of the plot-type: PCs in Dungeons won't be doing "social combat" by-and-large where they'd be making lots of Social Checks that shape the campaign even though the individual checks aren't matters of life & death. If you're doing any talking in a Dungeon, it's going to be with the BBEG or some other named villain and, well, IMHO it's much more fun to banter than to roll dice.
So there you go: more than you could have possibly wanted to know about my Design Philosophy :smallbiggrin:

* * *

Additionally, if you are in the Chicago Area and are interested in joining my Playtest Email list, drop me a PM with your email address. While Gold & Glory isn't getting playtested anytime soon, I do have 5 other games in development which will need testers in the not-so-distant future :smallsmile:

EDIT:

In your game, the way you've been describing Lvl 5 abilities vs Lvl 1 abilities (as I read it), is that Lvl 5 ones in terms of strict power level, are balanced with Lvl 1 abilities (they might have slightly more punch, but are consequently more situational). This to me is 'unfun'. When I level up, I don't want to effectively be taking Level 1 again, only this time I choose some different abilities.

To me it's like being able to do a multiclass 3E character, where I become 1 Wiz/ 1 Wiz/ 1 Wiz... etc. So by then end of it, I have LOADS of level one spells and spell slots. That looks.... dull.

Am I misreading it?
Well, LV 5 Stances should not be equal to LV 1 Stances (they should be stronger; "bigger numbers") nor should they replace LV 1 Stances in the way that Great Cleave replaces Cleave.

The "Wiz 1/Wiz 1" analogy misses out a bit here. There is no LV 1 Spell that lets you fly; there is a LV 2 spell that kind of does (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/alterSelf.htm), and a LV 3 spell which really does (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fly.htm). A "Wiz 1/Wiz 1" will never be able to fly but in G&G higher level Stances give you new options. Intercept and Takedown in G&G is a better analogy here since no LV 1 Stance lets you drop a flying opponent but at LV 3 you now have that option.

I will certainly tweak the damage output over time, but tying specialization to power is going to be a feature of G&G due to Pillar I.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-24, 07:02 PM
I'm wondering if you are conflating two implementations of vertical advancement in your abandonment of it.

1. You get bigger numbers. Which, I think you've correctly pointed out, isn't in and of itself hugely fun.

2. You get different-bigger abilities. This to me is the fun part, and why going up a spell level is minto, and where I think the 'bigger numbers' part can be helpful (if bigger numbers allow you to effectively do bigger/better things).

This. This bears repeating, because it's really important. Writing a bigger number on my character sheet isn't interesting, true. But what it means is. I want some way of seeing that I'm improving as a (character role). If I'm playing a warrior, I want to get new and better techniques as I improve. The best swordsman in the world should be able to do things that lower-level fighters simply can't achieve.

My objection to your proposed powers was not their power relative to 3e/4e powers. It's that they're all the same. You go on about why you don't want higher-level options to be Strictly Better versions of lower-level ones, and display a pretty good analysis of why that's the case (although scaling lower-level effects is a good idea). And then you argue for something like Intercept->Takedown, which is exactly the Same But Better. (You can now intercept flying creatures!) Look again at what I posted-- they're not "the same thing but better," they're "different and better."

If you just want different, then I don't think you really want a level-based system. Heck, you're halfway to a point-buy system anyway; might as well go the rest of the way.



As for "when to roll"... I very much disagree. I agree that 3e's "one roll" social combat is a bad way of handling it, pure roleplaying is just as bad. It provides absolutely no way for characters to influence the action. Players, sure, but it's entirely the player's skill at talking, and I don't think we need to rehash all the standard arguments about why that's a bad thing to base a system around. I mean that the character can't influence things. If the GM decides an NPC is going to take an action, it's impossible for me to change his mind. If the GM can't decide what an NPC should do, there's no mechanism to help him decide. A pivotal scene shouldn't depend on one die roll, but neither should it depend on metagame skills.

TuggyNE
2013-07-24, 07:46 PM
There is a lot of nuance in the word "important" when it comes to rolling dice in a RPG.

