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View Full Version : Original System Homebrew System in 60 Minutes (Silly RPG system, PEACH)



Jormengand
2016-07-23, 07:44 PM
Yo. Welcome to Sixty Minutes, or 60M. This is my attempt to create a fully-functioning role-playing game in just, you guessed it, 60 minutes.

Yes, I am insane. Why do you ask?

Character Generation

Welcome to your character generation!

First rule: no fractions. This is just because someone, somewhere's gonna be pedantic about it otherwise. NO FRACTIONS.

Your character has 2 Attack, 0 Defence, 2 Magic Attack and 0 Magic Defence. Then, you can add 4, divided as you wish between any combination of those four. You also have a range of 1, but you can't add to that right now - you need a ranged weapon to fight at range, duh. You also have a movement of 5 spaces, and damned if I'm letting you change that at character creation.

You then have 15 hit points and 15 magic points. Go ahead and add another 10 to that, and divvy it up how you like.

Then, you can take up to 10 points in skills. The skills are:

Agility
Animal Handling
First Aid
Knowledge
Language
Legerdemain (Legerdemain means picking locks and messing with traps and stealing stuff)
Magic (Not needed to cast spells, but to do other magical stuff)
Perception
Social
Stealth

Yes, you can be really shoddy at, but technically capable in, everything if you want. Good, excellent, amazing. God, aren't we glad we did this?

Oh, and grab a skill worth 1 point from an ability tree. You'll work out what that means when I tell you about ability trees.

Skills and Stuff:

Skills are simple: If your skill rank is equal to or greater than the difficulty of the thing you're trying to do, you can do that thing. Second rule of skills, You only need to roll if the difficulty is exactly the same as the difficulty, and if it is you succeed half the time. Anything else isn't exactly at the edge of your ability, it's pretty routine stuff, so you don't have to roll to do it. If you do need to roll, it's 4+ on a 6-sided die, 11+ on a 20-sided one, or flip a damn coin already. Great, excellent, any questions? Oh, third rule of skills: Sometimes the difficulty is someone else's skill roll. If your skill is better than theirs (they might be different skills, like stealth and perception) you win. If yours is worse, you lose. If they're the same, roll ONCE, not once for each of you. Okay?

Right, now what the freak is a difficulty? Well, it's just some number that's assigned to some use of the skill. Like, for example, "Sound like you know what you're on about when talking about this skill" is difficulty 2 for all skills. That means, for those in the back, that if you have 0 or 1 in that skill, you don't know what you're talking about. If your skill is a 3, 4, 5, or 5023, then you do. Great. If your skill is exactly 2, and no other number, then you get a 50% chance of success. Of course, if you have a 3 in the skill, you sound like you know what you're on about, but if you have a 10, you sound like you graduated summa *** laude in freaking animal handling or something. Gah, what is with you people?

Whatever, let's go. Oh, and the DM - look, you guys know what a DM is, and don't pretend you don't - can make these up on the fly because seriously, there aren't that many of them.

All skills:

Sound like you know what you're on about when talking about this skill: 2
Answer basic questions about this skill: 3
Answer advanced questions about this skill: 6
Answer the most difficult questions about this skill: 9

Agility

Jump X feet straight up: X
Jump 4X (X+X+X+X) feet straight forwards: X
Do either of those from a standing start: X+2
Climb a ladder: 0
Climb a rope with a surface next to it: 1
Climb a cliff face: 6
Climb a perfectly smooth, flat, vertical surface: 15
Climb a perfectly smooth, flat, horizontal surface from underneath it: 25
Swim normally: 2
Swim in a flowing river: 5
Swim up a waterfall: 50

Animal Handling

Ride a horse normally: 2
Ride an elephant: 6
Ride that carnivorous mount that should by rights be trying to EAT you, dumbass: 8
Train a horse: 3
Train something more exotic: 6
Train that carnivorous mount: 10.
Ride an untrained animal: X+2, where X is the normal difficulty.

First Aid

Once per day, restore hit points equal to your first aid skill to someone: 0
Set a broken bone: 3
Cure most poisons: 4
Treat a spinal injury, with help from someone who meets this prerequisite too: 5 (You both have to roll if you're both at 5)
Treat an obscure magical injury: 10

Knowledge

Generally, you can use the "Answer such-and-such a kind of question" to answer questions about just about anything using Knowledge, but that doesn't mean you can actually do anything with that knowledge.

