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View Full Version : If you had the time, skill, and resources, what kind of RPG book would you create?



Yora
2017-04-19, 12:24 PM
These days everyone can make a book without any business experience or publishing connections and there's a good number of people who have made and released their own RPG books over the last decade. Of course, most of them are not very good. But occasionally there are a few books created by someone who was previously a complete nobody and that ended up being regarded as even better than what is being released by the big old established companies.

From my own experience, these tend to be books that are very much not mainstream. Perhaps not a surprise, as they target niches in which there is no competition by professional businesses. It could also be that the more unusual your taste is, the more you feel the need that someone needs to write books that cater to those interests. If you can buy the books you'd want to have for your game, why create your own?

But let's suppose you'd be feeling confident enough in your skills as a writer and GM and could easily fit it into your schedule: What ideas do you have that you think would make a great RPG book that should exist?

I am really curious what kinds of books we could get if more people would feel confident that they can make their own?

Mastikator
2017-04-19, 02:07 PM
There's no need to assume for me because I already am all of those things and I'm not doing it because of those reasons :smallwink:

A sci-fi RPG that comes as a easily available freely downloadable PDF. I don't know how to put books in shelves in stores, I wouldn't go through the hassle even if I had infinite time and money.

I'd publish it under a "everybody can use, modify and even commercially sell their own version but not this version" license.

It would probably be a short book. Maybe 5 pages that tell you how to build characters (both PCs and NPCs, I'm not gonna make 2 systems, one system for everything). Probably 50 pages that explain all the rules, as few optional rules as possible. The rules involve all the skills/everything you can do.

Maybe another 100 pages of world building with guidelines for the DM to expand on the world building. It would contain the human worlds and the various (few) aliens. The aliens will be VERY different.

I've already done some of this work actually, but I don't have access to people that want to play as often as I do, and I have a full time job so it's not like I have infinite time either.

Yora
2017-04-19, 02:58 PM
There's no need to assume for me because I already am all of those things and I'm not doing it because of those reasons :smallwink:

Well, I think most people do. But if I'd just ask what books people want to make, most would say "I can't do that". It's a ruse. :smalltongue:

I might have mentioned once or twice that I've been working on a campaign setting that has basically elves, neanderthals, and beastmen in a prehistoric forest world populated by giant reptiles, insects, and nature spirits, with a strangeness infuenced by Planescape, Dark Sun, and Morrowind.

Of all the many independent and off the mainstream releases of RPG books I think there's a real lack of campaign settings that don't go the common late medieval elf-dwarf-orc path. There's some really great world in videogames, but nobody seems to be doing serious pulpy settings in RPGs. There is only silly parody pulpy.

Cluedrew
2017-04-19, 03:28 PM
How to make a role-playing game.

I am actually trying to make my "perfect" system all ready (it is going slowly) so maybe I should say that, but this is the impossible but it would be cool option.

Anyways, a whole book on how to make a role-playing game. Everything from selecting how you want approach it (rules-lite, rules-heavy, narrativist, simulationist) & how to structure the rules to examining different types of rolling mechanics with the balance and feel implications of them. And examples, enough examples that you can put together the examples to get a working system, with enough advice to than expand and refine it to get exactly what you want.

Why this, because I think a specialized system will always handle the game it was meant for better than a generic system applied to that game. So it is a tool for creating systems that fits the exact game you want. It would be nearly impossible to create but man, if I could.

Mr.Sandman
2017-04-19, 04:53 PM
I currently have ideas for a Domestic Sitcom RPG, just for the fun of playing wacky families like Malcom in the Middle, or ones with added supernatural elements like Alf. Probably everybody would play a family, with both family and group goals, try to get the best spot in the neighborhood to sell a fundraiser, the oldest kid brings their new SO home, that sort of thing.

Quertus
2017-04-19, 05:42 PM
How to make a role-playing game.

I am actually trying to make my "perfect" system all ready (it is going slowly) so maybe I should say that, but this is the impossible but it would be cool option.

Anyways, a whole book on how to make a role-playing game. Everything from selecting how you want approach it (rules-lite, rules-heavy, narrativist, simulationist) & how to structure the rules to examining different types of rolling mechanics with the balance and feel implications of them. And examples, enough examples that you can put together the examples to get a working system, with enough advice to than expand and refine it to get exactly what you want.

Why this, because I think a specialized system will always handle the game it was meant for better than a generic system applied to that game. So it is a tool for creating systems that fits the exact game you want. It would be nearly impossible to create but man, if I could.

Huh. I was going to give a "joke" answer that would have 90% the same content as your answer. I was going to suggest writing a book on how to discuss and debug your RPG. A book on how to evaluate play styles, and what facets of RPGs cater to or are antithetical to those styles. A book on how to understand what makes the game fun.

I was then going to give a more serious answer of Rifts, but, you know, good.

But, after reading your post, I... I'm not so sure which is the joke, and which is the real answer any more.

Lord Raziere
2017-04-19, 06:04 PM
......hmm....

I would make books for my setting:

Shattered Rassiteh:
A fantasy world of magitech where humans rebelled against tyrannical gods a few centuries ago then broke the rest of existence free from the the god-made prison, thus rapidly expanding the world from one planet into an entire universe of new species, new magic systems, shattering the original planet of Rassiteh in the process and now the descendants of humans travel across the universe one of Rassiteh's shards as a powerful magitech city known as Rassiteh city, with races they come across joining them in Rassiteh City for trade, learning, new homes. Rassiteh champions science, the progress of magitech and helping others. But many cultures out in this universe have their own ideas about how magic should be used as well as their own opinions upon the gods.

Honest Tiefling
2017-04-19, 06:07 PM
Personally, I'd make a setting or adventure paths. Always wanted to make one of the latter.

Cluedrew
2017-04-20, 09:05 AM
But, after reading your post, I... I'm not so sure which is the joke, and which is the real answer any more.I spent a long time trying to think of something significant to say, but still the best I got is: I confused Quertus, Achievement Get?

I could elaborate more, but I think I made all the general points in my original post.

hymer
2017-04-20, 09:12 AM
I am really curious what kinds of books we could get if more people would feel confident that they can make their own?

I'd write up my current sandbox campaign. Mostly people could use the ideas, maps, NPCs, and so forth, as it would be pretty packed with the stuff it takes some time, effort and wringing of one's creative mind to create. But if someone wanted to run it as a straight campaign, it should suffice for that, too.

Edit: Come to think of it, it should be a website, with links to make it easy to get to the information you need. And then I could add some commentary on why I did this or that, dropping some anecdotes from the playing of the campaign, etc.

Knaight
2017-04-20, 09:29 AM
Assuming I could get meaningfully organized, and ignoring the various short stuff that I've already released (two full but short games, a couple of articles), there are a few ideas I've been bouncing around. The notable ones:

A two player + GM game focused on a master and apprentice and designed to go through generations, with each player playing an apprentice, then that apprentice as a master, then a different apprentice cyclically (and offset by one, obviously).
A setting compendium. I bounce between settings, and a book about 300 pages long with 10 settings or so in it, detailed but not overly so could be fun. Maybe arrange them from straightforward to gonzo, with my low fantasy port city setting on one end and my demons vs. humans search for Eldorado setting on the other. Maybe I arrange them from least to most bleak, with the ultimately fairly uplifting discovery of magic setting on one end, my emergence of AI in a near cyberpunk dystopia in the middle, and the tour of bleak depression that is Galactic Fruit at the other. I already have more than ten settings, familiarity with a few generic rules sets that work across them (by which I mean I'd use Fudge), and even a small established fanbase beyond just my local group for some of them.


Plus, if skill and resources can be assumed to include either the capacity to do basic artwork competently plus some layout skills there's a reasonable length that can be achieved. I already have a 40 page setting document (from highschool, though the underlying idea of a colony ship crashing into a planet low on metals and some of the ideas for how the next few thousand years turn out are still solid), a more readable font kicks it up to 60, art gets it to 80 or so easily enough.

Quertus
2017-04-20, 10:18 AM
I confused Quertus, Achievement Get?

I'm not familiar with the reference, but would, "you can has achievement" be an appropriate response?

Psyren
2017-04-20, 01:24 PM
Handbooks, handbooks, handbooks. There are never enough hours in the day!

Max_Killjoy
2017-04-20, 01:36 PM
If I were able to take the time to do nothing but work on an RPG, it would be the one I'm working on (off and on) in the "4th century BCE" thread I started.

I'm resigned to the fact that I'd need to create my own system, either in general or for this in particular.

HERO 4th/5th is kinda sorta close, but just doesn't scale down well (or as well as advocates claim) to anything below "most ridiculous action movie hero" -- for anything below that the scope of variation is just too compressed (the grand total of variation of a Characteristic or base Skill roll between average and normal max is 11 or less to 13 or less on 3d6).

I tend to get a lot of recommendations when I go over what I want, but I find that in almost every instance, these recommendations are about what I actually posted, but rather about the fact that the person making the recommendation really likes that system.


So here's my wishlist of "do and don't" that would form the basis of a system I was designing, made specific to the setting I'm most focused on right now.

* Dice system would be "curved", resulting in somewhat more predictable results with the average more likely than the extremes. That is, 3d6 or 2d12 or whatever curve works -- as opposed to 1d20 or d100 linear, or many of the dice pool systems that can result in anything from 0 to X "successes" on a wildly variable pool of dice. What I'm coming to dislike the most because of the huge and swingy variation in results is "additive pool" dice such as L5R 4th, with a number of dice rolled and added together -- and exploding dice will never be part of any system I design.

* Rolls and resolution are based on tasks, challenges, maybe goals -- not "conflicts". That is, when a character is attempting to climb a wall, the roll in some way represents the attempt to climb the wall, and is modified by the conditions of the climb, and success indicates that the wall was climbed. Alternatively, the result of the roll can indicate the time taken to climb the wall or some other variation, if the climbing is a matter of degrees and not pass/fail. I'm not insisting on a repeated series of checks against every single guard or for every 10' of the climb, and I am not insisting that every roll have a chance of absolute failure; resolution can be adaptable to the situation. What I do totally reject is the Edwardian notion that the attempt to climb the wall or the attempt to sneak past the guards somehow represents an abstract "conflict" with the "lord of the castle".

* Resolution is relatively quick
~ limited mathematics during resolution -- character creation and maintenance are the home for most of the formulas, not "in play"
~ limited interpretation and debate, both before the roll and after the roll -- so nothing like some of the narrative systems out there
~ without needing to look up a couple dozen of special "talents" or "feats" or whatnot


* Both characteristics and skills matter in resolution attempts
~ example: when a roll is made to determine whether a character knows something, their "memory characteristic" and their "knowledge of this subject skill" both matter in determining the odds of success


* Conventional characteristics and skills
~ Characteristics (attributes, whatever) as broad qualities of the character that are at least in part innate
~ Skills as fairly discreet trained / learned abilities


* Game scales well -- avoids the issues some games have of the attack/defense/damage/soak relationships radically changing as characters advance.

* No levels (or level-like mechanisms, where the game claims it has no levels, then bases skill limits or whatever around "grade" or "progression rating" or "rank")

* No classes (or class-like mechanisms, where the game claims it has no classes, then gives unique, locked-off abilities, bonuses, and/or discounts to "careers" or "archetypes" or "schools")

* Light on "feats" (D&D style) or "talents", especially avoiding stacked or complex talents; NO "talent trees" (FFG Star Wars)

* Combat is smooth, but not highly abstract -- mechanical actions model character actions, not some undefined unit of abstract stuff (see "no conflict resolution" above)

* Active defenses are modeled with character actions, not passive abstractions -- shield use, for example, is an actively-rolled skill

* Magic
~ can be set up as subtle, slow, and/or costly (without being onerously so)
~ can be available without overwhelming other ways of doing things.
~ resource-based rather than slot-based magic -- NO "Vancian casting"

Knaight
2017-04-20, 01:43 PM
I tend to get a lot of recommendations when I go over what I want, but I find that in almost every instance, these recommendations are about what I actually posted, but rather about the fact that the person making the recommendation really likes that system.

Either that or it's just underspecified - as listed that looks exactly like GURPS.

dps
2017-04-20, 02:00 PM
One that would sell a lot and make me tons of money. :smallbiggrin:

Max_Killjoy
2017-04-20, 02:04 PM
Either that or it's just underspecified - as listed that looks exactly like GURPS.

Trust me, it's not GURPS.

