Grod_The_Giant
2015-01-13, 11:40 PM
Just a random mechanical idea I had bouncing around my head. The hope was to wind up with a very narrative, description-heavy form of combat-- sort of constant stunting. So...
Characters
Characters in this system would have three components:
The first would be a set of descriptors-- sort of freely-chosen terms that define what they can do. Things like "super strength," "hacker," "master archer," stuff like that. If you don't have an appropriate descriptor, you can only do normal human-level stuff. (Ie, you could try random passwords without a "hacker" descriptor, but you couldn't, you know, hack)
The second would be a set of Fate Accelerate Edition-style Approaches. (For those who don't know, they're sort of like abilities, but for, well, general approaches to things-- examples include "Forcefully" or "Cunningly," stuff like that). Those would be numbers, and would determine... something, I'm not quite sure what yet. I'm thinking either a flat bonus to rolls, bonus dice when rolling, or perhaps a limit to how many dice you can bid at once.
The third would be a per-scene dice pool-- a measure of power and health and so on.
Conflict
The active character describes what he wants to do ("I'll swing across on the chandelier and kick the sword out of his hand") and sets aside some number of dice-- how many he'll roll to succeed. (This may be limited by their Approaches, or maybe not)
The defending character can either:
Yield, allowing the action to happen but gaining back dice. (With some sort of limit on how much disadvantage they could take)
Contest, describing their response and setting aside some number of dice.
All other characters vote on whose described action was better-- either more useful or cooler, as they see fit. The winner gets to roll an extra die.
Both characters roll all their dice (possibly adding dice/flat values for their Approaches). Whoever's roll was higher succeeds, with degrees of success determining how much of a penalty they can extract from the defending character. They then narrate the action for their turn.
Afterwards, both characters discard all dice they rolled that turn.
If you run out of dice, you can only resist with your base Approach, which would presumably make it easy for enemies to beat your rolls by a lot and extract high penalties. I'm not quite sure what those penalties would be, though... a separate damage track, probably. Or maybe damage should be in the form of discarded dice, and when you run out of dice opponents can narrate whatever happens to you however they want?
As I see it, the element of skill in a system like this would be coming up with good actions-- things that use your better Approaches while forcing a foe to rely on their weak ones, as well as winning the stunting-vote thingie.
I dunno. What do you guys think?
Characters
Characters in this system would have three components:
The first would be a set of descriptors-- sort of freely-chosen terms that define what they can do. Things like "super strength," "hacker," "master archer," stuff like that. If you don't have an appropriate descriptor, you can only do normal human-level stuff. (Ie, you could try random passwords without a "hacker" descriptor, but you couldn't, you know, hack)
The second would be a set of Fate Accelerate Edition-style Approaches. (For those who don't know, they're sort of like abilities, but for, well, general approaches to things-- examples include "Forcefully" or "Cunningly," stuff like that). Those would be numbers, and would determine... something, I'm not quite sure what yet. I'm thinking either a flat bonus to rolls, bonus dice when rolling, or perhaps a limit to how many dice you can bid at once.
The third would be a per-scene dice pool-- a measure of power and health and so on.
Conflict
The active character describes what he wants to do ("I'll swing across on the chandelier and kick the sword out of his hand") and sets aside some number of dice-- how many he'll roll to succeed. (This may be limited by their Approaches, or maybe not)
The defending character can either:
Yield, allowing the action to happen but gaining back dice. (With some sort of limit on how much disadvantage they could take)
Contest, describing their response and setting aside some number of dice.
All other characters vote on whose described action was better-- either more useful or cooler, as they see fit. The winner gets to roll an extra die.
Both characters roll all their dice (possibly adding dice/flat values for their Approaches). Whoever's roll was higher succeeds, with degrees of success determining how much of a penalty they can extract from the defending character. They then narrate the action for their turn.
Afterwards, both characters discard all dice they rolled that turn.
If you run out of dice, you can only resist with your base Approach, which would presumably make it easy for enemies to beat your rolls by a lot and extract high penalties. I'm not quite sure what those penalties would be, though... a separate damage track, probably. Or maybe damage should be in the form of discarded dice, and when you run out of dice opponents can narrate whatever happens to you however they want?
As I see it, the element of skill in a system like this would be coming up with good actions-- things that use your better Approaches while forcing a foe to rely on their weak ones, as well as winning the stunting-vote thingie.
I dunno. What do you guys think?