The common advice in RPGs is that "you shouldn't roll for things that don't matter." This is time-saving advice since you could, in theory, roll Balance every step you take or roll Diplomacy every time you order a drink at a bar. Since rolling dice takes time, saving those rolls for things that matter as opposed to trivia is a way to keep the game moving apace.

On the other hand, any seasoned DM will tell you to "never leave important things up to chance" -- if you need the Villain to escape at the end of Act 1 so that he'll be there in Act 3, don't put him in a situation where a lucky critical hit can put him down for the count. Additionally, the "really important stuff" in a plot is usually the most fun to roleplay: you don't want the villain's speech to just be a single Intimidate Roll.

Combat kind of falls in the middle. While every hit or miss isn't crucial, the aggregate number of them determines the life or death of every character in the fight.

My words were referring to importance of the plot-type: PCs in Dungeons won't be doing "social combat" by-and-large where they'd be making lots of Social Checks that shape the campaign even though the individual checks aren't matters of life & death. If you're doing any talking in a Dungeon, it's going to be with the BBEG or some other named villain and, well, IMHO it's much more fun to banter than to roll dice.

Grod has already responded, and said things that I agree with, but I'd like to expand on my own opinion a bit more. Sure, there are a fair number of things that are too important to be left up to a single die roll. Combat is one of those things! How fun would it be if your level 2 party was ambushed by a band of kobolds and the DM rolled a single d20 and said "you successfully fend them off, but Wizzo spent one spell and Healy spent three"? Now consider how well it would work if your level 8 party attacked an aboleth and you didn't roll any dice at all, just had everyone state what they did and what happened.

Essentially, my philosophy is that for a dice-based game, there are many things that are too important to leave to random narration (which should be rolled for), and some things that are too important to leave to single die rolls (which should be rolled for more and in a more structured way). "Bad guy shouldn't die to a single crit" is self-evidently in the latter category, just as "villain speech shouldn't be a single Intimidate check" is.

Now, you can decide you don't want to do social combat just yet, but the reason for that should not be "dice are stupid and lame" (aka: "some things are too important for dice"), but "this isn't in scope for the first release". As long as you're making a deliberate tradeoff, it's OK, but don't try to pass it off as some sort of selling point, because it isn't.

Moreb Benhk
2013-07-24, 07:57 PM
This. This bears repeating, because it's really important. Writing a bigger number on my character sheet isn't interesting, true. But what it means is. I want some way of seeing that I'm improving as a (character role). If I'm playing a warrior, I want to get new and better techniques as I improve. The best swordsman in the world should be able to do things that lower-level fighters simply can't achieve.

My objection to your proposed powers was not their power relative to 3e/4e powers. It's that they're all the same. You go on about why you don't want higher-level options to be Strictly Better versions of lower-level ones, and display a pretty good analysis of why that's the case (although scaling lower-level effects is a good idea). And then you argue for something like Intercept->Takedown, which is exactly the Same But Better. (You can now intercept flying creatures!) Look again at what I posted-- they're not "the same thing but better," they're "different and better."

If you just want different, then I don't think you really want a level-based system. Heck, you're halfway to a point-buy system anyway; might as well go the rest of the way.

I'm fully in with this. You say that 'Takedown' is more powerful. than a level one ability, because it lets you do something you can't choose to take at level one. But that only makes it DIFFERENT. I think you are confusing that the character becomes (slightly) more powerful because he can do new things, with the actual ability he can take being more powerful. You could fully swap the level 5 abilities with the level 1 abilities and make exactly the same claim.

My analogy more fleshed out would be, each time I take wizard 1 I get access to spells from a new school that I choose, though still as a Level 1 caster. And the same arguement can be made. Look, at level 5 my wizard gets access to the Evocation school, now he can burn stuff which he couldn't before, therefore the spells of level 5 he gets are more powerful than his spells he gains on level 1. (I'm refering to class level not spell level, all the spells this character would ever gain would be Level 1 spells as per 3.5.)

