Ravian
2015-12-05, 02:19 AM
I've been trying to work out a system for an RPG based off of the Soul Eater Manga/Anime, basic premise is that the characters play as weapon meisters who wield intelligent weapons (who also have human forms that often have abilities of their own). What this means in the game is that every player plays as a meister as well as the weapon of another player.
One of the biggest things in meister/weapon partnerships is that the two only work effectively together when they are able to resonate with one another. There's a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo regarding this but it essentially means their souls have to match frequencies with one another in their coordinating purposes and personalities. Souls that resonate well not only work better as a team but can also use particularly powerful abilities together. Meanwhile souls that resonate poorly can often actually cause damage to one another when the meister attempts to wield the weapon. Meisters and weapons can develop particularly deep bonds with one another to use very strong abilities, but there are also Meisters (and a few weapons) that are able to resonate well with multiple souls (sometimes simultaneously, sometimes just with a variety of potential partners.)
The issue I'm running into is how to best emulate this sort of cooperation in an rpg. I want some way by which the players of the meister and weapon could sort of match a test, forcing them to resonate in order to accomplish certain maneuvers together.
There's a few ideas I considered, one involving dice, the other playing cards.
The dice one would involve both players rolling d100's and trying to match their rolls as closely as possible. Both players would have a resonance value that they could add or subtract from their rolls in order to better match their partner's roll. It's definitely simple enough to work, but it seems pretty plain and I'm not sure if it would end up too random.
The card idea would basically involve both players drawing so many cards from separate playing card decks. Both players would be trying to get cards that were as similar as possible in order to accomplish certain maneuvers (for example, both having face cards, evens, odds or suits would be enough for easier abilities, while a having the same value of card would be enough for harder ones, and having an exact match would mean perfect resonance.) If the partners were better at resonating in this case, they would be able to draw more cards, thus giving them a better chance at getting matching cards. This one seems like it could have some interesting possibilities. But I'm not totally sure if it would work as intended.
In both their cases, I would also work to make sure that resonance was largely determined in a way where a particularly close meister/weapon pair would gain significant bonuses to resonating with one another, while there could also exist meisters that could resonate well with others regardless of who they were wielding.
Does anyone have any opinions on these mechanics, or if there might be a better way to accomplish a sort of cooperative test like this?
One of the biggest things in meister/weapon partnerships is that the two only work effectively together when they are able to resonate with one another. There's a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo regarding this but it essentially means their souls have to match frequencies with one another in their coordinating purposes and personalities. Souls that resonate well not only work better as a team but can also use particularly powerful abilities together. Meanwhile souls that resonate poorly can often actually cause damage to one another when the meister attempts to wield the weapon. Meisters and weapons can develop particularly deep bonds with one another to use very strong abilities, but there are also Meisters (and a few weapons) that are able to resonate well with multiple souls (sometimes simultaneously, sometimes just with a variety of potential partners.)
The issue I'm running into is how to best emulate this sort of cooperation in an rpg. I want some way by which the players of the meister and weapon could sort of match a test, forcing them to resonate in order to accomplish certain maneuvers together.
There's a few ideas I considered, one involving dice, the other playing cards.
The dice one would involve both players rolling d100's and trying to match their rolls as closely as possible. Both players would have a resonance value that they could add or subtract from their rolls in order to better match their partner's roll. It's definitely simple enough to work, but it seems pretty plain and I'm not sure if it would end up too random.
The card idea would basically involve both players drawing so many cards from separate playing card decks. Both players would be trying to get cards that were as similar as possible in order to accomplish certain maneuvers (for example, both having face cards, evens, odds or suits would be enough for easier abilities, while a having the same value of card would be enough for harder ones, and having an exact match would mean perfect resonance.) If the partners were better at resonating in this case, they would be able to draw more cards, thus giving them a better chance at getting matching cards. This one seems like it could have some interesting possibilities. But I'm not totally sure if it would work as intended.
In both their cases, I would also work to make sure that resonance was largely determined in a way where a particularly close meister/weapon pair would gain significant bonuses to resonating with one another, while there could also exist meisters that could resonate well with others regardless of who they were wielding.
Does anyone have any opinions on these mechanics, or if there might be a better way to accomplish a sort of cooperative test like this?