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Feirgon
2014-04-11, 01:52 PM
Goal

The purpose of this system is to provide a simple, lightweight, customizable framework to allow game masters to freely build a setting and a game as well as allow players the flexibility in decision making. This is not a completely original idea, but is modified enough that I think it warrants at least a passing glance. Please feel free to comment.

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Success Chart

Like many 2d6 systems, at its core is a success table:


Value
Name
Description
Unmodified Odds


12+
Critical Success
Increase (x1.5-x2) the intended effect.
2.78%


10-11
Success
Intended effect occurs.
13.89%


6-9
Partial Success
Half the intended effect occurs.
55.56%


3-5
Failure
None of the intended effect occurs.
25.00%


2-
Ciritcal Failure
The opposite/contrary of the intended effect occurs.
2.78%



As you can see, the system is in favor of player success (~72%). However, most of that is due to partial success, so players will have to stay engaged in order to deal with less than 100% success. This leaves more room for story telling and free-thinking.

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Skills

To supplement this table, a list of available skills must be present to allow characters to have unique bonuses/negatives to actions. Broadly defined skills allow characters to be skilled in many actions easily, however allows for simpler character creation. Specific skills requires the players to spend more time during character creation, but makes each character more unique and can allow more specialization. Below is a small list that a DM can use as a starting point.

(broad skill/attribute - specific skill)
Strength - melee weapon, defense, grapple, lifting, climb
Agility - ranged weapon, dodge, stealth, locks, traps
Endurance - running, swimming, fighting fatigue
Wisdom - medicine, cooking, foraging, perception
Intelligence - magic, computers, reading, writing
Social - speaking, leading, lying, disguise

A game is broken up into discrete actions, usually one by the PCs then one by the NPCs and so on. On any given action, the attempted use of a skill will require the roll of 2d6 (adding any bonus or negative) and checking the result against the success chart. Partial successes should still be looked at as success, though time consuming. Also, A game master should make players aware of what the maximum normal success is. A player cannot say that he attempted to climb 100 feet, so a partial success means 50 feet climbed, when the DM mentioned that 40 feet is the most that can be climbed in a normal success (critical success should go above this).

The difference in this system is that on any given action, a player may choose to combine two or more skills at the same time (defend and attack, quietly run away, climb a wall while dodging arrows and trying to convince the archers that you are a good guy, etc). In such a case, first take the bonus and negatives you get from all mentioned skills. Then subtract from each the number of extra skills you are attempting to use in a single action. When combining multiple skills into a single action, if a partial success is rolled, the player chooses half to partially succeed (round up) and half to fail.


Example: A character has a +3 in Attack and a +3 in Defend. Attempting to combine both skills into a single action, subtract 1 from each of the bonuses and then add the two bonuses together. This results in a +4.
Example: A character has +3 running, +1 stealth, and +2 ranged weapon. Attempting to combine all three skills into a single action, subtract 2 from each of the bonuses and then add all three together. This results in +0.

From the two previous examples two things can be seen. First, large bonuses will make combining skills into a single action preferable to taking a single action. This can be mitigated by limiting the bonuses (especially in broadly defined skills). Also, it is important to make sure the combination of skills makes sense to the situation and each other. While it may make sense to silently attack (assassinate), it may not make sense to do so in the middle of an all out battle. Secondly, there should be a law of diminishing returns for the number of skills used in a single action, even with regard to very high bonuses. As such, a DM should take into consideration the amount of time such an action should take.

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Wounds

At some point a character will need to be marked as damaged. In this system there are Wounds. There are two main types of Wounds: Minor and Major. Minor wounds apply a negative to either a single skill or a group of skills. Minor wounds are removed if their negative is reduced to 0. Major wounds affect one of three aspects: Physical, Mental, and Emotional. Receiving two major wounds in a single aspect will cause your character to pass out helplessly until the current conflict ends. If a third major wound is applied to any aspect, the character is no longer playable (Physical - Death, Mental - Brain-dead, Emotional - Insane).

Minor wounds should heal automatically; a reduction by one to all wound modifiers each night or between conflicts. However a skill use or an expenditure of resources is necessary to heal a major wound. Healing of major wounds must be done one at a time, even if a character has major wounds in more than one aspect. Use of a healing skill or resources can also be used to reduce the negative of all minor wounds (similar effect as the automatic healing).

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Success Points

The final part to this system is the Success Point (aka, Edge, Destiny, Fate, etc.) which should be a limited, but renewable, resource that can be spent to move any rolled result up one on the success chart. This is to allow players to have some tactical option even in the worst of situations. It is suggested that this be a specific skill that can be increased in character creation or to be evenly distributed to each character (aka, every character starts with 3). As to how it is renewed, that is up to the setting and the DM (nightly, between conflicts, at the cost of resources, as a reward, etc.).

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Conclusion

In conclusion, this system framework is simple and straightforward. It allows a DM flexibility while still holding on to some rigidity in conflict resolution. The system is best for a story driven game, where players and DM are free to tell a story without concern of the system getting in the way.

Just to Browse
2014-04-11, 10:56 PM
This system boils down to:

The player decides to do something he makes up and, if the DM decides that's a good thing to make up, the player rolls 2d6 + some bonus based on stats the DM made up, and succeeding the roll means the player does what he made up while a lower roll means the DM makes up a partial success. Also the DM makes up the time frame for this action. Also tying your shoes is apparently very difficult and you are likely to only partially tie your shoes.

If a made up action involves inflicting something called minor damage (remember that the DM makes up what damage is appropriate), then the DM makes up a penalty and makes up a group of skills and applies that penalty to those skills. If the DM makes up that the damage is major, then it does less than a minor wound up until the target takes a second wound and then they suddenly fall over unconscious.

Now there is also a made up category of points that have uses the DM can make up, are advanced in ways the DM makes up, and are refreshed in ways the DM makes up.

So from my in-depth study of this system, it appears to be "make a bunch of **** up, here are my unfiltered thoughts" coupled with a table of successes which appears to be used for every task and is irrespective of that task's difficulty. This does not make good story-driven games, it is not straightforward, it's not even a system.

If you want to write a baseline system, you need: 1) A functional action resolution mechanic, 2) a baseline action economy, and 3) a protocol for defining, entering, describing, and resolving relevant encounters.

p.d0t
2014-04-12, 12:56 AM
Yeah, this needs some guidelines for how high/low you can expect your "broad skill" numbers to be.
Is there a point-buy formula for those?