If you are chucking level 3 spells (like fireball and fly) into a system where martial characters get 'level 1 abilties only differenter!!!', martials will suck.... again. Because fireball IS a bigger, better spell than, say magic missile (usually). It puts out way more hurt.

These are not progressively more powerful. I'd say they are balanced all throughout - the bigger effect ones are more situational. They could ALL be Level 1 maneuvers and the game would play out just the same:

LV 1 Defender (Intercept): Once per Turn, when an enemy moves adjacent to you, you may Slide 1 square (5') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy. If you hit, the enemy ends its movement.
LV 3 Defender (Takedown): Once per Turn, when a flying enemy moves within 2 squares (10') of you, you may Slide 2 (10') and make a Basic Attack against the enemy. If you hit, the enemy falls Prone on the ground and ends his movement.
LV 5 Defender (Repel Charge): Once per Turn when a charging enemy, size L or larger, moves within 3 squares (15') of you, you may Slide 3 (15') and make a Basic Attack against the enemy. If you hit, the enemy stops his movement and takes 5 Ongoing Damage of an appropriate type (Save Ends).

erikun
2013-07-24, 08:25 PM
Also, if you have any particular questions about Gold/Glory please ask. Again, I am still very much in the "idea stage" for the game, so the sorts of questions you ask will be more helpful to everyone than if I just list off a couple pages of "scratch paper ideas" :smallbiggrin:
Okay, will do! :smallwink:
(I'll be taking quotes from things you've said to other people, as well.)


The primary reason is that Vertical Character Growth is strictly worse than Horizontal Character Growth from a Player Fun point of view.

Now hear me out. I draw this from personal experience and looking at the community responses to 3.PF and 4e gameplay. As a rule, people are excited by getting new things to do as they level, and less excited by "bigger numbers." People like playing casters with 1001 spells each of which can be used to do all kinds of things; classes like the 4e Ranger tended to be scorned.
I wouldn't say that vertical, numeric growth is strickly worse. There is something distinctly satisfying about having a "Level 20 character" in D&D, even if that is just a trivial, meaningless number. It represents where your character has been and how strong they've become, and some people take it as a bragging right, even if they're just making the character up from scratch.

With the other hand, there are times when the horizontal character growth just gets too large. When your character has 15 stances and 50 different combat strikes/bonuses, then you'll find yourself just using 2-3 different stances and maybe 5 different attacks, ignoring 90% of your character sheet. People don't like plain static bonuses, but they don't like managing long, tedious lists that don't improve either.

[EDIT] You also don't want too many bonuses, either. The more there are, the more players loose track of them!

Why not combine the two a bit? Why not give the character a level, but grant them improved combat roles as well? A character with, say, level 1 and Staggering Hit would only have the listed options. A character at level 5 or level 10 with Staggering Hit gets the "Takedown" effect added to the stance as well.

Simplified "classes" would just distribute options in a somewhat "classical" sense to characters as they level up. Rather than choosing what they'd like to pick, your Fighter would get Staggering Hit at level 1, Race:Dwarf boosted at level 2, Brutal Strike at level 3, and so on.


This backstory has been a problem in Heroic Fantasy ever since Wizards of the Coast introduced "Wealth By Level." No, G&G won't permit you to have extra money to start the game with, but it can sit in your backstory all you want.

Also, having money in G&G doesn't get you XP; stealing treasure from dungeons does. So the King who gains tithes from his vassals isn't a living god, but his vassals that adventure certainly gain something.
What about characters earning gold through other sources than adventuring, such as opening a store to sell magic items, or starting up a gemstone mine? Would they gain any XP from gold gained from such "professional" work, or would they need to spend that gold for training to gain XP?


The easy answer is you can gain 200 XP per Year In The Wilderness but you will be missing out on all of the benefits of Gold and Glory (and faster advancement). I might even make the progression slower but, honestly, it's not something I think merits space in the Core Book of a game about adventurers going on adventures :smalltongue:

Additionally, I have not included any Social Skills because Core G&G is explicitly a Dungeon-Crawling Game and any social interactions in a Dungeon are important enough that I'd rather roleplay them rather than use dice. In the "urban adventures" splatbook I plan to introduce a sophisticated Social Skill System but that is far, far into the future.
I'd just like to say that I'm fine with the system not regulating everything to a dice roll. Other materials can add rules for doing so, but it isn't necessary to have rules that incorporate every aspect that you could possibly think of - especially if such situations aren't going to be the focus of the system.