Language

You speak 1 language, plus 1 language per 2 points of language you have. You can read and write any language you can speak.

Decipher a code: Vs enemy language.
Decipher something that's not meant to be a code, but is just badly-written: 4
Decipher a code that was meant for you: 6 minus code-setter's language.

Legerdemain

Normal locks and simple traps are about difficulty 2 to get past, but lock and trap quality varies a lot.

Magic

Understand magical symbols: 2
Work out what a spell is or a magic effect does by looking at it, if it has a clear visual manifestation: 4
Work out the function of a magic item just by looking it: 6
Work out the function of a spell as it's cast: 8
Bypass a magical effect made to keep you out: 10

Perception

See or hear someone trying to be stealthy: Vs Stealth

Social

Convince someone of something: Could be as low as 2 for something they want to believe, or 20 for something outrageous and impossible. Evidence would reduce the difficulty.

Stealth

Sneak past someone: Vs perception.

Combat:
When you're in combat, you need to know who's going first. This can be worked out by answering a super-important question: "Who is going first"? No, seriously, if you're pulling a knife on someone in casual conversation or ambushing them from the woods or whatever, it's pretty clear that you're going first. If it's unclear, fifty-fifty.

This is the cool bit! No, I'm joking. In combat, you can move up to your speed in Arbitrary Units (Probably like 6 feet each or whatever it's trendy to be able to move 5 of) - don't use a grid, you chumps, actually move the damn distance (but scale it down to, like, inches) and do something else, like use a skill or whatever, though obviously you can't train a horse (or your stupid "Riding shark") in combat or something stupid like that. "Something else" is usually "Choose something in range, and deal damage equal to your attack minus its defence to that thing." It then loses some hit points, like, equal to the damage you did. Oh, you can't do less than 1 damage, so try not to stack your defence too stupidly high.

Or, you can use an ability. Gosh, those come from ability trees, don't they? Yeah, they do.

Ability Trees:
Yeah, ability trees. We all love 'em. Computer-RPG-style and all, you know? Well, at the start, you only get to pick one ability, from the start of the ability tree. It costs 1 ability point. Go grab that. Later, you'll get experience, which you can swap out for more abilities, or skills, or health or magic points or attack, defence, magic attack, magic defence... look, right now, the point is, you start at the top of the ability tree, and then you have a skill. You can then go down the ability tree and grab up the things that it allows you to get. Of course, I'm running on 30 minutes here, so you can kiss any pretty actual-skill-trees goodbye. Jeez, what do you take me for?

Some abilities deal magic damage, reduced by your enemy's magic defence (to a minimum of 1), not their defence. Some deal true damage, which isn't reduced at all. Otherwise it's reduced by enemy defence, down to minimum 1.

1-handed tree

It's a tree with one hand! Haha, I'm funny. Look, this is for you goons who want to fight with a weapon in one hand, and nothing in the other, like a CHUMP. Like a CHUMP. In fact, you HAVE to do that (like a CHUMP) to use any of these abilities.

Feint: With your cunning skill at not poking people with a stick, you can lower the enemy's defence by 1 for the entire battle if you're in range to attack, but do this instead. Ooh, cunning. Costs 1

Parry: You get +1 defence, and when you're attacked within your enemy's melee range, you can move 1, so long as you're still within 1 of your enemy afterwards. Costs 1.

Riposte: When you get attacked, you can deal 1 point of true damage to an enemy within 1 unit of you. Costs 1, requires parry.

Grab Arrow: When you get attacked with a ranged weapon, you can grab the projectile to take no damage, but you then have something in your hand and lose all this neat stuff until your next turn, when you drop it (which doesn't count as doing anything). Costs 2, requires feint.

Deflect Arrow: Once per turn, you can bat away an arrow with your weapon, so you don't have to keep the arrow when you use Grab Arrow. Costs 2, requires Grab Arrow and Riposte.

Deflect Weapon: Once per turn you can prevent all damage from an enemy's attack with a melee weapon. Neat. Costs 2, requires Grab Arrow and Feint.

Dance of Death: You can move, attack, move again and attack again, or attack, move, attack again and move again, all in one round. Costs 3, requires Deflect Arrow and Deflect Weapon.

2-handed tree

This stuff all works when you want to whack someone with a two-handed melee weapon. Or, rather, if you're currently doing so.

