Quellian-dyrae
2007-02-16, 09:59 PM
So I've been working for a long time on a new RPG system, with the aim of providing players with the opportunity for unlimited character and genre customization. How does that differ from other RPGs? Well, because all the rules you need are in one book. Also, if I've done my job right, there are far fewer balance issues than you might find in other role playing games; less opportunity for blatant power playing and whatnot. Basically, the aim is, it distills things down to the stats, and then lets the players fluff them out as much or as little as they want.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's based on a few stats and then the rest is kinda determined by the players. Quite the opposite, really. I've tried to get all the major themes of RPGs in there with concise rules; it's just the descriptions that will vary. So a wizard, a cleric, and an explosive-toting robot will all use the same general rules for, say, large area attacks. It's just the details that differ. The aim being, making sure the game remains balanced.
I'm going to briefly go over some of the character creation details to kind of give a feel for how the game works.
Rather than use a race/class system, I go with preferences, groups of skills or abilities. Characters can raise a few preferences very high, or more preferences to smaller degrees. There are three groups of preferences: attributes (which basically fulfill the roles of ability scores and skills); stats; and abilities. Each group has ten preferences.
So the point here is largely statistical customization; even if each character in the group focuses on three stat preferences, there's 720 combinations. That's before minor modifications to lesser preferences, or how the character focuses on attributes and abilities, and so on. And one preference can change a lot. An offense/defense/tactics character is going to be quite a bit different than an offense/defense/damage character.
It's also about descriptive customization. There aren't set races and classes, so you can choose any stats (or attributes or abilities) that suit your character. Want a rogue who can teleport? A wizard who has a lot of stamina? A fighter who wins with wits rather than strength? All possible.
The three groups are also kept predominantly separate from each other, and the cost for each is set for the game by the group. So if you want a low-magic or no-magic game, you set abilities down to a low scale. If you want to play angels, giants, dragons, and other superhuman characters, you'll probably want attributes at a high scale (not to mention stats and probably starting level). There are options for raising a group's scale at the cost of others as well, just incase someone wants to play a magic-dead fighter in a high-ability-scale game, for example. Other than that, though, the three don't affect each other, and you have a separate pool of points to spend on each, so there's no balance issue of comparing, to use D&D as an example, skills, spells, and combat stats.
Anyway, I don't want to get too deep into it, but I'm interested in any suggestions, feedback, or questions people may have. I think I'll add a poll to the thread, too, just to see how that turns out.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's based on a few stats and then the rest is kinda determined by the players. Quite the opposite, really. I've tried to get all the major themes of RPGs in there with concise rules; it's just the descriptions that will vary. So a wizard, a cleric, and an explosive-toting robot will all use the same general rules for, say, large area attacks. It's just the details that differ. The aim being, making sure the game remains balanced.
I'm going to briefly go over some of the character creation details to kind of give a feel for how the game works.
Rather than use a race/class system, I go with preferences, groups of skills or abilities. Characters can raise a few preferences very high, or more preferences to smaller degrees. There are three groups of preferences: attributes (which basically fulfill the roles of ability scores and skills); stats; and abilities. Each group has ten preferences.
So the point here is largely statistical customization; even if each character in the group focuses on three stat preferences, there's 720 combinations. That's before minor modifications to lesser preferences, or how the character focuses on attributes and abilities, and so on. And one preference can change a lot. An offense/defense/tactics character is going to be quite a bit different than an offense/defense/damage character.
It's also about descriptive customization. There aren't set races and classes, so you can choose any stats (or attributes or abilities) that suit your character. Want a rogue who can teleport? A wizard who has a lot of stamina? A fighter who wins with wits rather than strength? All possible.
The three groups are also kept predominantly separate from each other, and the cost for each is set for the game by the group. So if you want a low-magic or no-magic game, you set abilities down to a low scale. If you want to play angels, giants, dragons, and other superhuman characters, you'll probably want attributes at a high scale (not to mention stats and probably starting level). There are options for raising a group's scale at the cost of others as well, just incase someone wants to play a magic-dead fighter in a high-ability-scale game, for example. Other than that, though, the three don't affect each other, and you have a separate pool of points to spend on each, so there's no balance issue of comparing, to use D&D as an example, skills, spells, and combat stats.
Anyway, I don't want to get too deep into it, but I'm interested in any suggestions, feedback, or questions people may have. I think I'll add a poll to the thread, too, just to see how that turns out.