Of course, you'd want to have some guidelines to give an indication of what players and GMs are expected to do in such situations. But this doesn't mean you need some kind of hard-coded rules for doing so.

eepop
2013-07-25, 11:18 AM
@eepop

Off-hand I'd say unlimited, but 5 seems as a practical cut-off point as any.

Without condoning or condemning, here is the math of what up to 5 advantages/disadvantages means. I would suggest looking it over to verify that the effects are giving you what you desire.


Disadvantage
Dice: 5
Mean: 3.85
Natural 20%: 0.00003125%
http://anydice.com/program/2706

Dice: 4
Mean: 4.52
Natural 20%: 0.000625%
http://anydice.com/program/2708

Dice: 3
Mean: 5.51
Natural 20%: 0.0125%
http://anydice.com/program/2582

Dice: 2
Mean: 7.17
Natural 20%: 0.25% (a fourth of a percent)
http://anydice.com/program/2581

Base Roll

Dice: 1
Mean: 10.5
Natural 20%: 5%
http://anydice.com/program/2f


Advantage

Dice: 2
Mean: 13.82
Natural 20%: 9.75%
http://anydice.com/program/257f

Dice:3
Mean:15.49
Natural 20%: 14.26%
http://anydice.com/program/257e


Dice: 4
Mean: 16.48
Natural 20%: 18.55%
http://anydice.com/program/2705


Dice: 5
Mean: 17.15
Natural 20%: 22.62%
http://anydice.com/program/270a

Person_Man
2013-07-30, 08:03 AM
"Characters can ether be built off unified Classes or assembled piecemeal from components. Killing monsters is not the driver of character advancement. Advancement is more than just gaining Levels."

I have no doubt that you already know this, but speaking as someone who respects your posts and looks forward to your work, just reading through your project overview my first impression is that you're writing a character creation and advancement game. It might also include roleplaying, exploration, combat, etc. But the bulk of the rules appear to be about how you make and advance a character, and so I assume that's what players would spend most of their time doing.

That's not a criticism, just an observation. 3.X and Pathfinder are also character creation and advancement games. It's just a very niche game design for fairly advanced players. I'd have a hard time turning to my wife or occasional gamer friends and saying, "Hey, let's make some new characters together using another D&D variant."

Anywho, I applaud your writing endeavors, and wish you great success. Speaking as a more advanced gamer myself, it is the sort of thing I might play, if I could somehow find 3 other people in the area to play it with.

Icewraith
2013-07-30, 01:16 PM
In defense of bigger numbers:

What really defines your character isn't so much bigger numbers at higher levels- although that helps. It's bigger numbers compared to your fellow players.

Your martial characters know they're better than your casters because they look at their sheets, and if the wizard has to swing on something it looks pathetic compared to theirs. For casters and rogues in 3.5 is was the number of d6es you got to pick up or the knowledge you significantly impaired one of the dm's turns. If you've got multiple damage dealing players than whoever puts out the most ridiculous damage will stick in the minds of the players. Similarly with the guy who has a ridiculous bonus to initiative, big spot check, number of attack rolls, etc. The trick is that the difference in numbers only gets to that "clearly I rock and everyone knows is" at about 4-5 on the d20 roll, and then for damage numbers it will depend on the size of health pools.

Basically, while bigger numbers might not be as exciting as new capabilities, bigger numbers play a significant role in cluing the players, esepcially new players, in to what they are good or bad at and to what degree. When I first started playing 3.5, it was 2 players and a dm and nobody had a good idea of what reasonable numbers were. Once we got a couple more people it became more obvious that maybe I had rolled terribly on stats and if I wanted to fight with two weapons in melee maybe I shouldn't be a Bard. The individual bonuses didn't seem that big a deal since I was only slightly worse (1-2) in most areas, but once they all got totaled up on the sheet and I saw what the other guy was adding to his rolls, and it was around or above 5 more than I was rolling, only then did I realize how good his character was at hitting things and how bad mine was.