Knock About: You can knock an enemy 1 unit in any direction (so long as they don't, like, end up in a wall or something dumb like that) whenever you attack them. Costs 1.

Follow-up Kick: You can kick an enemy for 2 points of true damage after your attack. Costs 1.

Sword Storm: You can attack twice during your movement, but can't attack the same target twice. Costs 2, requires Knock About.

No Escape: When an enemy tries to move out of your range, you can move 2 units after them. Costs 2, requires follow-up Kick.

Whirlwind Attack: You can attack ALL enemies within range when you attack, not just one. Costs 2, requires Sword Storm and Follow-up Kick.

Get Back Here: Whenever an enemy moves from within 1 unit of you, their movement is 1 less for that move. Costs 2, requires No Escape and Knock About.

Mobile Whirlwind: You can move, and then attack ALL enemies that are in range at any point during your movement. Costs 3, requires Whirlwind Attack and Get Back Here.

Weapon and Shield Tree

These things work if you have a weapon and a shield. In your hands. Right now.

Shield Bash: You can make a second attack, using your shield's defence bonus as your weapon attack bonus for that attack. Costs 1.

Block: Your shield is twice as effective at blocking attacks. Costs 1.

Shield Hurl: You can lob your shield with range 3, just like a shield bash, and it conveniently bounces back so you can catch it because that's realistic. Costs 2, requires shield bash.

Total Defence: You can, instead of attacking, block all damage from attacks until your next turn. Costs 2, requires block.

Bashmaster: Your shield is twice as effective at dealing damage with a shield bash or hurl. Costs 2, requires total defence and shield bash.

Long Hurl: You can lob your shield with range 6. It still comes back even though you lobbed it several times your own height. Costs 2, requires shield hurl and block.

Bouncemaster: In the ultimate display of ridiculousness, you can throw your shield, return it to your hand, and bash with it, all strapped onto the end of the same normal attack. Costs 3 ability points as well as your sense of shame, and requires long hurl and bashmaster.

2-weapon fighting

Ugh. You need two weapons to do this.

Twin Swipe: You can actually attack with both weapons at once. Wow. Your parents must be proud. Costs 1.

Offhand Stabbing: You can attack an enemy with your offhand weapon for free when they attack you. Costs 1.

Two-weapon Defence: You can add your offhand weapon's attack bonus as a defence bonus too. Costs 2, requires twin swipe.

Opportune Stabbing: Whenever an enemy moves from within your offhand weapon's range to outside that range, you can attack them with it. Costs 2, requires Offhand Stabbing.

Mainhand Stabbing: You can use your mainhand weapon instead of your offhand weapon for your offhand stabbing and opportune stabbing. Costs 2, requires opportune stabbing and twin swipe.

Defensive Opportunity: Whenever you attack an enemy with your offhand or opportune stabbing, they're so surprised that they get -1 to attack for 2 turns. Costs 2, requires offhand stabbing and two-weapon defence.

Twin Stabbing: You can use your mainhand weapon as well as your offhand weapon for your offhand stabbing and opportune stabbing. Costs 3, requires mainhand stabing and defensive opportunity.

Ranged Tree

These abilities require a ranged weapon, duh.

Long-range: Your range increases by 1. Costs 1.

Jump-Shoot-Jump: You can move part of your move, shoot, and then move the rest of your move. Costs 1.

Far Shot: Your range increases by 1. Costs 2, requires long-range.

Twin Shot: You can shoot twice with a single attack, letting you move, shoot, move, shoot and move if you like. Costs 2, requires Jump-Shoot-Jump (rename it "Jump-Shoot-Jump-Shoot-Jump" on your character sheet if it pleases you).

Field of Arrows: You can attack every creature within half of your range, rounding down, as a single attack. Requires twin shot and long-range. Costs 2, requires Twin Shot and Long-range.

Reactive Movement: Once per round, you can move 2 units when someone moves within 1 unit of you, but if they have movement left they can follow you up into range of you. Costs 2, requires jump-shoot-jump and far shot.

Whirlwind of Arrows: You can move, and attack every enemy who was within half your range at any point during your move, by taking up your whole turn. Costs 3, requires Field of Arrows and Reactive Movement.

Sneaky Tree

SNEAKY! These abilities don't require anything.