I have used copies of a couple editions of GURPS, and this isn't GURPS. Later tonight I'll post specific examples of why, once I'm at home and can dig them up from the books.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-20, 02:18 PM
Skimming through a lot of "recommend me a system" lists, there seems to be a missing link between extremely rules-light games like Risus (where the "rules" are basically nonexistent) and rules-medium games like Savage Worlds (where the rules a straightforward and the lists of options are reasonable, but still require some amount of effort and mastery). What games do exist tend, like Fate, to be structured more narratively than mechanically, with emphasis on story-logic, DM-fiat, abstraction, metagame currency, and so on. Which aren't bad things in and of themselves, but... if I were to sit down and write a game, it would be a rules-and-fiat light system, I think.

I'd like a game where the mechanics are simple enough, and easy enough to handle through GM-coaching, that you can get a player comfortable enough with them in minutes. One where characters are simple enough that you can build one very quickly, but have enough depth that you can continue to play and improve them for a full campaign. I'd like a game that makes the GM's job as easy as it makes the players, where they don't have to memorize extra rules and can create NPCs on the fly. I'd like a game that can easily zoom in and out, so that a challenge can be handled as a single check, a short challenge, a back-and-forth conflict type dynamic, or a full-blown adventure as best fits the situation. I'd like a game that can handle multiple power levels-- sometimes even at the same time-- without the underlying math breaking down.

...which is why I wrote that game (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?361270-STaRS-the-Simple-TAbletop-Roleplaying-System-5-0), I guess. Just need to find the skill and/or resources for art, and maybe a professional editing pass.

-------

I'd also kind of like a system with flexible-but-well-defined magic rules, somewhere between D&D spells and M&M power stunts, that allows and emphasizes using your powers in creative ways without getting too abstract and/or losing definition between different characters.

Or a really good mad scientist system, one that lets you create bizarre inventions, steal resources, build armies of monsters and robots, and challenge other lunatics for world domination. Something sandbox-focused, such that designing and building your technology spurs as many adventures as trying to use it.

souridealist
2017-04-20, 04:52 PM
I know the one I keep wanting is a book of tables and supplementary information for mundane details in 3.5 / Pathfinder. (I have a weird thing about rolling on tables. I don't know why, I just really like doing it.) The GMG has tables for things like bar and distinguishing features, city decorations, et cetera, and all of them delight me. Especially the names, because names are the kind of detail I love to include but hate thinking up.

You could have tables upon tables of interesting magic items that are of no conceivable use to adventurers - I mean, if they're going to sell loot, it might as well be an enchanted plow that increases the harvest yield as a set of plate armor that none of them can use. Stuff like that.

Also, I'll be honest - every time I get a philandering PC, I start wishing for a source of interfertility tables that isn't the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

2D8HP
2017-04-20, 05:03 PM
...What ideas do you have that you think would make a great RPG book that should exist?...


With so many "Fantasy Heartbreaker", and "Retro-clones", I'd actually be surprised if something close to what I'd want wasn't already made.


...but nobody seems to be doing serious pulpy settings in RPGs. There is only silly parody pulpy.


They did make it.

And I recommended it to you before, Yora, .

It's out of print now.

By Arioch you should've stolen ideas been inspired by it already!


Skimming through a lot of "recommend me a system" lists, there seems to be a missing link .


Since so much of Grod's idea's match any sane lover of playing FRP's wishlist, I'm very intrigued.

Most definitely serious but not pulpy, was the RPG that has most impressed over the decades, 1985's (The same year that the cursed Unearthed Arcana for AD&D came out) Pendragon.


...Like the 1st and 3rd, the 5th edition of Pendragon has rules for Knight (including women Knights), Lady, and Squire PC's, but only the 4th edition had rules for PC Spell Casters, though IIRC correctly the 1st and 3rd editions had the possibility of some "Lady" PC's being able to brew a magic potion (I never saw a "second edition" and I don't think it was ever published).

But really if you want to play a Spell-caster Pendragon probably isn't for you, I would look into Ars Magica instead....


I went as far as to find Greg Stafford (the author), and tell him just how impressed I was with it.

Sadly, when I tried to convince those I played D&D with (some of whom wanted to convince me to play Ars Magica), there were no takers (one said "Britain in the Dark Ages just isn't fun", and he never gave me back my copy of Katharine Briggs "Dictionary of Fairies". It was a loan not a gift , it's been nearly 30 years, give it back dammit! :furious:).

As sublime as Pendragon looked to be, I don't think that it would be as fun to play as the mix of D&D, AD&D, Arduin, and All the World's Monster's that I played in the very late 1970's and early 80's was (I don't think anything will be, fun was just more fun as a near teenager).

Now back to quoting myself:


....Some of my favorite setting genre's are:

1) Swords and Sorcery
2) Swashbuckling
3) Arthurian
4) Gaslamp Fantasy
5) Planetary Romance
6) Steampunk
7) Raygun Gothic
8) Viking

My least favorite genres are:

1) Modern-day anything
2) Dystopian Near Future
3) Dystopian Far Future

Any FATE setting books I'd like?

Also, except for rules based on TSR D&D, and Chaosium's BRP system (Runequest and it's descendents) which were imprinted on my mind decades ago, I prefer rules to be very light.



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CUGACO3WRXE/To5KSQ7_8_I/AAAAAAAAguo/aLnlf1ehXgg/s400/rpg-Stormbringer.jpg

Chaosium's old Stormbringer! (http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/10/rpgs-that-time-forgot-stormbringer.html?m=1) game had a "magic system" based on summoning and attempting to control demons and elementals. It was completely BADASS! and I thought it was truer to Swords and Sorcery than D&D.
The main flaw as a game was that it's random character typically generated made PC's with very wide power-levels (more so than D&D) so you'd wind up with a party of one mighty sorcerer and four drooling begger "sidekicks".

I believe that Chaosium's latest version of
Basic Roleplaying (http://www.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying/)
has a point buy option that you can drop in.

If I'm ever forced to DM/GM again going that route would be in my top three picks.

Come to think of it, if I could somehow combine '70's rules D&D, 5e D&D, Pendragon, and Stormbringer! it would be ONE GAME TO RULE THEM ALL!


While I barely know the "crunch" of the rules at all (why bother studying them if the only games available to actually play are 5e D&D, and Pathfinder?), the settings of Castle Falkenstein, Flashing Blades, 7th Sea, and Space 1889, impress me.

So what would I want to make?

1) Character creation that has compellimg classes and is quick and easy like B/X D&D, with some of the innovations of 5e D&D, combined with options for creating custom PC's ala BRP, HERO, and GURPS, and they're all balanced (no min-max terrors).

2) Rich settings that involve PC"s from interesting times, going into and exploring worlds of Fairie, Romance, and Sorcery.



And by Crom I will publish it AS SOON AS THAT JERK GIVES ME BACK MY BOOK!

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-20, 05:31 PM
Since so much of Grod's idea's match any sane lover of playing FRP's wishlist, I'm very intrigued.
I can send you an advance copy of STaRS, if you'd like.

Morty
2017-04-20, 06:00 PM
I have a feeling that if I had the skill and know-how, I'd realize that all my ideas are a waste of time and effort. But assuming an ideal world there my half-baked ideas have some merit...

I used to cobble together a low-fantasy, gritty system, along with a setting. But I've lost interest in it when I realized that there's plenty of systems out there that can accomplish its goals.

My other idea is a game that accomplishes the "dungeon fantasy" genre D&D kickstarted without the many traps I think those games fall into. Fairly crunchy, but with a lot of narrative-driven effects like in Dungeon World. The resolution method would probably be 2d10 or 2d6, since I've grown to prefer a curved result. It'd have a far less crazy power curve, though - beginning at "competent and heroic" and ending at "larger than life". But without reality-warping magicians and low-key superheroes. What I'd be after is a game where you an play a hero in a kitchen-sink fantasy world, and feel like you're making waves without breaking it. With systems to facilitate it and focus on moving the story forward when players use their characters' abilities.

I don't know if it'd have classes. I waffle back and forth between their advantages and disadvantages. No levels, though, for certain. There's a good reason no system except D&D and its imitations still uses them. Regardless, freedom of character creation would be a priority.

I have some ideas for a detailed, dynamic combat model. Vague ones, of course. They're rooted in combat pools of Riddle of Steel/Song of Swords and the initiative model of Exalted 3e. I think they're much better at modelling the shifting back-and-forth of battle than chipping away at hit points, or missing a lot until you finally hit.

My ideas for non-combat resolutions are likewise vague. I don't think I've ever run into one that I was quite satisfied with, but Dungeon World comes close. Or Exalted 3e, except with less "glorious Solar awesomeness hooray". But letting skilful characters say "okay, this happens" is, to me, more valuable than big numbers on checks.

I have little clue about magic. Never been my strong suit. I feel like I'd strart with dividing it into "learned magic" (Wizards), "innate magic", (D&D-style sorcerers, savants) and "granted magic" (priests, warlocks). Beyond that, it could go anywhere.

It's really nothing but a haphazard collection of vague ideas that's probably as viable as a high schooler's attempt at writing the next Lord of the Rings. But hey. It's mine. I also feel like I should delve into more systems to hunt for ideas that fit my general line of thought. But I'm not sure which ones they'd be.

druid91
2017-04-20, 06:09 PM
I've had the idea of making a system based on .Hack and other sorts of "Mysterious things happen in an MMO!" where the characters avatars are of just as much importance as their IRL skills.

Crisis21
2017-04-20, 11:00 PM
The Ultimate Homebrew Guide, showcasing guidelines and suggestions for creating original balanced races, classes, monsters, spells, magic items, the works.


Well, maybe less what I'd create and more what I'd like to see.

Martin Greywolf
2017-04-21, 01:58 AM
Well, there are two I would go for.

First one would be system-independent advice for GMs and players on how to make adventures and stories and how to play through them. There are many, many DM sections out there, and almost none of them does it well. Not even Planet Mercenary, which I was somewhat disappointed with, but I suppose there's just a lot of stuff do deal with there.

It would go into stuff like how we tell movies and books and what we can and can't use from them, three act structure, Hero's journey etc, and then go into specific advice.

Second dream book would be about how to properly make a medieval setting that is also playable in, discussing stuff like what society do you need to make rapiers exist.

chainer1216
2017-04-21, 02:39 AM
Post-apocalyptic urban sci-fantasy.

I want a game where an elven wizard teaming up with a cyborg ninja to defeat a Triad run by a dragon is the norm, just another tuesday.

Knaight
2017-04-21, 06:26 AM
Post-apocalyptic urban sci-fantasy.

I want a game where an elven wizard teaming up with a cyborg ninja to defeat a Triad run by a dragon is the norm, just another tuesday.

Sounds like RIFTS, which has recently had it's setting exported to a system that's actually functional.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-21, 06:42 AM
Post-apocalyptic urban sci-fantasy.

I want a game where an elven wizard teaming up with a cyborg ninja to defeat a Triad run by a dragon is the norm, just another tuesday.
Shadowrun? I've only played the recent cRPGs, not the pen-and-paper version, but that sure sounds like Shadowrun.

Florian
2017-04-21, 09:18 AM
I had a good time gmŽing a long-running L5R political/intrigue themed campaign. IŽd like to go back to my notes and rewrite it as a more coherent campaign and make it available.

2D8HP
2017-04-21, 09:29 AM
I can send you an advance copy of STaRS, if you'd like.

Cool!

I'd gladly mail a check for a printout.

PM price and address please.

Or I could pay you in publicity!

I could re-tweet (I don't do Twitter)

Post on Facebook (I don't have an account)

Review on my blog (I don't have that either)

Okay.... I could walk over to my FLGS and say, "When this comes out, you should sell it".