I'm not sure if it's true of other systems, but it certainly seems to be the case in 3.5, 4e, and other RPGs I've looked at- differences in number values don't attain significance in the player's headspace until they get into the realm of 4-5 advantage over his fellows or better. People forget +2 bonuses all the time but rarely will drop a +4 unless they're generally hopeless with numbers. With the limited 1-5 scale, depending on where you put your dice modifiers, advancement numbers-wise risks seeming trivial.

eepop
2013-07-30, 01:39 PM
Once we got a couple more people it became more obvious that maybe I had rolled terribly on stats and if I wanted to fight with two weapons in melee maybe I shouldn't be a Bard. The individual bonuses didn't seem that big a deal since I was only slightly worse (1-2) in most areas, but once they all got totaled up on the sheet and I saw what the other guy was adding to his rolls, and it was around or above 5 more than I was rolling, only then did I realize how good his character was at hitting things and how bad mine was.

But perhaps the problem there was that
a) getting terrible stats was possible
b) Bard didn't work with two weapon fighting
?

You had a character you wanted to play, and the system told you no. The problem in my mind is not so much that you didn't realize it until you saw someone else, but that it happened that the system was against you in the first place.

It seems Oracle Hunter is trying to preempt this issue with the seperate components of a character. Its obviously rough as presented thusfar, but it seems reasonable that the goal would be for you to be able to make that bard that can dual wield effectively. I imagine that your ability to dual wield will be mostly bundled up in your "Fighting Style: Dual Wield" regardless of the other choices you make.

Icewraith
2013-07-30, 03:59 PM
The observations are also drawn from years of 3/3.5e and my recent foray into 4e. My initial experience was simply the first thing that came to mind.

Think of it like this- the smaller the number of bonuses the more significant they become, but the easier it is to unbalance the system by finding ways to stack all available bonuses. The smaller the bonuses become the easier it is to balance the system, but they lose value in the eyes of the players because the gap between a character that excels at something and a character that is average at something narrows. The striker in my party is sitting like 9 points ahead of me in initiative bonus and has ridiculous bonuses to damage. Because his numbers are significantly bigger than mine (I could stab someone for like 1d4+small number if I could even hit them, he's hitting 40+ damage off a d12 regularly), he is demonstrably superior when it comes to killing things with weapons.

I don't know how Oracle_Hunter will be handling things that traditionally scale with level in his system, but it seems like the spread from anything derived from 1-5 will be significantly tighter than something derived from 1-20. It'll probably be better balanced if he can keep the bonuses in check (or not, adv/disadv stacking may be the way to go to get anything done), but you lose a certain satisfaction from being the demonstrable best at something by a wide margin if the numbers are smaller and the spread between you and an unskilled person tighter.

Loki_42
2013-07-31, 04:28 PM
I'm liking what I'm seeing, if I'm reading everything correctly. The horizontal advancement stuff sounds very interesting, if you can pull everything off with it being balanced. I will admit that the bloat of new abilities could be difficult to work with in play, potentially creating a situation where you have hundreds of abilities available but only use 5, or a situation where you have to memorize the effects of every single situationally useful ability you could use.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-08-04, 09:16 PM
It's been about two weeks since I've posted on this thread because I had to do some serious thinking.

As you can tell from my posts, I felt pretty confident about my grasp of an appropriate balance between Horizontal Character Growth and Vertical Character Growth. But, thanks to persistent posters like Moreb Benhk and Grod_The_Giant I've come to the conclusion that I'm missing something major. So, as a (hopefully) collaborative thought experiment, how about we make the Defender Component List for levels 1-3. Using what I've gotten from this thread, I'll try to assemble a list and y'all can tell me whether I've hit the mark or not (and how I missed, if I did).
Combat Role: Defender