Sneak attack!: You get +4 to attack on any attack where you just started combat, your enemy couldn't see you at the start of the turn, or your enemy is currently within melee range of an ally on the other side of them. Costs 1.

Get out of danger: Your speed increases by 1. Costs 1.

Superior Sneak Attack: Your sneak attack! deals double damage. Costs 2, requires sneak attack.

Really get out of danger: Your speed increases by 1 again. Costs 2, requires get out of danger.

Skirmish Attack: You can benefit from sneak attack! by moving at least 7 units before making a melee attack. Costs 3, requires superior sneak attack and really get out of danger.

Arcane Tree:

You can use these skills all the time.

Armour Caster: You can cast spells while wearing armour.

Spell Sniper: Your spells, as long as they have a range of at least 4, deal +4 damage if you cast them from a distance within 1 of their maximum range.

Archmage: Your spells cost 1 less magic point. Costs 3, requires Armour Caster and Spell Sniper.

Fire Tree:

Yay, fire! You can't cast spells in armour.

Fire Bolt: You can make a magic attack at range 4 for 1 magic point. Costs 1.

Flame Blade: You can make two magic attacks at range 1 for 3 magic points. Costs 1.

Fireball: You can make a magic attack to each creature in a 1-unit radius sphere within range 4 for 2 magic points. Costs 2, requires fire bolt.

Ignition: You can set yourself alight, dealing 1 point of true damage to each creature who attacks you (you launch fire at people who attack you at range, duh) in the next 5 turns for 5 magic points. Costs 2, requires flame blade.

Blazing Field: You can set a 1-unit radius sphere within range 4 alight, dealing an attack to each creature who starts a turn there for 5 rounds, for 7 magic points. Costs 2, requires ignition and fire bolt.

Inferno: You can make three magic attacks against each creature within range 1 for 6 magic points. Costs 2, requires fireball and flame blade.

Fire storm: You can make a magic attack against any number of creatures within range 6 every turn for 5 turns, for 15 magic points. Costs 3, requires blazing field and inferno.

Water Tree

Yay, water! You can't cast spells in armour.

Jet: You can make a magic attack at range 10 for 2 magic points. Costs 1.

Bubble Shield: You can breathe underwater, and also get +2 to defence and magic defence, for 10 rounds, costing 3 magic points. Costs 1.

Aquablast: You can make a magic attack against each creature on a 10-unit-long straight line originating from you for 5 magic points. Costs 2, requires jet.

Heal: You can restore X hit points to anyone, including yourself, within range 4 for X magic points. Costs 2, requires bubble shield.

Bubblebeam: Because firing streams of bubbles is terrifically effective, you can make a magic attack against each enemy on a 10-unit-long straight line originating from you for 7 magic points. Costs 2, requires aquablast and bubble shield.

Water to Blood: You can make a magic attack at range 10 and heal yourself for the damage dealt for 6 magic points. Costs 2, requires heal and jet.

Bloodbeam: You can make a magic attack against each enemy on a 10-unit-long straight line originating from you, and heal yourself and each ally on the line for the total damage dealt for 12 magic points. Costs 3, requires bubblebeam and water to blood.



Due to budget cuts, earth and air got cut entirely.

Equipment

You can find fat loot on your travels. In general, you can have a 2-handed ranged weapon that ups your range to 6, a 2-handed ranged weapon that gives you +1 to attack and ups your range to 4, a melee weapon that gives you +2 to attack, a 2-handed melee weapon that gives you +3 to attack, an offhand weapon that gives you +1 to attack but you can't normally attack with it at the same time as your ordinary weapon, a shield that gives you +2 to defence, some armour that gives you +2 to defence, and a 2-handed magic staff that gives you +2 to magic attack. You can have as much of this stuff as you can actually equip yourself with all at once. You might find a legendary weapon like a sword that provides +5 to attack or a staff that lets you cast spells cheaper or whatever.

Dying and magic points

If a spell would bring you below 0 magic points, you can't cast it. If an attack would bring you below 0 hit points, you're dead. Boom. You get everything back after an 8-hour rest.

Levels and stuff

Whenever you brutally murder an enemy, you get some number of experience points, just like momma used to make. Probably 1 or 2 kind of amount. You can spend 1 to get an extra maximum hit point or magic point, 3 to get an extra skill point, or 5 to get an extra ability point. I'm a generous overlord.

That's it!

I've had my hour. Go play my game, people.