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-21, 09:45 AM
Cool!
Heh. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm not at the point of release yet-- I need non-placeholder cover art, and maybe some interior art, and probably an example setting-- but I'm happy to send you a PDF of what I've got. Check your inbox! (The rules are mature and the formatting is all done, and such. It's 100% playable, just not 100% professional yet)

Newtonsolo313
2017-04-21, 03:00 PM
I'm thinking a sort of thrown out of your depth urban fantasy system.
Characters would start of with:
Several 'benign' skills(which could be anywhere from sewing to baseball)
One 'key' skill (these are immediately useful skills such as karate boxing or other self defense skills as well as stuff like first aid or stealth)
Stats- a general feeling for the characters strength agility willpower etc..
Traits- notable things about a character that can be both good or bad for instance having fits of rage which would come with a trade of even in combat
Possessions- what the character starts out owning this would also be where the characters first weapon will usually come from be it a ancestral sword, hatchet, or hand gun (these weapons would be generally inferior to what you can find later on)
Combat:
Combat would be made up of a series of scenes where instead of reducing the hit points with attacks you cause injuries that make it harder for the opponent to fight leading to scenes where the opponent is killed. Generally in each scene there are competitions between the attacker and the defender. Emotional states may make some thing harder or easier. I feel an example would be good
So here is a hypothetical situation with one character "a" trying to beat "b" who has a gun
A tries to run towards b but b will try to shoot a
If b is nervous it's more likely b will not hit a
Which lets A get to b starting a scene where a tries to disarm b
If a is shot then that gives a lots of pain and starts a new scene where most likely either b disregard a as defeated (recommended outcome) or riddle a with bullet holes( a dying scene)
Weapons would have advantages and disadvantages. For instance swords parry well but are terrible against armor, axes have more force but bad at the whole fencing thing etc
Character improvement-
The system has no levels per se but characters can get stronger. having similar skills makes it easier to develop skills post character generation. For instance it's easier for a bookworm to learn magic when they have access to a wizards library. But the opportunity to develop these skills cannot be planned on so making 3.5 style builds would be impossible.

Does that make sense

jayem
2017-04-21, 03:41 PM
Some form of modular village/town, with each having a pile of mundane (and a few interesting) quests and resources. Ideally semi-procedually generated to give the variety (and never be used out or learned by heart) but with some sort of consistency as well, while still being vaguely feasible.

Also a climbing RPG, no/light combat mechanics, that effort being used to model climbing and survival skills intensly.

2D8HP
2017-04-21, 05:03 PM
....Also a climbing RPG, no/light combat mechanics, that effort being used to model climbing and survival skills intensly.


I feel a little bit bad that I remember this:

https://cf.geekdo-images.com/tN146My-bwt44If-yaFM0emJDms=/fit-in/246x300/pic181641.jpg

FatR
2017-04-22, 08:36 AM
The same kind I'm already working on as a system for my group, except much more polished, with proper art, playtested, and, of course, actually finished.

That is, a DnD offshoot that would actually embrace craziness that was de-facto possible in optimised AD&D and DnD 3.X, and sort it out properly, instead of trying to suppress it, so I can run my high-powered flashy action fantasy games (or for that matter even normal high fantasy games, with "normal" being the norm of actual fantasy literature and not typical RPG settings) using rules that are not primarily optimized for something entirely different (such as skirmishing on map grids where counting 5ft. steps matters), and not just plain bad, and not so lite that they barely even exist.

Max_Killjoy
2017-04-22, 10:54 AM
Related questions; maybe this deserves its own thread, maybe even a poll, we'll see. (Do these forums support polls?)

Assume that a system used a fixed die roll -- 3d6, 2d12, 1d20, whatever.

* Do you prefer to keep the "target number" for that roll fixed and apply modifiers to the roll, or do you prefer to apply modifiers to the "target number" before rolling against it?

* Do you prefer roll-under or roll-over?

2D8HP
2017-04-22, 11:09 AM
....Do you prefer roll-under or roll-over?


If it's d100, must get "roll under the percentage chance ("You have a 57% chance of success, roll that or less").

Otherwise for most, "High is good", feels right.

Yora
2017-04-22, 11:30 AM
Applying the modifier to the target number seems more intuitive. If the odds are bad it's because the task is harder, not because the character gets weaker.

I am fully in favor of "higher is always better" with both rolls and modifiers. However, making a Strength check by roling under your Strength score is just really neat as a quick and dirty way if you don't want to calculate a target number for a task. It does require a somewhat unusual approach to what the check actually means. It does not mean "was your performance up to the task for this particular challenge?" as it usually does with roll over checks. Instead the question is "Is the difficulty of this challenge within your character's capabilities.
If you roll under your Strength score to see if you can kick open a door, you don't roll to see how strong your character kicks this time. You roll to see how sturdy this particular door happens to be. It's a less realistic way to model a world, but the lack of need for target numbers and modifiers makes it a convenient solution to when you just want a dramatic answer to what happens in the adventure.

Concrete
2017-04-22, 12:45 PM
I have been working on a system here every character controls not a character, but a small group of a mercenary band, to fight huge monsters or such, where DnD'esque class roles are instead given to various squads.

It begun as a supplement to pathfinder to make battles against huge things like dragons feel at all logical, while still being streamlined enough that you wouldn't have to roll for every individual soldier.
(A picky part of me couldn't accept that a longsword, no matter how hard you swung it, could even annoy a creatures with two ww2 tanks worth of armor)

The idea was that every character would have a unit of about twenty guys, with various roles. A fighter would have a unit of pikemen or such to restrict a creatures mobility and keep it in place, focusing on positioning around the creature.

A Rouge would have a team of saboteurs to distrupt terrain and entangle the creature with ropes and such, often climbing the creature, (compare the ranger vocation of Dragon's Dogma)

a mage would have a unit of lesser wizards or acolytes, with a rather confusing mechanic where these would take places in various ritual circles and such, in relation to the creature's position, and would need to be protected by other units.

Safe to say, the system was a bloated mess, and would likely have to be made into it's own tabletop strategy game, or even a video game, so that the compute could handle all the rules and calculations. Still, I find myself working on it from time to time, because I just can't let go of the visual in my head of what the system abstracts. And if I could just make it simpler, I feel that it could actually be quite fun.

Frozen_Feet
2017-04-22, 08:22 PM
Oh, gee. Hard questions. But maybe I can begin answering by telling what kind of "books" I have already helped creare or created.

I've served as an amateur, volunteer (=no-profit) translator for an indie product, a rules supplement for D&D-style games, sold as small A5 pamphlets and .pdfs.

And I wrote story pamphlets for my two convention campaigns. A5 pamhlets, less than 20 pages of text. Then, because my artistic skills leave a lot to be desired, I ordered illustrations for the projects from my graphical designer friend. The first print run of the first pamphlet, I laid out myself using MS Word, then printed and bound the pamphlets at home. After I realized just how expensive printer ink is and how cheap on-demand printing is, I ordered new covers for the pamphlet from my friend. Then I asked her for a better layout so the second print run could be done at a local printhouse.

The two print runs for the second campaign's pamphlets were done as a similar collaboration. Color soft covers, five large black-and-white illustrations in addition to the text.

What were these pamphlets for? They contained short stories and setting information for the campaigns, as well as a color map on the inside of the back cover for the second campaign pamphlet. The initial idea when I was thinking up the first campaign, was that I would hand them out to the players before sessions, to give them clues for the game. As this turned out to be logistically difficult, I settled with handing them out during or at the end of the sessions, as souvenirs and thanks for participating. For free, if that wasn't obvious already.

So what to gather from this? Well, I already have the time, skills and resources to produce small-print items. It would be only a minor step forward to create another thing and then sell it at local conventions. Another minor step to figure out a .pdf publishing contract with one of the indie Finnish publisher. I basically know all the relevant people already, the scene is that small.

One thing I could do, and which might even have some demand, would be to compile the art and the stories from my campaigns, as well as my campaign notes, into a single tome. Not easy, as my campaign notes are map-heavy and would take massive pains to digitize. The first campaign's materials would consist of 30+ map pages, and at least as many text pages. The second campaign was designed to be ever-expanding and I'm still designing it as I go. I could probably condense it to a smaller number of pages (lessr ready-made maps) if I focused on random generation utilities. (Something I really need to get to doing anyway.)

I suppose a fantasy of mine would be to publish a novel, detailing the birth of the implied setting of my current work, and then make a setting book for RPG use. I might be able to produce something on par with LotFP's soft cover Rules&Magic book, in terms of size and illustrations. A small print run of 50 to 100 copies could be doable even if I ended up giving the damn things away for free. (Publishing a .pdf is trivial enough that it's virtually an afterthought.) Really, the novel's less realistic part, than anything to do with an RPG book.

What's holding me back, then? Virtually nothing but laziness. Motivation's more important than time, skill or resources. Because when you have motivation, you'll work to get the other things.

---

In general: making and releasing something on the level of LotFP's smaller booklet adventure modules (and their .pdf versions) is not really resource incentive. If you have a day job, you can basically do that as print-on-demand, at net loss to yourself, and not notice it in your budget. The barrier to entry is super low.

Jay R
2017-04-22, 09:30 PM
A book defining sub-genres.

Perhaps a TOON supplement, with chapters on running a Disnery game, a Warner Brothers game, a MGM game, a stylized UPA game, or a Hanna-Barbera game.

Or it could be for Flashing Blades, with instructions for creating a 17th century historical game, or a Dumas-centric game, or a classic Hollywood musketeers game (Fairbanks / Kelly / York), or a modern Hollywood (1993 and later) game. [Maybe even a Courtilz de Sandras version.]

A Champions book with separate version for Golden Age, Silver Age, and Modern Age. Yes, I know these exist, but they're not accurate to my mind. I once wrote Psych Limitations "Silver Age Code" and "Modern Age Code" that my GM really liked.

Perhaps even D&D, with the spells, monsters, and classes split into various areas of Europe, or split into Vance, Tolkien, Leiber, or Anderson universes - but making D&D fit its putative origins would be very difficult.

D+1
2017-04-22, 09:36 PM
But let's suppose you'd be feeling confident enough in your skills as a writer and GM and could easily fit it into your schedule: What ideas do you have that you think would make a great RPG book that should exist?
A psionics system that doesn't make me puke.

A Spelljammer redux.

1E books, just reorganized and re-edited. Okay, SOME changes would be mandatory - initiative if nothing else. (I.e., mostly just my own current house rules...)

My BIG idea, however, still is:
A tabletop RPG version of X-Com with lots of minis, and terrain and scenery pieces. In fact, I demand to know why someone hasn't done this FOR me already to save me the trouble.

Vitruviansquid
2017-04-22, 09:53 PM
Y'know, I always wanted to play an RPG where feudal nobility was symbolically represented by giant robots, so that's probably where I'd go.

But more helpfully, I'd say I want RPGs that exist in new and weird genres rather than those that strictly attempt to emulate another, established genre. I don't want to play the 100th Tolkienesque fantasy adventures game, I want something that seeks to break new ground.

oxybe
2017-04-22, 10:14 PM
4th ed D&D cleaned up a bit and patched.

The game is pretty much what I want from a FRPG, it just needs a bit of TLC applied.

Yora
2017-04-23, 06:31 AM
I feel like I should write a little 10 to 12 pages document describing all my ideas on how to run a game that has no scripted plot but will produce a great story, create dungeons that are exciting environments to explore and tell tales through the environment, and giving the whole thing a consistent supernatural and mystical feel. Could perhaps be done over two or three weekends.

Max_Killjoy
2017-04-23, 05:53 PM
Related questions; maybe this deserves its own thread, maybe even a poll, we'll see. (Do these forums support polls?)

Assume that a system used a fixed die roll -- 3d6, 2d12, 1d20, whatever.

* Do you prefer to keep the "target number" for that roll fixed and apply modifiers to the roll, or do you prefer to apply modifiers to the "target number" before rolling against it?

* Do you prefer roll-under or roll-over?

If it's d100, must get "roll under the percentage chance ("You have a 57% chance of success, roll that or less").

Otherwise for most, "High is good", feels right.

Applying the modifier to the target number seems more intuitive. If the odds are bad it's because the task is harder, not because the character gets weaker.

I am fully in favor of "higher is always better" with both rolls and modifiers. However, making a Strength check by roling under your Strength score is just really neat as a quick and dirty way if you don't want to calculate a target number for a task. It does require a somewhat unusual approach to what the check actually means. It does not mean "was your performance up to the task for this particular challenge?" as it usually does with roll over checks. Instead the question is "Is the difficulty of this challenge within your character's capabilities.
If you roll under your Strength score to see if you can kick open a door, you don't roll to see how strong your character kicks this time. You roll to see how sturdy this particular door happens to be. It's a less realistic way to model a world, but the lack of need for target numbers and modifiers makes it a convenient solution to when you just want a dramatic answer to what happens in the adventure.

Problem with the STR check roll-under, is that the rest of the system needs to be roll-under and have similar target numbers.

Example system: HERO is roll under, with an average target of 11- on 3d6 for most things, and on skills that target goes up (gets better) by 1 for every 5 in the relevant characteristic. So a STR of 20 gives a STR roll of 13-. (The "-" after the number is shorthand for "or less" in their notation.) All rolls pretty much follow that format. An INT-based Skill would be 9+(INT/5), a STR-based Skill would be 9+(STR/5); putting extra points into Skills can raise them above their base, usually 3 Character Points per +1 (the Skill itself usually costs 3 pts to start out). In order to keep the modifiers as negative = bad and positive = good, the modifiers are applied to the target number. -1 on a roll that would normally be 11- changes it to 10-.

I've heard people say "higher skills should be better", and I've heard people say "higher rolls should be better". Seems like it would be hard to get both of those in one system unless you did some sort of inversion of HERO's formula.

But with "roll over", you'd either need to apply the modifier to the roll (so that +mod increases the chances of success and -mod decreases), or apply the modifiers "in reverse", so that a penalty was a positive change to the TN and a bonus was a negative change to the TN.

Of course, to some degree, it's a matter of "feel", and the math works out how it works as long as you get it right, regardless of over, under, high, or low.

Steveoknox24
2017-04-23, 05:56 PM
I was just thinking of this the other day:

It would be called Castle Rock and be based on the works of Stephen King.

Tons of monsters, crazy powers, play as innocent kids until the _____ hits the fan.

Morphic tide
2017-04-24, 04:52 PM
I'd make an RPG with both premade classes and point buy as parts of the core rulebook, because I have reasons for liking both. I'd also take the 4e concept of power sources and make them the basis of subsystems, with class variants being handled by pointing at the point-buy rules and saying "swap for equal value things." Of course, the biggest thing would be that abilities would be listed with prerequisites. In a very real sense, the classes are premade build packages from a mechanics perspective, being used to showcase a balanced build with a clear theme and lists of recommended things to fill out the build, while also showcasing the abilities proper under it to save book space.

The way having classes and point buy as part of the same game would work is simply to figure out the value of each ability in gameplay and give the abilities an XP value based on that, with the overall curve of power being linear with XP and exponential with level, with an exponential growth rate due to a linear relation of encounters faced to level. The point buy notation would extend to monster abilities, so you can just up and be a monster of your choice by grabbing the abilities the monster has.

The ultimate point being that it'd end up with something for everyone. Not as a conscious design goal, but rather as a result of the immense flexibility and accounting for as many things as possible in rules. Detailed social/investigation rules? The core set would have a book dedicated to it, with the basics of almost everything needed in intrigue, and possibly getting splats for extra social options. Mass combat? Part of the rules, with the overall result of it being a matter of averaging out the stats of the masses used for the sake of being open-ended.

For things actually available, the core set would be Martial, Divine and Arcane, with Martial being all about getting 20 ways to standard attack. Or rather, the abilities would be adjustments to general types of action, with those types of action marked out with standard forms and active abilities being marked as the type of ability they are, including having markers for abilities that Martials don't alter because those types are exclusively magical. For example, Cleave would be treated as a thing you do with Attacks, which means that you can Cleave with any ability marked as an Attack. Similarly, a run-through-with-spear-to-stab-guy-behind-target ability would be a thing you can use on any Charge.

Divine would be centred on DMM stuff, having each class get a central ability that they focus on maximizing uses of, in both the sense of "how many times can I use this?" and "how many ways can I use this?" Differentiated from Martial by having the abilities call out the core ability of the class. Some calling out several of them, with splatbook Divine classes that have a variant of another class's thing marking their ability as counting as the previous class's ability. As an example, Turn and Rebuke would be a general "expend active Divine ability with limited uses per day/cooldown and charges" effect, while stuff like DMM and PF's Paladin Mercies would also be present as the central mechanic of Divine.

Arcane would be Vancian of the 5e setup, mostly to put a flat cost on spell slot progression, but with prepared casting dying in a fire. Build-a-spell would exist, and be the core of metamagic for saving on bookkeeping, with the spellbook-type caster(s) being defined by having a limited space for how many combinations you can have, never mentioning spell levels because you can upcast your lower-level combinations for increased effect, but you can't downcast higher-level combinations for lower effect. Do you want big effects but have them tying down your full-day versatility, or do you want to have a lot of rather rigid effects that you can scale to the threat at the cost of your action efficiency at dealing with big things?

The lists of things that don't fit any single class would be at the back of the book, but the books would be organized by power source to have the ability to organize multi-class but single-power-source things into one section. All for the sake of making splatbook diving less tedious.

Generally, everything would be listed with point buy and action adjustment in mind. No action unlabelled, no ability lacking a point cost. Because it'd basically be a normal rigid class-based game, but with everything marked for point-buy.

Algeh
2017-04-24, 08:01 PM
I'd probably end up writing something that looked a lot like GURPS, but all about fine detail in mental and social areas rather than combat. I liked the level of detail and the amount of variance I saw in my players GURPS characters back when I used to run games in it, so it's what I used to run when I had time, but the actual system was really not set up for stories like "A bunch of you random current-era people are vacationing in Switzerland when someone steals the chihuahua one of you was dogsitting. The only clues to find her and get her back that you have so far are these photos of the dog in various funny outfits, which the dognappers left you for some mysterious reason.", which is what I kept using it to run.

We'd basically use it to stat out these detailed characters and then have very little rules support for their actual actions, because the books were full of tables detailing the difference between shooting prone from cover versus kneeling in concealment so that the GM has guidance for suitable modifiers, but fairly light on how to game out finding a chicken suit in Paris or what kinds of modifiers might be appropriate if the party has decided to perform an impromptu streetcorner concert in hopes of stirring up some useful information or contacts. (GURPS has skills for all of these things, of course. But it certainly does not have the fine-grained detail of how you should apply those skills and add details to make the situation more interesting that it would for, say, setting up to defend a hill from some people who were trying to get up that hill.)

SimonMoon6
2017-04-24, 08:55 PM
I'd make a setting book. It would be about medieval Europe (and possibly the rest of the world), with all the detail needed for running a game in this setting, describing not just the obvious details (country names, city names, religions, etc) but also the cultures and possible adventure hooks. The focus would be on "real world" details and how to warp them if you want to play a fantasy RPG (such as D&D or any other such game) in this setting.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-04-25, 04:59 AM
A system for racing and vehicle-heavy stories possibly. I just have no idea how to properly handle that.

Tobtor
2017-04-27, 01:49 PM
Trust me, it's not GURPS.

I have used copies of a couple editions of GURPS, and this isn't GURPS. Later tonight I'll post specific examples of why, once I'm at home and can dig them up from the books.

I found your description very like GURPS as well (or at least what the developers tried to do). Of course you can always discuss whether GURPS combat resolution is smooth, but I think making a smooth combat system that also allows for some variability/choice is one of the most difficult aspects of creating a game.

So I am curious; in what ways does your system differs? I think sometimes noting out the differences make more precise description of what you would achieve (like the what you describe currently sounds very much like "not-DnD"" on which I kind of agree.

Max_Killjoy
2017-04-27, 02:56 PM
I found your description very like GURPS as well (or at least what the developers tried to do). Of course you can always discuss whether GURPS combat resolution is smooth, but I think making a smooth combat system that also allows for some variability/choice is one of the most difficult aspects of creating a game.

So I am curious; in what ways does your system differs? I think sometimes noting out the differences make more precise description of what you would achieve (like the what you describe currently sounds very much like "not-DnD"" on which I kind of agree.

I'm still trying to find the system I described. I'm on the verge of giving up and trying to create it.

GURPS just feels clunky and a bit convoluted. Haven't had a chance to dig up the examples I wanted to.

Segev
2017-04-27, 03:39 PM
I have two stymied private projects.

One is a set of Weapon Techniques for D&D 3.PF (probably a final version would be just PF) with rules for unique powers you can learn based on particular weapons and how proficient you are with them. Proficient, Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec., etc. being the "levels." The goal is two-fold: expand "being a fighter" to something highly versatile, and give every weapon in the game a suite of unique powers it opens up, so the weapons really feel different.

In addition to that, is something akin to what PF eventually did with Skill Unlocks, except it was automatic as you gained skill. I was playing with the cost mechanic being akin to how Munchkin Bites and Super Munchkin work with powers: you can have as many points' worth of these Skill Masteries (as I called them) as you had Ranks in the skill in question. Rogues would get a class feature to actually swap these around, while less skill-focused classes could at least pick some up even if they were locked into their choices. These Masteries expand skills in unique directions.

Both are meant to help non-casters have (Ex) and even (Su) powers that let them play in the same ballpark as casters.



The other is a "new edition" of Palladium. As I have no affiliation with Kevin Simbieda, this isn't really official, but there are some RPG concepts that rattle around my head which would be interesting ways to adapt existing elements of it while revamping the core Paladium system.

The two main elements would be unifying the d20 and d100 mechanics of the system by having everything be rated by a maximum success. Paladium as it stands is mostly - but not always - a roll-under system. Some GMs treat rolling way under as better than rolling close, while others go the other way. I like the latter more, so I want to play with that. Your score in a given skill or stat is your "maximum success," and the higher you roll while still being equal or under your maximum success, the better your result. If you roll it exactly, that's a crit. (Or, if you roll the maximum value on the die, if that's lower than your maximum success.)

Difficulty is determined by the kind of die you must roll: d20, d40, d60, d80, or d100. Harder tasks call for a bigger die. (You can always try harder with a bigger risk but bigger potential rewards by voluntarily rolling a larger die.)

The other element is based on noticing that Palladium already has Occupational Character Classes (OCCs) and Racial Character Classes (RCCs). These don't really mean that much in terms of their distinctions in the game as it stands, but I think it would be interesting to have every character have an RCC based on their race, and then 0 or more OCCs based on their professions. And one XP total, which is compared to the individual XP tracks of each class they have (racial and occupational) to individually determine level in each of those. "Character level" would be the LOWEST of all your class levels.

gkathellar
2017-04-27, 04:16 PM
It's s toss-up. I'd either fix (see: completely rewrite) Legend, or I'd make a working system for the weird mundane fantastic/urban fantasy setting I've been kicking around in my head for like a decade.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-27, 04:41 PM
One is a set of Weapon Techniques for D&D 3.PF (probably a final version would be just PF) with rules for unique powers you can learn based on particular weapons and how proficient you are with them. Proficient, Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec., etc. being the "levels." The goal is two-fold: expand "being a fighter" to something highly versatile, and give every weapon in the game a suite of unique powers it opens up, so the weapons really feel different.

In addition to that, is something akin to what PF eventually did with Skill Unlocks, except it was automatic as you gained skill. I was playing with the cost mechanic being akin to how Munchkin Bites and Super Munchkin work with powers: you can have as many points' worth of these Skill Masteries (as I called them) as you had Ranks in the skill in question. Rogues would get a class feature to actually swap these around, while less skill-focused classes could at least pick some up even if they were locked into their choices. These Masteries expand skills in unique directions.

Both are meant to help non-casters have (Ex) and even (Su) powers that let them play in the same ballpark as casters.
I've long thought that majorly boosting skills is the best way to "fix" D&D-esque games, so I highly support this idea. Presumably casters would have to sink a lot of their Skill Masteries into being able to cast their spells, to target the boost more carefully for mundane types?

Segev
2017-04-27, 04:48 PM
I've long thought that majorly boosting skills is the best way to "fix" D&D-esque games, so I highly support this idea. Presumably casters would have to sink a lot of their Skill Masteries into being able to cast their spells, to target the boost more carefully for mundane types?

I hadn't really thought about that. The notion I have is more that casters tend to get DIFFERENT skills than non-casters, and so the skills that non-casters use most often would have Masteries keyed to making them better at those (Ex) and (Su) feats. Spellcraft and Knowledges are more likely to yield things that complement what spellcasters already do than to be "spells but free" or even supernal expressions of skill and prowess.

Wrapping some metamagic feats into skill masteries might direct spellcasters more that direction, though. Or things similar to that.

MrStabby
2017-04-29, 10:35 PM
One thing that I am trying to do is an Apotheosis rules set.

By trying I mean largely failing.

I want a rules set for when my players can ascend to godhood and establish their own faiths and theologies. I want this whilst still being an RPG.

The idea is that you still act as an individual and your behaviour and character is manifest through your teachings and your prophecies. Your power comes from the faith of your believers so you need to protect them but to also inspire faith in others. Find a niche and squeeze out other gods. By making the PCs a pantheon the idea would be to protect a people or fight an evil cabal of gods.

Rising power would be manifest in being able to have more clerics etc. and would be linked to more teachings, prayers, hymns, miracles, prophecies, portents and so on.

Mechanically I was thinking of using cards rather than dice. A deck of "results" allows more customisation of results as well as an evening out of luck as bad draws increase the likelihood of good draws and vice versa.

My problems are many:

How to stop PvP - needing a common theme for the PCs to work together but diverse enough interests that not competing for same followers.

Keeping it RP focused rather than becoming a strategy board game.

Stopping it being too frustrating when a loved cleric or paladin dies

Allowing sufficient customisation of domain and other divine parameters


Some of the ingredients are "I want this to be in it" but don't yet have an well defined role for it (like what would a hymn do? but I like the idea of divine music, mass cathedral choirs, bards and the simple hymns that parent teach their children all having a role).

As you can tell this is hardly well developed.

Morphic tide
2017-04-29, 11:34 PM
My problems are many:

How to stop PvP - needing a common theme for the PCs to work together but diverse enough interests that not competing for same followers.

The biggest thing I can think of is Pantheon bonuses, where you get advantages for getting a group of Gods that are fulfilling roles in a society, competing for degree of follower rather than follower count. This supports having PC groups construct their builds around eachother to have populous niches that aren't stepping on eachother's toes. This supports the typical ancient thing of having Gods with assloads of things on their domain list, but tending towards a semi-coherent theme or having a dominant domain. Poseidon is mostly associated with the sea, but is also the god of horses and earthquakes, for an example of disconnected domains.

It also lets players have Pantheon Champions getting powers from each God to become immensely powerful champions of the society the players are working with, rather than just one God.


Keeping it RP focused rather than becoming a strategy board game.

Alternatively, have the actual rules be mostly about strategy to make inter-God conflict have less support and thus be less interesting and less likely to end up the point of a game. In this case, the strategy type I'm thinking of is a generalized set of rules for indirect influence of civilizations and organizations, with a handful of ways to do things directly.


Stopping it being too frustrating when a loved cleric or paladin dies

Afterlife stuff. You could draw up rules for Cleric/Paladin power to Divine Servant power ratio, or rules for reincarnating/reviving them or sending their souls off to do other things. Possibly Saint bonuses of some kind, to have their former status allow you to get access to more power by having a sort of "subordinate god" mechanic you can apply to former champions. Possibly all three, for different styles of God who promise different things.


Allowing sufficient customisation of domain and other divine parameters

Well, I'd have a hierarchy of domains and have the non-domain parameters be mostly-standard RPG stuff, with stats tending towards relating to the stuff you typically see in myth more than stuff you'd see on a normal character sheet. Rather than Strength, you'd have a general Force stat for anything involving utter brute force, physical or magical, and lower-cost sub-stats for the physical-magical divide. Generally, I'd treat domains like skill trees with narrowing focuses and relations, having the top-tier domains have relations with eachother that give penalties and bonuses for taking them in certain combinations to make people stick to coherent themes as a God, with sub-domains having similar relations only to other sub-domains under the same domain/sub-domain, streamlining the relations figuring enough to make it practical. Maybe have sub-domains under several domains, to have more complicated concepts be more properly represented.

For instance, taking Life and Death together comes with a penalty to progressing both unless you take the Rebirth or Seasons sub-domain from whatever domain they are under. So a God of Life and Death is weaker than a God of Life, Death and Rebirth, because Rebirth ties Life and Death together. The conditional subdomain might well be under a domain that isn't being taken as its top-level, which is fine because the domain layout is more for organization than mechanics. Seasons is probably under Nature, but a God of Life and Death that ties the two together with Seasons doesn't have to be a God of Nature. You can construct you crazy-complicated domain pileup worthy of a Roman God, and quite possibly not see any real penalties because you didn't grab any massively-broad domains.

Having it set up this way lets you give incentives to make the players be coherent, but still allow them to go crazy if they don't mind sacrificing some power for versatility or RP value. Make the incentives minor enough and you basically give high-optimizers a reason to be coherent and otherwise have it mostly be a touch of fluff about the way the Gods work in the default setting.

For a detailed example, I'd do something like having Rebirth be a sub-domain under both Life and Death, with certain abilities under Rebirth being tied to one or the other in addition to being part of the Rebirth domain. For instance, turning someone to compost would fall under Rebirth and Death, while causing reincarnation to create a semi-divine child from the soul of a dead champion of yours as a head-start of a new champion would fall under Life and Rebirth.

You can make really tangled messes of prerequisites this way, but I'd put that under control by having the prerequisites be a total affinity rating of a skill/spell/miracle/whatever that is counted as the total of relevant Domains, along with other skill/spell/miracle-prerequisites. This makes the skill trees have flexible prerequisites that can get very broad and makes being a God of Death let you buy into very large groups of skills/spells/miracles, but it costs more to up one domain a lot, and higher-order domains have higher costs to increase.

It will always end up a tangled mess, but at least this idea makes a tangled mess that can be represented coherently on a flowchart of Domains and color/pattern-coded skill trees rather than needing to get out the conspiracy theory pins and strings room. Well, okay, you probably need the pins and strings style network of connections to make it all tie together unless you simplify domains a lot, but such is the price of modelling Roman and Egyptian Gods. I mean, you can make it less detailed, but you can't really do proper God RPGs without being able to model at least the Olympian gods. Which, itself, needs a rather crazy network of domains to make sense.

Outside Domains, you just get skills. Like Servants, or Blessings. To stick the very generic stuff under, like sending a divine messenger from the heavens to tell the crazy nobles to cut it out with the peasant-torturing.

Yora
2017-04-30, 02:07 AM
How to stop PvP - needing a common theme for the PCs to work together but diverse enough interests that not competing for same followers.

Keeping it RP focused rather than becoming a strategy board game.

It's an inherent problem of PCs as rulers. Ruling is, pretty much by definition, not a team activity. And at the same time RPGs are generally seen as team efforts first and foremost. You have the same problem when one player gets a castle or becomes head of an organization. At that point the character basically becomes unable to go on adventures with the rest of the party. (Which I believe is essentially what happened with the high level characters in the early D&D campaigns.)

One way to make gods work as player characters could be to not have them be actively govern aspects of human life and administrate their followers, but to have them be more distant immortals that embody certain virtues, like you have in stories of Norse gods and to some degree Greek gods. They are not god kings who have to keep the world turning. They just do their own things and occasionally get petitioned by mortals to help them.
Instead of ruling over certain aspects of life, they could simply have great power over them. A god does not need to be a god of all healing, but can be an immortal with incredible healing power to whom many, but not all, healers look up to as an example they should strive for.

Temples and worship can be left to the priests. They would be more like a fan club to the gods than their loyal subjects. This would allow the players to go on adventures like it's commonly done in RPGs.

Griffith!
2017-04-30, 02:31 AM
I have a new idea for an rpg every other week.

I've already written and sold a couple small setting PDFs. They didn't sell well and I've removed them from online shops. I'm terrible at marketing.

But that's neither here nor there. The question was what would I write if I could.

Well, this is incredibly niche, but I've been working on and off for a couple years now on a system and setting for playing gangs of Japanese delinquents, yankii style. It's inspired by my all-time favorite import series, Kenka Banchou, and manga like Crows, Worst, and Cromartie High School.

It's a d10 system, uses three primary attributes - Body, Mind, and Cool. Body reflects physical acumen, Mind reflects intelligence, wisdom and common sense, and Cool represents your personal magnetism, style, and charisma. Any one of these can be used for social or combat, depending on what approach you take. Instead of skills you have a class schedule and club activities, and each in-game day is divided into several phases, during which you choose what to do. There's no experience or levels, and each stat has to be trained individually by doing activities, such as going to the gym to raise Body or doing karaoke to raise your Cool. Raising each stat takes time and progress, with higher ranks taking more time. Instead of skill ranks, you have class grades, which improve with attendance but drop by skipping too many classes.

Characters fall into one of several archetypes, which have their own unique traits, specialties, and special actions outside of combat.

Combat is inspired pretty heavily by JRPGs like Final Fantasy or Pokemon, with combat taking place on a six-by-six grid with obstacles that grant bonuses or penalties based on positioning. Each player could learn up to four special techniques that have their own conditions and effects outside of just dealing damage.

The basic conceit of the game is that you are a gang of yankii in a typical Japanese high school, aiming to be the top badasses in the school or city. So you go to school, cut classes, get into fights, and hangout with your friends in bars or under bridges.

I'm also working on optional systems to bring supernatural elements into the game. Ghosts, vampires and yokai are my focus there. I'm also considering trying to come up with systems for traditional Japanese magic, like onmyouji and the ilk. Just to make the game more diverse.

The reason I wouldn't publish this is because it's so incredibly niche. I haven't even posted any of it as homebrew because of a perceived lack of interest. But that's my pet project anyway. The game I'd publish if I could.

Cluedrew
2017-04-30, 06:37 AM
It's an inherent problem of PCs as rulers. Ruling is, pretty much by definition, not a team activity.I'm assuming you mean between areas of rule, because if there is anything that requires more teamwork than running a large organization I would like to see it. Which I think is the trick for this sort of thing, put them in the same organization, just different places in it. They have different things to contribute and maybe slight variants on the overall goal, but that is a bit like an adventuring party.

Yora
2017-04-30, 07:57 AM
But it's work in which some give orders and others follow, and teamwork consists of everyone taking care of different things. It's not something where players can work together at the same problem at the same time.

Morphic tide
2017-04-30, 02:11 PM
Did I not bring up the idea of bonuses for being a Pantheon? Because that's how you make it enforced by the rules directly.

The Fury
2017-04-30, 07:41 PM
A system for racing and vehicle-heavy stories possibly. I just have no idea how to properly handle that.

I'd be into that too! If for no other reason than I've not seen an RPG that handled vehicles all that well. If the focus were more on racing, I think a good way to do it would be to have a separate "character sheet" for the vehicle which would include a "base vehicle" which indicates the baseline performance attributes for the vehicle, and modifications and how they alter the base vehicle's performance.

If the focus is more on adventures like Mad Max or something, I'm not sure how to make that not frustrating. Generally, when your character's car is involved in adventures it ends up riddled with bullets, rolled onto its roof, lit on fire, and/or crushed under a tank. This wouldn't be such a problem if it were a vehicle that's common and easy to replace, but vehicles aren't all that interesting unless they're somewhat unique.

D+1
2017-04-30, 07:49 PM
Another idea rattling in my brain the last week or so is a post-apocalypse game - the flavor would be Gamma World meets Fallout and Mad Max, with a setting based on the terrain and such here around home (Inland Empire to Greater Los Angeles area, or just Southern California in general).

CharonsHelper
2017-04-30, 07:56 PM
A system for racing and vehicle-heavy stories possibly. I just have no idea how to properly handle that.

That just makes me think of Speed Racer.


I'd be into that too! If for no other reason than I've not seen an RPG that handled vehicles all that well.

Me neither - including Space Dogs, the RPG I'm making. I have vehicle rules, but I'm not very satisfied with them. It's just really hard to deal with the speed & momentum issues and mixing with infantry.

If it was a Speed Racer sort of thing without infantry or anything like that, I think it could work. It'd be about messing with and/or defending against other racers, along with hazards.

Anyway - @OP - I'm currently working on Space Dogs, a sci-fi space western game in the near future (2087) which takes place almost 50 years after aliens came to Earth to trade their technology for a steady supply of soldiers to fight their foes and to keep the starlanes safe. Basically humans are the scary badasses of the galaxy and fight pirates & monstrous aliens etc.

Cluedrew
2017-04-30, 07:56 PM
On Cars: I think you would need mechanic characters (possibly also the driver) as well. Keep the car fixed up and able to replace it soon if it gets completely demolished. So you wouldn't have an iconic car (unless you are a really good fixer) but you would have an iconic style of car.

The Fury
2017-04-30, 08:39 PM
Me neither - including Space Dogs, the RPG I'm making. I have vehicle rules, but I'm not very satisfied with them. It's just really hard to deal with the speed & momentum issues and mixing with infantry.


I have no idea if this is somewhat helpful, but if I were designing a game where driving/piloting were the focus I'd handle it sort of like this: You have the vehicle's performance attributes, which would determine how difficult a type of maneuver is, and you have the operator's piloting skills. So as an example, a car's "Handling" attribute determines how difficult a sharp turn is, and the driver's skill determines what kind of bonus they'd have to attempting it. I'm not sure how useful that model is to you or if you've already thought of it.


On Cars: I think you would need mechanic characters (possibly also the driver) as well. Keep the car fixed up and able to replace it soon if it gets completely demolished. So you wouldn't have an iconic car (unless you are a really good fixer) but you would have an iconic style of car.

I imagine that might take the sting out of it somewhat. Though even if replacing a trashed car were something you could do, there would at least need to be some downtime to represent the time the character spent hunting for a replacement and building it back up like the original. If the adventures were a lot more forgiving in vehicle survivability, that might mitigate the issue somewhat.

CharonsHelper
2017-04-30, 10:22 PM
I have no idea if this is somewhat helpful, but if I were designing a game where driving/piloting were the focus I'd handle it sort of like this: You have the vehicle's performance attributes, which would determine how difficult a type of maneuver is, and you have the operator's piloting skills. So as an example, a car's "Handling" attribute determines how difficult a sharp turn is, and the driver's skill determines what kind of bonus they'd have to attempting it. I'm not sure how useful that model is to you or if you've already thought of it.

That's actually surprisingly similar to what I'm going with. You just make Driving checks for different maneuvers, with DCs for different speed categories (stopped/slow/fast), and each vehicle has different speed categories & a bonus/penalty to Driving.

It's not horrible, but it's still pretty clunky, especially since it's all on a grid. It might be okay if that was the main system and I avoided a grid (at least an infantry scale grid).

It's not a huge deal though, as Space Dogs has mecha which I like the mechanics of a lot, and I intentionally made mecha & flyers (whose rules I also like) superior options to hover vehicles in combat.

Knaight
2017-04-30, 10:24 PM
I'd be into that too! If for no other reason than I've not seen an RPG that handled vehicles all that well. If the focus were more on racing, I think a good way to do it would be to have a separate "character sheet" for the vehicle which would include a "base vehicle" which indicates the baseline performance attributes for the vehicle, and modifications and how they alter the base vehicle's performance.

I've seen a few, but they tend to handle specific vehicles well and not vehicles in general - I can think of several systems that handle WWI aircraft well, I can think of a few that handle large spaceships well, I can think of one that handles luge boards well. Vehicles in general? Not so much.

CharonsHelper
2017-04-30, 10:29 PM
I've seen a few, but they tend to handle specific vehicles well and not vehicles in general - I can think of several systems that handle WWI aircraft well, I can think of a few that handle large spaceships well, I can think of one that handles luge boards well. Vehicles in general? Not so much.

It's the ground vehicles mixing with infantry which gets really tricky to design for unless you want to go SUPER abstract like in most wargames.

Kane0
2017-04-30, 11:27 PM
I'd write some sort of Battletech book set (Core Handbook, Equipment Guide, Alternate & Unit Creation Rules). It would:
- Streamline the combat in a vein similar to alpha strike (though not to the same extent)
- Allow for more players (2-5)
- Simplify the timeline and correct a lot of long-standing balance/lore issues (clantech, jihad, etc)
- Bring out a lot more depth for the out-of-cockpit experience
- Drive home the old-school flavor that provides so much of its character

Then I'd make a D&D 5.5e that refocuses the Exploration/Combat/Interaction pillars so each is equally valued. Probably one book for each pillar.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-01, 01:38 AM
It's nice to see more people playing around with the idea. I'm trying to treat this as a general reply to all the ideas bouncing around.


I have no idea if this is somewhat helpful, but if I were designing a game where driving/piloting were the focus I'd handle it sort of like this: You have the vehicle's performance attributes, which would determine how difficult a type of maneuver is, and you have the operator's piloting skills. So as an example, a car's "Handling" attribute determines how difficult a sharp turn is, and the driver's skill determines what kind of bonus they'd have to attempting it. I'm not sure how useful that model is to you or if you've already thought of it.

That is an option, it basically comes down to additive bonuses, which means both your driving skill and your vehicle stats always matter, which is nice.

I've incidentally been playing around with ideas for a more swashbuckly game that would have to include rules for chase scenes and horse riding (and animal handling in general, using a dogs tracking skill would work the same way). What I'm leaning towards is probably too simple for a real vehicle based system, but might be an interesting contrast for stacking bonuses anyway. Basically, you can go for the highest roll that both your animal/riding skill and the horse's athletics/running skill support. If the horse has an athletics score of 7 and your animal score is 6, you roll at rank 6. Afterwards you get a bonus to the speed that roll signifies, because a horse is faster than a human with the same score. This to prevent your riding skill from having to be much higher than your own running skill in order to be useful. The upside of this approach is that a beginner can be happy with an average horse/car. There's no use in driving an F1 car if you don't know how to use it, even though that's only very partially true in real life. The downside is that vehicle statistics become much less important, and half the point of a vehicle game is geeking out over your vehicle stats.

For chase scenes I'm thinking of keeping track of the distance between the people in it in terms of broad distance categories like sword range, throw range, pistol range, musket range, out of range, escaped, something like that (names placeholders, mostly for flavor and giving an idea of how far away someone is). If the roll of one party is significantly higher than that of the other one the distance in- or decreases by a step. At the same time you're on a gridless map where you can find obstacles. The lead in the chase could say "I run towards that wall". If the wall is close and he rolls a 5 that will put him right up against the wall. If he rolls a 9 it will also put him right up to the wall, while still allowing him to increase the gap with his pursuers. So it's a little flexible. Next turn, they could use some relevant wall climbing/jumping skill instead of running. The pursuers will have to do the same, either that turn or the next one, or find a way around, which will probably be longer and put them another "block" behind. And then there should be some sort of system for unexpected turns and losing people by having them go the wrong way, rather than by outspeeding them. A loose system like that might actually work for a real vehicle RPG as well, it puts the focus on how to process all the stunts well, rather than keeping track of exact locations of vehicles.

One way or another, the system would probably need to either have some form of simultaneous resolution of rolls, or, the easier version, always let the person who's in front roll first. A nice side effect is that overtaking someone (a bit silly in a swashbuckling game where you most likely want to catch each other, but good to have in a vehicle game) really puts you in the lead. You are now defending your position until they find a way to overtake you again.


I imagine that might take the sting out of it somewhat. Though even if replacing a trashed car were something you could do, there would at least need to be some downtime to represent the time the character spent hunting for a replacement and building it back up like the original. If the adventures were a lot more forgiving in vehicle survivability, that might mitigate the issue somewhat.

I'd definitely give the vehicles better survivability than say the fast and the furious movies do. In fact, I'd like to use this as an opportunity to add some extra important skills to the game. What's a vehicle game without mechanics? And when you're done repairing, why not add some upgrades? This carburator that fell off the bad guys car might fit. Okay, maybe that's a bit cartoony, but you get the point. Vehicles really being destroyed should be momentous occasions, preferably resulting in such a cool situation that the driver only half regrets losing their car over that. Because nobody likes losing the thing they were geeking out over so much twice every session.


It's the ground vehicles mixing with infantry which gets really tricky to design for unless you want to go SUPER abstract like in most wargames.

Very true, for anything not being a vehicle in general. How do you keep track of a scene where two people are fighting in the street while there are also several cars zipping around the block, and the two worlds need to be able to interact? The scale difference is big, and pretty much rules out any grid based or otherwise linear approaches.

Segev
2017-05-01, 11:38 AM
In terms of chase scenes, the only thing missing from more tactical combat games to handle it, I think, is a potentially variable speed based on skill in navigating terrain while moving at speed. The rules, say, in D&D 3.5 provide for straight-forward chases that are mostly foregone conclusions: the faster character will catch the slower one, or escape from the slower one. When the faster one catches up and where might be important enough to calculate/play out, however.

But for a race or chase, obviously you want more detail relating to how Ride or Drive or similar skills come into play.

It's probably TOO involved for an RPG mechanic, but there's a board came called "Formula D" that is actually quite fun and has detailed simulation of gear choices and mechanical components that can break in your car; the higher your gear, the bigger the die you roll for the number of spaces you move. However, around curves, you MUST take a certain number of turns or you are considered to spin out. So it has strategy in what gear you want to be in at any given point.

Some inspiration might be taken from there for judging speed, terrain, navigation, and driving/riding skill.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-05-02, 07:29 AM
I've seen a few, but they tend to handle specific vehicles well and not vehicles in general - I can think of several systems that handle WWI aircraft well, I can think of a few that handle large spaceships well, I can think of one that handles luge boards well. Vehicles in general? Not so much.
Luge boards? Now I'm curious...

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-02, 10:56 AM
Luge boards? Now I'm curious...

Is there a 007: For your eyes only RPG?

*Googles* And of course there is. Probably not the game Knaight was referencing...

Knaight
2017-05-02, 01:33 PM
Luge boards? Now I'm curious...

It's very much about handling them from a narrative perspective and not sim, but there's the glorious microgame that is XXXXtreme STREET luge.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-02, 01:57 PM
It's very much about handling them from a narrative perspective and not sim, but there's the glorious microgame that is XXXXtreme STREET luge.

Good read, I like it. But somehow I don't see a lot of useful rules for racing in there. ;)

Knaight
2017-05-02, 07:30 PM
Good read, I like it. But somehow I don't see a lot of useful rules for racing in there. ;)

Nor anywhere else that I've seen, although it's something that I'll be keeping an eye out for now.

Cluedrew
2017-05-02, 09:02 PM
What types of rules have never, or rarely, been done well?
Vehicles as has been discussed.
I feel there have been OK/Good social rules (others will argue the only good social rule system is an empty page) but I don't think I have ever seen a great one. Maybe I have, but only in rules light context.
Crafting rules... actually I have heard of good crafting systems, but usually only for small things, not huge projects.

Are the three I can think of. Some times it seems like you could put anything non-combat on the list. But good systems that understand that life is not merely getting into fights exist. Bad ones too.

Psikerlord
2017-05-02, 10:34 PM
I would make a low magic base, d20 variant, that has some old school feel (quite deadly, quick combat, roll equal or under stat checks instead of vs DC) but also incorporates some newer mechanics (adv/disad), plus a few new ideas (major exploits, rescue exploits, formal party retreat rule, natural 19 weapon/monster attack effects, improvised chase rules...).

And I'd make it free and 99% OGL.

Hang on a minute... I already made it!

https://lowfantasygaming.com/

khadgar567
2017-05-03, 04:56 AM
I will make two products one is wizards and wackjobs which is core dnd like and a proper dnd were wizards are dirt cheap commoner class and barbarian is more like connan then current anger nanegment problem kid
ow before forgetting proper adulth rules for both of them

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-04, 04:52 PM
So, questions.

How would you, personally, react to a system that used 2d12? (See below *)

How do you think the gaming "gaming public" would react?




* The better the character is at something, the lower their target number when using that skill, and they need to roll equal to or greater than that number. Penalties subtract from the roll, bonuses add to the roll, for consistency. Would look like this -- still homing in on where I'd want a "moderately competent" character to sit on the scale.





Result

Chance

Gap



2+
100.00%
0.69%


3+
99.31%
1.39%


4+
97.92%
2.09%


5+
95.83%
2.77%


6+
93.06%
3.48%


7+
89.58%
4.16%


8+
85.42%
4.86%


9+
80.56%
5.56%


10+
75.00%
6.25%


11+
68.75%
6.94%


12+
61.81%
7.64%


13+
54.17%
8.34%


14+
45.83%
7.64%


15+
38.19%
6.94%


16+
31.25%
6.25%


17+
25.00%
5.56%


18+
19.44%
4.86%


19+
14.58%
4.16%


20+
10.42%
3.48%


21+
6.94%
2.77%


22+
4.17%
2.09%


23+
2.08%
2.08%


24+
0.69%
0.69%





I tried 2d12+characteristic+skill, against a variable target number, but the curve for that sort of thing gets odd, with what looks like a small change in target number making a BIG difference in chance of success -- you'd end up with a really compressed set of viable target numbers, the typical 10, 15, 20 sort of thing ends up almost all-or-nothing.





2d12+

Avg
50/50
5+
10+
15+
20+
25+
30+
35+


0
13
13.5
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%


1
14
14.5
97.92%
80.56%
45.83%
14.58%
0.69%
0.00%
0.00%


2
15
15.5
99.31%

85.42%
54.17%
19.44%
2.08%
0.00%
0.00%


3
16
16.5
100.00%
89.58%
61.81%
25.00%
4.17%
0.00%
0.00%


4
17
17.5
100.00%
93.06%
68.75%
31.25%
6.94%
0.00%
0.00%


5
18
18.5
100.00%
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%
0.00%
0.00%


6
19
19.5
100.00%
97.92%
80.56%
45.83%
14.58%
0.69%
0.00%


7
20
20.5
100.00%
99.31%

85.42%
54.17%
19.44%
2.08%
0.00%


8
21
21.5
100.00%
100.00%
89.58%
61.81%
25.00%
4.17%
0.00%


9
22
22.5
100.00%
100.00%
93.06%
68.75%
31.25%
6.94%
0.00%


10
23
23.5
100.00%
100.00%
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%
0.00%


11
24
24.5
100.00%
100.00%
97.92%
80.56%
45.83%
14.58%
0.69%


12
25
25.5
100.00%
100.00%
99.31%

85.42%
54.17%
19.44%
2.08%



13
26
26.5
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
89.58%
61.81%
25.00%
4.17%


14
27
27.5
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
93.06%
68.75%
31.25%
6.94%


15
28
28.5
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%

Newtonsolo313
2017-05-04, 07:19 PM
So, questions.

How would you, personally, react to a system that used 2d12? (See below *)

How do you think the gaming "gaming public" would react?




* The better the character is at something, the lower their target number when using that skill, and they need to roll equal to or greater than that number. Penalties subtract from the roll, bonuses add to the roll, for consistency. Would look like this -- still homing in on where I'd want a "moderately competent" character to sit on the scale.





Result

Chance

Gap



2+
100.00%
0.69%


3+
99.31%
1.39%


4+
97.92%
2.09%


5+
95.83%
2.77%


6+
93.06%
3.48%


7+
89.58%
4.16%


8+
85.42%
4.86%


9+
80.56%
5.56%


10+
75.00%
6.25%


11+
68.75%
6.94%


12+
61.81%
7.64%


13+
54.17%
8.34%


14+
45.83%
7.64%


15+
38.19%
6.94%


16+
31.25%
6.25%


17+
25.00%
5.56%


18+
19.44%
4.86%


19+
14.58%
4.16%


20+
10.42%
3.48%


21+
6.94%
2.77%


22+
4.17%
2.09%


23+
2.08%
2.08%


24+
0.69%
0.69%





I tried 2d12+characteristic+skill, against a variable target number, but the curve for that sort of thing gets odd, with what looks like a small change in target number making a BIG difference in chance of success -- you'd end up with a really compressed set of viable target numbers, the typical 10, 15, 20 sort of thing ends up almost all-or-nothing.





2d12+

Avg
50/50
5+
10+
15+
20+
25+
30+
35+


0
13
13.5
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%


1
14
14.5
97.92%
80.56%
45.83%
14.58%
0.69%
0.00%
0.00%


2
15
15.5
99.31%

85.42%
54.17%
19.44%
2.08%
0.00%
0.00%


3
16
16.5
100.00%
89.58%
61.81%
25.00%
4.17%
0.00%
0.00%


4
17
17.5
100.00%
93.06%
68.75%
31.25%
6.94%
0.00%
0.00%


5
18
18.5
100.00%
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%
0.00%
0.00%


6
19
19.5
100.00%
97.92%
80.56%
45.83%
14.58%
0.69%
0.00%


7
20
20.5
100.00%
99.31%

85.42%
54.17%
19.44%
2.08%
0.00%


8
21
21.5
100.00%
100.00%
89.58%
61.81%
25.00%
4.17%
0.00%


9
22
22.5
100.00%
100.00%
93.06%
68.75%
31.25%
6.94%
0.00%


10
23
23.5
100.00%
100.00%
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%
0.00%


11
24
24.5
100.00%
100.00%
97.92%
80.56%
45.83%
14.58%
0.69%


12
25
25.5
100.00%
100.00%
99.31%

85.42%
54.17%
19.44%
2.08%



13
26
26.5
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
89.58%
61.81%
25.00%
4.17%


14
27
27.5
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
93.06%
68.75%
31.25%
6.94%


15
28
28.5
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
95.83%
75.00%
38.19%
10.42%




Well it would mean that each extra bonus is a big deal so you can't give out plus ones Willy nilly

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-04, 07:23 PM
Well it would mean that each extra bonus is a big deal so you can't give out plus ones Willy nilly

Part of the reason I wanted to go with two bigger dice instead of three smaller dice was to reduce that effect. Take a look at how tight the numbers are on 3d6.


E: to be clear, I decided to go with the first method, the second table I posted was to show why I wasn't going with that second method.






3d6 calc

Chance

Gap



3+

100.00%
0.46%


4+

99.54%
1.39%


5+

98.15%

2.78%


6+

95.37%
4.63%


7+

90.74%
6.94%


8+
83.80%
9.73%


9+

74.07%
11.57%


10+

62.50%
12.50%


11+
50.00%
12.50%



12+
37.50%
11.57%



13+
25.93%
9.73%


14+
16.20%
6.94%


15+
9.26%
4.63%


16+
4.63%

2.78%


17+
1.85%

1.39%


18+
0.46%
0.46%







3d6+

Avg

50/50
5+
10+
15+
20+
25+
30+


0

10.5
11
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%


1

11.5
12
99.54%
74.07%
16.20%
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%


2
12.5
13
100.00%
83.80%
25.93%
0.46%
0.00%
0.00%


3
13.5
14
100.00%
90.74%
37.50%
1.85%
0.00%
0.00%


4
14.5
15
100.00%
95.37%

50.00%
4.64%
0.00%
0.00%


5
15.5
16
100.00%
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%
0.00%
0.00%


6
16.5
17
100.00%
99.54%
74.07%
16.20%
0.00%
0.00%


7
17.5
18
100.00%
100.00%
83.80%
25.93%
0.46%
0.00%


8
18.5
19
100.00%
100.00%
90.74%

37.50%
1.85%
0.00%


9
19.5
20
100.00%
100.00%
95.37%

50.00%
4.64%
0.00%


10
20.5
21
100.00%
100.00%
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%
0.00%


11
21.5
22
100.00%
100.00%
99.54%
74.07%
16.20%
0.00%



12
22.5
23
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
83.80%
25.93%
0.46%


13
23.5
24
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
90.74%
37.50%
1.85%


14
24.5
25
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
95.37%

50.00%
4.64%


15
25.5
26
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%

Newtonsolo313
2017-05-04, 09:10 PM
Part of the reason I wanted to go with two bigger dice instead of three smaller dice was to reduce that effect. Take a look at how tight the numbers are on 3d6.


E: to be clear, I decided to go with the first method, the second table I posted was to show why I wasn't going with that second method.






3d6 calc

Chance

Gap



3+

100.00%
0.46%


4+

99.54%
1.39%


5+

98.15%

2.78%


6+

95.37%
4.63%


7+

90.74%
6.94%


8+
83.80%
9.73%


9+

74.07%
11.57%


10+

62.50%
12.50%


11+
50.00%
12.50%



12+
37.50%
11.57%



13+
25.93%
9.73%


14+
16.20%
6.94%


15+
9.26%
4.63%


16+
4.63%

2.78%


17+
1.85%

1.39%


18+
0.46%
0.46%







3d6+

Avg

50/50
5+
10+
15+
20+
25+
30+


0

10.5
11
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%


1

11.5
12
99.54%
74.07%
16.20%
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%


2
12.5
13
100.00%
83.80%
25.93%
0.46%
0.00%
0.00%


3
13.5
14
100.00%
90.74%
37.50%
1.85%
0.00%
0.00%


4
14.5
15
100.00%
95.37%

50.00%
4.64%
0.00%
0.00%


5
15.5
16
100.00%
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%
0.00%
0.00%


6
16.5
17
100.00%
99.54%
74.07%
16.20%
0.00%
0.00%


7
17.5
18
100.00%
100.00%
83.80%
25.93%
0.46%
0.00%


8
18.5
19
100.00%
100.00%
90.74%

37.50%
1.85%
0.00%


9
19.5
20
100.00%
100.00%
95.37%

50.00%
4.64%
0.00%


10
20.5
21
100.00%
100.00%
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%
0.00%


11
21.5
22
100.00%
100.00%
99.54%
74.07%
16.20%
0.00%



12
22.5
23
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
83.80%
25.93%
0.46%


13
23.5
24
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
90.74%
37.50%
1.85%


14
24.5
25
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
95.37%

50.00%
4.64%


15
25.5
26
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
98.15%
62.50%
9.26%







Yeah I assumed that having more dice would make the variability much lower.
But yeah the 2d12 is interesting because it would make differences in skill more pronounced, which means the fighter isn't gonna be picking lock and the rogue isn't gonna be busting down doors( yes I know the system is classless, dnd is just a good reference point in these forums)
I would suggest having damage rolls not working like this because that would make the damage output scale badly with skill level. Also maybe add something that allows characters to scale up or down the attack roles for some advantage or disadvantage of some sort(otherwise attack rolls could become rather pointless from characters who are either too weak or to strong

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-04, 10:13 PM
Yeah I assumed that having more dice would make the variability much lower.
But yeah the 2d12 is interesting because it would make differences in skill more pronounced, which means the fighter isn't gonna be picking lock and the rogue isn't gonna be busting down doors( yes I know the system is classless, dnd is just a good reference point in these forums)
I would suggest having damage rolls not working like this because that would make the damage output scale badly with skill level. Also maybe add something that allows characters to scale up or down the attack roles for some advantage or disadvantage of some sort (otherwise attack rolls could become rather pointless from characters who are either too weak or to strong


Look at the "gap" column in the two that have it -- the differences should be less pronounced with 2d12, than with 3d6. On the 2d12 roll it takes 14 steps to go from about 90% success to about 10%, while on the 3d6 it only takes 9 steps. None of the gaps on 2d12 are double-digit, while 4 of the gaps on 3d6 are double-digit.

E: Unless I'm completely misunderstanding what you mean by "differences in skill".


I do want to use a fixed dX + dX, because it keeps the results inside a fixed range, and results in a curve so that extreme results are less likely than average results. Die pools and escalating target numbers get out of hand, but single a single die causes every result to be just as likely on the roll. (Plus, d12s seem to be the least-commonly-used, so hey, that's something too.)

One idea is to do something similar to how HERO works out the rolls, but flipped to "roll this number or higher" instead of "roll this number or lower". (HERO has skill rolls as 9+char/5, average characteristic = 10, giving an average roll of 11 or less on 3d6, so that average characteristic = 50/50 chance of success.)

I know some games try, but I don't think damage can live on the same mechanic as skill resolution in a system that's not really really abstracted -- so damage would not be any variation of 2d12.

Mendicant
2017-05-04, 10:37 PM
I have two projects that get my off and on attention and which will probably languish indefinitely.

The first is a heavily houseruled 3.X/P E8 system, where the last two levels are special PrC's called capstone classes that are packed with four levels worth of class features (but not numerical upgrades like BAB.) I loved the idea of paragon paths and epic destinies in 4e, but the execution was pretty flat.

Accompanying this system would be a fully-realized campaign setting based around the history, legends and folklore of medieval Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Middle East.

In my dream world, I have the resources to not only finish this, but to pay professional designers and artists to spit out a truly finished product.

The other project is a Fallout RPG set around the Great Lakes.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-05, 04:48 AM
Yeah I assumed that having more dice would make the variability much lower.
But yeah the 2d12 is interesting because it would make differences in skill more pronounced, which means the fighter isn't gonna be picking lock and the rogue isn't gonna be busting down doors( yes I know the system is classless, dnd is just a good reference point in these forums)

Exactly, it's a balance between the fun of having characters feel like they're legitimately good at something and the fun of unexpected result. There's at least five factors to consider:

1 How pronounced your bell curve is.
Any single die produces a flat curve, you're just as likely to get your worst or best result as your average result. If you want characters to perform more consistent, to not fail so horribly so often, you want a pronounced bell curve. In general: the more dice you have and the smaller they are, the more consistent the rolls. Anydice will visualize these curves nicely, like so (http://anydice.com/program/fff).

2 How big the shift in average is (compared to your total range).
If you have a system where a skill roll is decided by a single D6, and a good character has a bonus of +12 then obviously they are performing way better than someone without a bonus, it's not even near the same ballpark. In a D100 system +12 is nothing. Most of the time these two characters will be rolling numbers the other could have rolled as well. This is both a good and a bad thing. It's fun if your bookworm wizard pulls of a kung fu move, but it's also fun if your kung fu monk gets better at kung fu'ing by leveling up and getting a skill rank.

3 "Taking 10".
Is a way to prevent horrible results under circumstances where they really shouldn't occur and where they aren't fun. While driving to the supermarket you will not randomly drive into a light pole, or at the very least not ones every 20 times you make the trip. These mechanisms can help reign in the side effects of flat curves with small shifts as a character gets more skilled.

4 Skewing the curve.
Another thing worth considering, though often not worth actually implementing, is skewing the bell curve towards good results. If you roll 3D12's and then take back the lowest die your total range will be the same as on a D12 roll, but your average will be higher. This is probably kind of consistent with how professionals in the real world do in their jobs. They can screw up horribly, but will only very rarely do so. However, it adds an extra calculation step, and it leaves less room for spectacular succes, as most of your rolls already fall near the top of your possibilities.

5 Dice pool vs flat bonus.
I find that dice pool systems where you gain more dice as you get better are an interesting option. Not only does 3D4 have a higher average result than 2D4, it has a slightly higher floor, and a much higher ceiling. As you get better your ability to pull off spectacular successes increases. Skills are most fun to use if your character is good at them. Untrained characters only have a very small range of outcomes available though, so no kung fu for the wizard, but plenty for them to look forward to when they gain that next die in wizzarding.

I am working on a D3 system myself, about which I hope to be able to make a consistent post soon. But I'd say that a 2D12 system with flat bonuses will probably do what you want it to: add some consistency while not eating up random successes entirely, merely making them rarer and thus cooler when they occur.

Segev
2017-05-05, 09:05 AM
One could toy with a variant on D&D 5e's (dis)advantage system to keep the 1-20 range but still get a bit more of a bell-curve like effect: Roll 2d20, and take the one that is closer to 11. (Slight weighting above average, but not by much.)

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-05, 09:15 AM
One could toy with a variant on D&D 5e's (dis)advantage system to keep the 1-20 range but still get a bit more of a bell-curve like effect: Roll 2d20, and take the one that is closer to 11. (Slight weighting above average, but not by much.)

Another thing that might work if you don't want to have to adjust the DC's (you'll only miss the 1) is 1D12+1D8 (http://anydice.com/program/b94d). It creates a strangely satisfying curve which plateau's between 9 and 13 (so centered around 11 as well), and goes down on either side.

sengmeng
2017-05-05, 09:18 AM
Taverns and Flagons: you play as a a tavern crew, building your business, bouncing drunk adventurers, and questing for new and exotic drink recipes, all while battling the ravages of alcoholism.

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-05, 09:27 AM
One could toy with a variant on D&D 5e's (dis)advantage system to keep the 1-20 range but still get a bit more of a bell-curve like effect: Roll 2d20, and take the one that is closer to 11. (Slight weighting above average, but not by much.)




Another thing that might work if you don't want to have to adjust the DC's (you'll only miss the 1) is 1D12+1D8 (http://anydice.com/program/b94d). It creates a strangely satisfying curve which plateau's between 9 and 13, and goes down on either side.


Either appears to be a good starting point, were one looking to alter the linear results of the d20 roll and otherwise keep the D&D structure.

For what I'm doing, that's not the goal.

Newtonsolo313
2017-05-05, 09:54 AM
Look at the "gap" column in the two that have it -- the differences should be less pronounced with 2d12, than with 3d6. On the 2d12 roll it takes 14 steps to go from about 90% success to about 10%, while on the 3d6 it only takes 9 steps. None of the gaps on 2d12 are double-digit, while 4 of the gaps on 3d6 are double-digit.

E: Unless I'm completely misunderstanding what you mean by "differences in skill".


I do want to use a fixed dX + dX, because it keeps the results inside a fixed range, and results in a curve so that extreme results are less likely than average results. Die pools and escalating target numbers get out of hand, but single a single die causes every result to be just as likely on the roll. (Plus, d12s seem to be the least-commonly-used, so hey, that's something too.)

One idea is to do something similar to how HERO works out the rolls, but flipped to "roll this number or higher" instead of "roll this number or lower". (HERO has skill rolls as 9+char/5, average characteristic = 10, giving an average roll of 11 or less on 3d6, so that average characteristic = 50/50 chance of success.)

I know some games try, but I don't think damage can live on the same mechanic as skill resolution in a system that's not really really abstracted -- so damage would not be any variation of 2d12.

Well if it's not abstract than you might want to consider giving characters injuries like if they fall really far they might break there leg or if they take a powerful blow to the back they might dislocate there spine

CharonsHelper
2017-05-05, 12:07 PM
One could toy with a variant on D&D 5e's (dis)advantage system to keep the 1-20 range but still get a bit more of a bell-curve like effect: Roll 2d20, and take the one that is closer to 11. (Slight weighting above average, but not by much.)


Another thing that might work if you don't want to have to adjust the DC's (you'll only miss the 1) is 1D12+1D8 (http://anydice.com/program/b94d). It creates a strangely satisfying curve which plateau's between 9 and 13 (so centered around 11 as well), and goes down on either side.


Either appears to be a good starting point, were one looking to alter the linear results of the d20 roll and otherwise keep the D&D structure.

For what I'm doing, that's not the goal.

I'm not sure why people are so tied to only having a single dice roll for everything. I understand that the idea is to make the system a bit simpler, but people take that and add dozens of modifiers to keep track of. *shrug*

In my system Space Dogs (blatant plug! :smallredface:) skill checks are a d8 pool (1d8 per rank of skill - rarely more than 4d8) plus 2 attributes. (not modifiers - just the attributes - which are 3-7ish for humans)

Weapons actually vary the dice used to attack rather than just damage. For example, a sword is 3d6+Brawn+Dexterity, while a battleaxe is 2d8+Brawn+Dexterity (yes - I know the axe is less accurate - it's also considerably more damaging). An assault rifle is 2d10+Dexterity, while a shotgun is 4d6+Dexterity, but the shotgun has terrible range penalties.

I was a bit worried about the added complexity when I was writing it up, but it wasn't really an issue in play-testing. My players said that they preferred it to the weapons using the same dice but having various modifiers.

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-05, 12:35 PM
I'm not sure why people are so tied to only having a single dice roll for everything. I understand that the idea is to make the system a bit simpler, but people take that and add dozens of modifiers to keep track of. *shrug*

In my system Space Dogs (blatant plug! :smallredface:) skill checks are a d8 pool (1d8 per rank of skill - rarely more than 4d8) plus 2 attributes. (not modifiers - just the attributes - which are 3-7ish for humans)

Weapons actually vary the dice used to attack rather than just damage. For example, a sword is 3d6+Brawn+Dexterity, while a battleaxe is 2d8+Brawn+Dexterity (yes - I know the axe is less accurate - it's also considerably more damaging). An assault rifle is 2d10+Dexterity, while a shotgun is 4d6+Dexterity, but the shotgun has terrible range penalties.

I was a bit worried about the added complexity when I was writing it up, but it wasn't really an issue in play-testing. My players said that they preferred it to the weapons using the same dice but having various modifiers.


Are you rolling against moving target numbers depending on circumstances (10 for an easy shot, 15 for a more difficult shot, or whatever)?

CharonsHelper
2017-05-05, 12:38 PM
Are you rolling against moving target numbers depending on circumstances (10 for an easy shot, 15 for a more difficult shot, or whatever)?

For ranged attacks it's against the target's defenses with range penalties every 5 squares (and potentially cover - cover is king), while in melee they're generally opposed melee attack rolls - so the axe lowers melee defense as well as accuracy (melee happens at the same time for everyone due to the initiative system).

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-05, 12:50 PM
For ranged attacks it's against the target's defenses with range penalties every 5 squares (and potentially cover - cover is king), while in melee they're generally opposed melee attack rolls - so the axe lowers melee defense as well as accuracy (melee happens at the same time for everyone due to the initiative system).

OK, so do weapons use fixed 2d8 or 3d6 (+ the other stuff), rather than being "1 die per skill rank"?

What do skills roll against, since there's often not an explicit "defender" to roll against?

CharonsHelper
2017-05-05, 01:18 PM
OK, so do weapons use fixed 2d8 or 3d6 (+ the other stuff), rather than being "1 die per skill rank"?

Correct - weapons have fixed dice values. As you level your attributes go up - which are the only standard modifiers. All other modifiers are either situational (cover/range/multiple foes etc.) or based upon a character ability. No long-term passive boosts or magic gear (magic gear would be pretty odd in a space western :smallcool:).


What do skills roll against, since there's often not an explicit "defender" to roll against?

Skills have DCs to roll against (sometimes based upon the opposed skill - like Stealth vs Awareness). Other than skill ranks adding dice and attributes adding the modifiers, the skill system is mostly relatively standard. Background based rather than class based.

I'm pretty happy with how the skill system and how it meshes with the rest of the game, but it's not going to be the game's selling point in an elevator pitch.

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-05, 01:45 PM
Correct - weapons have fixed dice values. As you level your attributes go up - which are the only standard modifiers. All other modifiers are either situational (cover/range/multiple foes etc.) or based upon a character ability. No long-term passive boosts or magic gear (magic gear would be pretty odd in a space western :smallcool:).



Skills have DCs to roll against. Other than skill ranks adding dice and attributes adding the modifiers, the skill system is mostly relatively standard. Background based rather than class based.

I'm pretty happy with how the skill system and how it meshes with the rest of the game, but it's not going to be the game's selling point in an elevator pitch.


The DCs for skills are what I meant by a "moving target numbers". (I don't recall seeing any game that wasn't d20-derived us "Difficulty Class" as a term, so I tend to forget that it's a thing.)

Lately I've seen several games that used a straight fixed 3d6+stuff against "DCs" spread out to 5+, 10+, 15+, 20+, etc... as shown in the tables I posted upthread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?521896-If-you-had-the-time-skill-and-resources-what-kind-of-RPG-book-would-you-create/page3&p=21982229#post21982229), this gives VERY little room for nuance. At any skill level, you only have three possible results -- almost always pass, about 50/50, and almost always fail -- depending on which DC the character is up against. This makes for very little variation or nuance in the results. It's possible to compress the range of DCs to account for the way the dice results work, but (for reasons I don't quite get) many people seem unhappy with DCs that are close together.

However, going from something like 1d8+3+3 to 4d8+7+7 (to use your skill system as an example of die pool resolution mechanics) makes for a very wide spread of DCs to roll against, but creates a very large disparity between characters. One character is getting results from 7 to 14, the other character is getting results from 18 to 46.

For me, at least, the wide variation in results in the latter approach makes it very difficult to balance the challenges that the characters face, even though they're nominally on the same "scale" of character.

CharonsHelper
2017-05-05, 02:30 PM
However, going from something like 1d8+3+3 to 4d8+7+7 (to use your skill system as an example of die pool resolution mechanics) makes for a very wide spread of DCs to roll against, but creates a very large disparity between characters. One character is getting results from 7 to 14, the other character is getting results from 18 to 46.

For me, at least, the wide variation in results in the latter approach makes it very difficult to balance the challenges that the characters face, even though they're nominally on the same "scale" of character.

True - but in my system rolling only "1d8" means that the character is untrained, and they'll have better than "+3+3" by level 3ish on any roll.

But yes - I don't expect someone totally untrained in Hacking or Piloting to be able to hold a candle to someone with high skill ranks. That's working as I intended. (and most skills do have degrees of success)

I will say - each extra skill rank literally costs exponentially more - so it encourages PCs to spread out their skills. (most skills cost 1/4/9/16/25 per rank - though it varies a bit by skill)

And while 4d8+14 technically has a range from 18-46, due to the bell curve they have a 90% chance of getting from 25-39, which is a much smaller range to design for (more often than not in the 29-35 range). Going back to d20 systems (not because it's a perfect comparison, but because it's something everyone here has experience with) getting outside of the 25-39 range would be like a critical success or failure.


The DCs for skills are what I meant by a "moving target numbers". (I don't recall seeing any game that wasn't d20-derived us "Difficulty Class" as a term, so I tend to forget that it's a thing.)

Fair enough. I originally called it something else, but I eventually changed it to DCs because so many people are familiar with the terminology. (I also changed Vitality/Lifepoints to Vitality/Wounds because I felt silly explaining "it's pretty much just like Vitality/Wound systems". :smallredface:)

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-29, 12:31 PM
I mulled around with some ideas for a racing and vehicle based RPG, and I think the idea is starting to evolve into an extreme/outdoor/racing sports based RPG. Snowboards, horses, mountain bikes, whitewater kayaks, karts, (parcours, canyoning, climbing...) they can all be simulated in similar ways, if you're going for a fun way to play a game with a mild basis in reality that lets you switch sports easily rather then for realistically portraying the major aspects of each of those sports. I think I can even get them to be able to race each other with some semblance of fair differences in speed and handling.