Level 1
Intercept (Defender Stance): Once per Round, when an enemy moves adjacent to you, you may Slide up to 1 square (5') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy. If you hit, the enemy ends its movement.
Harry (Defender Stance): Once per Round, when an enemy hits an ally with an attack, you may Slide up to 1 square (5') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy.
Guard (Defender Stance): Once per Round, when an adjacent ally is targeted by an attack, you may swap positions with that ally and become the new target of the attack. If the attack misses, make a Basic Attack against the attacker.
Dodge (Defender Feat): Attacks that target your Reflex do ½ damage on a hit.
Grit (Defender Feat): Attacks that target your Fortitude do ½ damage on a hit.
Iron Will (Defender Feat): Attacks that target your Willpower do ½ damage on a hit.


Level 2
Retribution (Defender Power): Deal +1[D] on Attacks that hit enemies who damaged one of your allies since your last Turn
Opportunist (Defender Power): Deal +1[D] on Opportunity Attacks that hit
Pin Down (Defender Power): You may give up 1 Advantage on an Attack to Immobilize the target on a hit (until your next Turn)
Practiced Defense (Defender Feat): Gain a +2 Bonus to a Defense of your choice
Mobile Defender (Defender Feat): You may Slide +1 square (5') any time a Defender Stance permits you to Slide
Counterstrike (Defender Feat): You gain a +2 Bonus to hit with any Basic Attack granted by a Defender Stance


Level 3
Takedown (Defender Stance): Once per Round, when an enemy moves within 3 squares (15') of you you may Slide up to 3 squares (15') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy. If you hit, the enemy ends its movement and is knocked Prone (if applicable). This Basic Attack targets Reflex instead of its normal Defense.
Disrupt (Defender Stance): Once per Round, when an enemy hits an ally with an attack, you may Slide up to 3 squares (15') and make a Basic Attack against that enemy. If you hit you deal no damage but the enemy must immediately reroll the attack with Disadvantage. This Basic Attack targets Willpower instead of its normal Defense.
Hold The Line (Defender Stance): Once per Round, when an enemy moves adjacent to an ally within 3 squares (15') of you, you may Slide into your ally's square (Pushing them back 1) and make an immediate Basic Attack against that enemy. If the Basic Attack hits, the enemy is Pushed 1 and ends his movement. This Basic Attack targets Fortitude instead of its normal Defense.
Practiced Stance (Defender Feat): Choose a Defender Stance. You may use it +1 times per Round.
Uncanny Dodge (Defender Feat): You do not grant Advantage due to being Flanked
Mass Combat (Defender Feat): You have Advantage on attacks when 3 or more enemies are adjacent to you.

I've made two tweaks to the system to make this work better. The first is a “Stance Slot” system: each Character can only know 3 Stances at a time. If he has learned 3 Stances and wants to learn another he must replace one of his known stances with the new one and can select a different Feat of the appropriate level. For example, Danny the Defender knows Intercept, Harry, and Guard and advances to Defender 3. He decides he'd like to learn Takedown and swaps it in for Intercept. Danny now can use Takedown, Harry, and Guard and can select one Defender 1 Feat (such as Dodge). This will limit the Analysis Paralysis of having to choose one of (up to) nine Stances at the start of every Turn and (hopefully) promote a diversity of Builds.

The second doesn't have a name, but is a way for lower Level Stances to keep pace. As you can see, all Stances are currently limited to 1/Round interventions. When you reach a Combat Role Level where you could select new Stances (i.e. LV 3 & 5) each of your lower Level Stances gain +1 per Round usage. So at LV 3, “Intercept” can be used 2/Round and at LV 5 it can be used 3/Round. Now Players can choose between having Takedown 1/Round or Intercept 2/Round instead of a worse Stance over a better Stance.

* * *

I plan on responding to the other posts made since I've last said anything soon, but I wanted to put this us as soon as I finished it to get some comments :smallsmile:

Grod_The_Giant
2013-08-04, 09:38 PM
The new set of powers looks pretty good. There are reasons to take the level 3 powers, but the level 1 options look like they'll never be totally irrelevant. I like the idea of choosing between powerful options with limited uses/round, and weaker options that can be used multiple times each round.