Beneath
2016-07-23, 08:01 PM
If an attack would bring you below 0 hit points, you're dead. Boom. You get everything back after an 8-hour rest.

That's a very forgiving death system; I wish I knew more about how that fits in with the game world. Do you have to be dead to get HP/MP back by resting, or can you do it while alive?

JNAProductions
2016-07-23, 08:06 PM
I don't like how you need an ability to move, attack, move. They fixed that silliness in 5E, and I feel it's a step backwards to not allow that right off the bat.

Jormengand
2016-07-23, 08:10 PM
That's a very forgiving death system; I wish I knew more about how that fits in with the game world. Do you have to be dead to get HP/MP back by resting, or can you do it while alive?

Addendum: Death is not a rest. You are not just resting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE), you are dead.


I don't like how you need an ability to move, attack, move. They fixed that silliness in 5E, and I feel it's a step backwards to not allow that right off the bat.

5E caused the stupid conga line problem, and I don't think that you should be able to run into combat, attack and run out without some kind of specialist training: that's not easy to do.

JNAProductions
2016-07-23, 08:13 PM
5E caused the stupid conga line problem, and I don't think that you should be able to run into combat, attack and run out without some kind of specialist training: that's not easy to do.

So what about this?

Running away from an opponent lets them make a free attack against you. That way, you're punished for trying it in melee. (But ranged combat-move out from cover, shoot, move back in-works fine, since it's a hell of a lot easier to do.)

Beneath
2016-07-23, 09:31 PM
Serious critical review, if you're not going to run with the silly option of letting you come after the dead after eight hours of rest. This system has no hook. It doesn't tell me very much about what the world it's in is supposed to be like; we can presume by the equipment descriptions and the existence of magic that it's supposed to be fantasy but it doesn't say more than that. It's D&D-but-rewritten-shorter-and-off-the-cuff, with nothing to bring it to life.

Like, specifically, larger-than-life mythic heroes, swashbuckling pirates, treasure-seekers bringing hoards of gold the likes of which haven't been seen since the days of the Old Kingdom back to the surface, the destined peasant child overthrowing the dark lord, trope-aware heroes fighting punch-clock villains, and bands of miserable wretches hoping that after they've paid the costs of the expedition there'll still be enough treasure left to live off of for a while are all very different styles of play, and I'm not sure which one you're going for, or if you're going for something else entirely.

I'd have to play the combat system to see how it works, but it seems like trading blows long enough to knock anything down in it is likely to cost you a lot too, unless the monsters are way weaker than the PCs (which is itself a trope that bears examining and that a silly system could do well; the jester has a lot more room to point out that the heroes who get their wealth from beating down bandits who are so much weaker than them that they can fight them en masse and win are doing the same thing they're accusing the bandits of doing than a game people are expecting to be serious).

What I see is at best half a game; the other half would do things like tell me how the player characters fit into the world and set the stage for the situations that this half resolves. Is a starting mage PC a bumbling apprentice, or someone who graduated from an 8 week mage boot camp that taught them which end of a fire bolt goes in the enemy and then threw them into the war, or a learned scholar and master of the arcane whose mastery is so great that they can even weave it into bolts of fire that are about as good as a bow?

I know that stuff gets dismissed as flavor text or as advice rather than rules, but it's important for setting the stage for a game like this, and also for setting the tone, which is important in a silly system. 'cause as far as I can tell, what you're supposed to do with this system is just drop it in the Forgotten Realms and play it like it's D&D, and in that case the system doesn't really do a lot to show why I should use it rather than D&D to run the Realms. Except instead of the Realms it might be something even more brutal, since mages there 1) have non-combat spells, and 2) can switch out for those given a day and here literally everything ties into combat.

Jormengand
2016-07-23, 10:00 PM
In fairness, that's all the kind of thing that I'd do if I'd had more than an hour to finish the system! That said, there's a reason it's left open and vague, because it can be anything it wants to be, really. Maybe you win all of your fights by ganging up on enemies or maybe they're all so much weaker than you that anyone with a maxed-out skill tree is obliterating them with their fire storm. A starting mage could be an apprentice or a powerful mage in their own right. A "Ranged weapon" could be a gun and a "Melee weapon" a lightsaber. It depends on the kind of game you want to play with it, and I don't like telling you what kind of game you're allowed to play with my system. Go nuts with it. It's your system now.