Although if stances wind up being your main active option (as it appears from this tree) a cap of 3 stances known seems kind of restrictive.

Can you be in more than one stance simultaneously?

Oracle_Hunter
2013-08-04, 09:41 PM
The new set of powers looks pretty good. There are reasons to take the level 3 powers, but the level 1 options look like they'll never be totally irrelevant. I like the idea of choosing between powerful options with limited uses/round, and weaker options that can be used multiple times each round.

Although if stances wind up being your main active option (as it appears from this tree) a cap of 3 stances known seems kind of restrictive.

Can you be in more than one stance simultaneously?
You can only be in once Stance at a time, and you choose which Stance to be in at the start of your Turn.

As far as Stance Slots, I think that between Stances and Powers there should be enough "choices" for any combatant each turn. Naturally, by restricting the number of Stance Slots I am also heightening Build Diversity which -- I gather -- is a thing that modern D&D Players want.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-08-04, 09:53 PM
Mmm. Of the 3 powers here, only one seems to be active, and even then, it's more Power Attack than Mighty Throw. But it's a bit early to be judging, I admit.

I don't know that you really need to limit stances that much, though. They strike me as very much a diminishing return, since you can only ever benefit from one at a time-- sort of like Alternate Effects in Mutants and Masterminds.

As for build diversity... unless stances are their own dedicated thing, I don't think you need to worry too much there. There are 18 Defender abilities alone; if you have anywhere close to the same number in each of your other 5 specialties, you'll be picking from 60-120 abilities over the course of your career. That's a staggering amount of choice even for two character with exactly the same class.

Moreb Benhk
2013-08-06, 05:26 AM
Side question: when and how often can one make the decision about what powers you have? are they interchangeable on a daily basis?

On the whole - the system seems to make a bit more sense, and scale logically as grod said. I did note that some abilities at the 3rd tier are literally a tier 1 ability only more betterer. For example Takedown is Intercept only better in all dimensions. I'm not sure if that was intended or how much the 'times per turn' thing counterbalances that. I guess that would be a bit of a 'play it and see' kinda thing.

I know it's a little early on, but I would be interested to see the sorts of spells you'd concider to be on parity with these defender type abilities.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-08-15, 09:37 PM
Aaand the promised personalized responses :smallsmile:

@Erikun

What about characters earning gold through other sources than adventuring, such as opening a store to sell magic items, or starting up a gemstone mine? Would they gain any XP from gold gained from such "professional" work, or would they need to spend that gold for training to gain XP?
My Core System is not going to use non-adventuring wealth to generate XP. At base, any businesses started by PCs are going to be assumed to be "self-sustaining" -- their income basically matches their expenses. This is to prevent the focus from being taken from adventuring, of course, but it can also be explained in that the PCs aren't "minding the store" so their profits are eaten up by the inefficiencies of running a managed business in a feudal setting :smallamused:

@eepop

Without condoning or condemning, here is the math of what up to 5 advantages/disadvantages means. I would suggest looking it over to verify that the effects are giving you what you desire.


Disadvantage
Dice: 5
Mean: 3.85
Natural 20%: 0.00003125%
http://anydice.com/program/2706

Dice: 4
Mean: 4.52
Natural 20%: 0.000625%
http://anydice.com/program/2708

Dice: 3
Mean: 5.51
Natural 20%: 0.0125%
http://anydice.com/program/2582

Dice: 2
Mean: 7.17
Natural 20%: 0.25% (a fourth of a percent)
http://anydice.com/program/2581

Base Roll

Dice: 1
Mean: 10.5
Natural 20%: 5%
http://anydice.com/program/2f


Advantage

Dice: 2
Mean: 13.82
Natural 20%: 9.75%
http://anydice.com/program/257f

Dice:3
Mean:15.49
Natural 20%: 14.26%
http://anydice.com/program/257e


Dice: 4
Mean: 16.48
Natural 20%: 18.55%
http://anydice.com/program/2705


Dice: 5
Mean: 17.15
Natural 20%: 22.62%
http://anydice.com/program/270a


Thanks for running that for me! :smallsmile:

I still will want Skill Checks to go up to +/-5 dice (due to the way I'm building the skill system) but for combat I'll cap it to +/- 3 dice (i.e. double-AD or double-DA). To compensate, I'm going to make more Powers "cost" Advantage so that Players won't feel that stacking AD is worthless. It's a neat way to limit Powers without resorting to Encounter Powers.

@Person_Man

I have no doubt that you already know this, but speaking as someone who respects your posts and looks forward to your work, just reading through your project overview my first impression is that you're writing a character creation and advancement game. It might also include roleplaying, exploration, combat, etc. But the bulk of the rules appear to be about how you make and advance a character, and so I assume that's what players would spend most of their time doing.

That's not a criticism, just an observation. 3.X and Pathfinder are also character creation and advancement games. It's just a very niche game design for fairly advanced players. I'd have a hard time turning to my wife or occasional gamer friends and saying, "Hey, let's make some new characters together using another D&D variant."
Well, to that end I'm not making "another D&D Variant" -- as I hope my Project Overview made clear. It is, as you noted, a Character Building and Character Advancement Game but I did that to intentionally attract modern D&D Players who clearly enjoy that style of gameplay.

Of the 6 games I have in development, this is the only Rules Heavy Character Building & Advancement game I'm working on, so I don't think I'm putting all my eggs in one basket :smallbiggrin:

@Moreb Benhk

Side question: when and how often can one make the decision about what powers you have? are they interchangeable on a daily basis?
Powers are selected when the Level is gained. I may include a "downtime" retraining mechanic if the game looks like it could use one in the end.


I know it's a little early on, but I would be interested to see the sorts of spells you'd concider to be on parity with these defender type abilities.
The short answer is that I'm not balancing Vancian Casting with Combat Role Stances/Powers/Feats. Remember that Combat Role is distinct from Profession (where you get access to Vancian Casting) so you could have a Defender who can cast Vancian Spells.

The primary concern here is to make sure Vancian Spells do not overwhelm the other components of the system. In 3.PF, spells could replace and trump all other non-spell mechanics in the game: skills, Class Features, etc. were simply irrelevant in the face of being able to cast Arcane or Divine Spells. In G&G I'm avoiding this trap through a variety of mechanisms:
Combat Magic is part of the Fighting Style (Sorcery) mechanic, not Vancian Casting.
"Exploration" Magic (e.g. Levitate, Knock, Detect Secret Doors) is part of the Exploration Knack mechanic -- and is further subdivided between Divination and "Special Effects" Knacks.
Vancian Casting takes 1 round to cast and can be interrupted, making it hazardous to use in combat.
Vancian Spells focus on mass buffs or persistent effects, avoiding traditional "nova" effects.
Spell Durations are 5 min (or 1 Encounter) but can be Sustained as long as the Caster is conscious at the cost of taking Disadvantage on all actions per Spell Sustained. This constraints the "persistent buff" problem.
This, combined with strong Profession Features for non-Casters, should bring Vancian Casting back to its role in the days of TSR D&D without forcing them to suck before they can soar.

As for actual spells, well, I'm thumbing through my AD&D PHB for inspiration :smallsmile:

erikun
2013-08-15, 10:40 PM
My Core System is not going to use non-adventuring wealth to generate XP. At base, any businesses started by PCs are going to be assumed to be "self-sustaining" -- their income basically matches their expenses. This is to prevent the focus from being taken from adventuring, of course, but it can also be explained in that the PCs aren't "minding the store" so their profits are eaten up by the inefficiencies of running a managed business in a feudal setting :smallamused:
I'd suggest giving them a bit something for doing so, even if it doesn't directly affect the game. Perhaps the income goes towards a larger and better house, with the money assumed to be spend on tending to it and paying staff to keep it clean. The characters don't directly get benefit for the business, but the player still feels that their business (which is likely tied to the character concept) is giving them something.

Kalmageddon
2013-08-16, 07:12 AM
Any chance you will release a beta for playest on this forum or other kinds of online media?
I'm very interested. :smallsmile: