Yet Another d6 Game (PEACH)

[LecternOfJasper]

Hello Playground!

This time I'm showing off the game system I've made instead of learning how to play Shadowrun. The last thing I posted here was a 5e class that was 4 times as long as the entirety of this game, so let's see if this gets a bit better reception :smallbiggrin:

I had a few problems that I wanted to solve by making (and playing) this game. One is that a bunch of d6 games that I would like to play are atrociously complicated. I like the idea of dice pools, and counting successes. I don't like weird math.

The other is that there are a lot of cool settings out there with either no RPG system built for them, or they have a system with really odd mechanics that I don't have the faculties to appreciate.

So here we are: a d6 system that attempts to both be suitably generic and entirely customizable.

As per usual, here's a link to the original Drive document. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q4J40e97GyJJZsTwvzVsEhb2oqzRy7iJLGesfNc-qF8/edit?usp=sharing)

The Core Premise

This is a dice pool game, where you dice pool is based on your use of certain Skills.

Skills are measurements of your character’s skill in accomplishing certain objectives and resisting other character’s usage of that Skill. A Melee Skill, for example, would improve your chances of striking someone in combat, as well as helping you defend yourself against other character’s usage of the Melee Skill.

Do not roll a Skill unless there is a reasonable chance and an interesting consequence of failure. Generally the GM will let you know when it makes sense.

Skills have a rating between 1 and 6. Most Skills can be used as your turn in tense situations.

When using a Skill, you roll a number of d6’s equal to its rating. Success is determined by beating the opposition’s Defense. You can get higher degrees of success if you get multiple successful rolls (getting a better effect per each successful die). If there is no direct opposition, difficulty is based on the scene or type of effect, determined by the GM (between 2 and 7).

Your defense against any given Skill is equal to your rating in that Skill (or an appropriate Defensive Skill).

What these Skills actually cover will be determined by the setting being used to play.

Some challenges require multiple successes to succeed, though most routine tasks are almost always 1. Circumstances may cause the value rolled on the dice to be treated as 1-3 lower or 1-3 higher (seeing through fog, etc), and there are multiple ways for characters to apply bonuses and penalties to the rolls of themselves, their teammates and their enemies.

As most Skills will be fairly generic, a character can choose to Specialize within a given Skill, treating their Skill as 1 higher for rolls within that Specialization and 1 lower for rolls outside the Specialization, but within the bounds of the Skill. For example, if someone was looking to make a Skilled Blacksmith and set their Crafting Skill to 4, a character can opt to Specialize in Blacksmithing, treating their Crafting Skill as 5 when working metal, but 3 when creating anything outside that. Specializations should generally apply to no more than half of all possible uses of a Skill. If the other possible uses of the skill are very unlikely to come up in play (i.e. the GM has no good ideas for introducing scenarios you are NOT Specialized in), the Specialization should be reconsidered or unavailable at the determination of the GM.

Defensive Skills

Though Skills are determined by the Setting, most settings have the Defensive Skills shown below:

Might - Measure of a character’s physical Fortitude, and ability to defend against physical harm.
Speed - Measure of a character’s reflexes, and ability to duck and dodge.
Will - Measure of a character’s mental Fortitude, and ability to defend against mental intrusions.

Defensive Skills cannot be used to attack, but can be used to defend against any appropriate Skill targeting you. Depending on the type of game, these can be broader, narrower, or removed entirely in favor of just using the Skills themselves to defend with.

Defensive Skills are unable to be specialized in, and are only able to be raised by taking the Defensive Mastery ability. You may also opt to subtract 1 from one Defensive Skill to add 1 to another Defensive Skill at 1st level.

Defensive Skills are usually added to a Stamina bar as well, which is similar to health in other games. A starting character’s Stamina bars are equal to the added Defensive Skill plus 3.

When one of these bars drops to 0, the character is incapacitated in the appropriate fashion.


The rules for Settings, Character Creation, Game Flow, and Progression will be in the next few posts!

[LecternOfJasper]

Settings

Each setting will have a Baseline and a number of Skills.

The Baseline determines how good characters in the game are to begin with compared to the rabble. A normal NPC normally has a rating of 1 in most Skills, and maybe 2 or 3 in anything related to their career or interests.

The Baseline is the starting value of all a player character’s Skills in character creation. A Baseline of 2 is respectable if your game is set around larger than life characters, but a baseline of 1 could also be used to have characters start at a power level closer to normal people. If a game has a baseline of 2, a character may remove a number of points from Skills equal to ¼ the amount of Skills in play and then add the same amount of points to other Skills (setting some to 1 to gain a bonus in other areas).

A game could theoretically have any number of Skills, but keeping the Skills within the scope that the game should cover is best practice. (Probably somewhere between 4 and 16 Skills would be a good bet, with 7 to 9 being what this is primarily designed around.) A few examples are in the Example Settings section below. The Example Settings do not list the standard Defensive Skills (Might, Speed, Will). If Defensive Skills are listed, assume that the standard Defensive Skills are not in play.

For the purposes of most examples in the later sections, and to give you an idea of what sort of Skills will be present in a setting, the Shadowrun list is shown below.

Shadowrun:
(Baseline 2)
Melee - Up close and personal. Also general athleticism.
Ranged - Think you can shoot, chummer? Governs precise movements too.
Engineering - Force electronics to obey you. Build some death machines.
Magic - Pick a field of magic, and master it. EX: Fire, Elementals, Transformation, Healing
Stealth - Being quick and quiet. Often life and death.
Awareness - Stay frosty. For picking out useful details about your surroundings.
Charisma - Getting a few extra credits and getting in the door often require the same skillset.
Wealth - Money makes the world go round. Make it spin a little faster with a flamethrower.
Circles - It’s all in who you know. So know more people.


Example Settings

Each Setting below is modeled after a particular setting or game, and its Skills are based on what the setting creator thinks people should engage with in it. For example, a setting based on an apocalyptic wasteland and metal album covers probably needs less Skills about business administration than a setting based on office mishaps. All of these examples other than Numerical Sea Heist and London but Underground use the stand Might/Speed/Will defensive skills.

Each Setting’s Baseline should be either 1 or 2, with 3 only being used for high powered, shorter games (pretty sure you’ll straight up run out of Skills to increase at higher levels). 2 is recommended for any game with fantastical elements that’s less gritty (as people will only be truly bad at things they purposefully drop). 1 is recommended for those games where other than a few bright points your character is just as frail as everyone else.

Some settings may also alter rules around Play by Plays, especially when it comes to combat and healing (see Game Flow, below). Certain types of genres lend themselves to the heroes being able to get back to work the following morning, while in others getting hurt or incapacitated may have lasting repercushions.

A World of Apocalypses:
(Baseline 1)
Hands - Violence. Plain and simple.
Eyes - Awareness. See them first.
Feet - Poise. Keep your footing.
Hearts - Grift. Keep them guessing.
Tongues - Mysticism. Speaking for whom?
Wealth - Worth. You have any?
Circles - Reputation. Bark and Bite.

Numerical Sea Heist:
(Baseline 3)
Clubs - In order to make an omelette, you have to crack some eggs.
Diamonds - In order to make an omelette, you have to have the right tools.
Spades - In order to make an omelette, you have to know when to flip.
Hearts - In order to make an omelette, you have to fire the pan.

Three Shots Rang Out:
(Baseline 2)
Loud - Going in guns blazing, using force to solve problems. Violence in all its forms.
Quiet - Keeping your head down is how to keep your hat on. Stealth and things requiring it.
Wit - A sharp eye is only second to a steady hand. Good for picking out details and awareness.
Chill - Stay frosty, chummer. For when you’re in hot water and you need to escape or focus.
Charm - The art of persuasion can open many doors. Used for both lying and telling the truth.
Weird - Every game needs a bit of Weird. This is for the unnatural, pick a mutation and run.
Circles - It’s all in who you know. Used to be on good terms with someone in power.
Wealth - Preparation is key. Money is good for that. Best for acquiring dynamite.


London but Underground
(Baseline 2)
Wounds - Defensive. Collect some scars.
Suspicion - Defensive. Don’t get caught.
Scandal - Defensive. You didn’t, did you...?
Nightmares - Defensive. Delve deeper, really.
Iron/Dangerous - For matters of toughness and roughhousery.
Mirrors/Watchful - For matters of insight and discovery.
Veils/Shadowy - For matters of discretion and unscrupulousness.
Hearts/Persuasive - For matters of emotion and conviction.
Wealth - For matters of magnanimity and power.
Circles - For matters of camaraderie and sophistication.


Basements and Bottom-Dwellers
(Baseline 2)
Athletics - Athletics and Strength Weapons
Agility - Special Maneuvers and Unarmed Strikes
Finesse - Thievery and Dexterity weapons
Awareness - Stealth and Perception and Investigation.
Intelligence - Arcana and History and Religion
Nature - Nature and Pioneering and Animal Handling
Witchcraft - Medicine(physical and magical) and Insight
Sinister - Deception and Intimidation
Persuasive - Performance and Persuasion
Magic - Pick a school and run with it.

Most games of this kind tend to be about heroes trundling about in fantastical settings, slaying monsters, picking things up and occasionally saving the world. As other games in this style tend to allow people to be back at their prime in less than a day, the time span of different actions could very well be shorter than listed. If you wanted more of a “adventures should take about a day” type of game, then you can make downtime actions take about an hour, and have people heal fully with a full night’s rest.

A Note On Magic: As Magic in most games representative of the genre is a very broad subject, in this game it is limited a bit to not be completely over the top. When determining what type of magic your character can use, select two defenses. Your magic can only be used against those two defenses.



I Totally Did Not Make Godbound d6
(Baseline 2)
Words 1, 2, and 3 - Each character picks 3 Words of Creation. These are godly portfolios they have near absolute control over.
Strength - Offensive brawn, raw muscle power
Intelligence - Mental acuity, collected knowledge
Charisma - Showing off, favorably affecting social situations
School - Each Godbound picks one School. Be it Mortal Magic, a Martial Study or a Brutal Practice, the Godbound’s abilities in this field dwarf those of mortals.

Each Godbound picks one Origin. This is usually a Region or Kingdom, depending on the scale of the game. A Godbound adds 1 to checks made about that area if it is a Kingdom, or adds 1 to checks within or about that area if it is a Region (Regions are typically much smaller than Kingdoms, and these areas should scale as appropriate. A GM should expect to have around 3 Kingdom sized areas of relevance and 2 or 3 regions each).

If a Word of Creation has particular relevance to a skill (defensive or otherwise), increase that skill by 1. This may break the cap of 4 for standard skills at level 1.

If you have access to the actual Godbound game, good for you. If you'd like, assume Godbound of the Words of Creation may use their action to emulate Lesser Gifts, or Greater Gifts that really ought to be Lesser Gifts. Abilities of the magnitude of Greater Gifts (or some of the Effort/Day Lesser Gifts) require a Grit point to use. Downtime activities may generally emulate the effects of Influence, or other standard abilities. If a Godbound wants to use some Greater Gift mojo outside of a Play-by-Play, and something unexpected interrupts them, assume that their Grit Point is lost for that scene.

If you do not have access to the actual Godbound game, it’s super free, go get it. But if you don’t want to, just be somewhat liberal with how Words of Creation may be used, and adjudicate the effects and abilities people have normally and you should be set.

When it comes to Defending against actions using Words, treat similar (or opposite) Words as if they are identical. For example, a Godbound of the Sun Word’s powers may be thwarted by a Godbound of the Night’s defenses.

[LecternOfJasper]

Character Creation

Think about the type of character you want to make for this game, and how the Skills available will reflect their strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly pick their goal and hopefully some methods they will go about achieving that goal. Sprinkle in some background details as well.

Skills:

Regardless of how many Skills there are in a given game, you gain a number of Skill Points equal to half the amount of Skills in the game rounded down (excluding Defensive Skills). You cannot raise any particular Skill beyond 4 at this time, though Specializing may get you to 5.

If the Base for the setting in use is 2 or higher, you may opt to lower a number of Skills up to a quarter of those in use by 1 to gain the same amount of Skill Points to spend on other Skills.

Guard:

You can pick one of your Defensive Skills to have a Guard; this defense ignores the first success of any given action. For example, if you choose a Might Guard, you have some way of deflecting attacks or shrugging off physical damage, and ignore the first success rolled against your Might Defensive Skill per action.

Abilities:

When making your character, you gain 3 Abilities. Abilities are another way to make your character unique. There are a variety of Abilities that with a little creativity can be stretched to fit most molds. These are listed in the Abilities section below.

Grit Points:

When the chips are down, your character has a few tricks up their sleeve to get them through the toughest of times. Your character has 1 Grit Point they may spend per scene (or other time slot depending on the setting), and gain another Grit Point per scene at 4th and 7th Level.

Grit Points may be used during a Play by Play to cause the following effects:

Rapid Maneuver: You may perform two actions on your turn.
Precise Maneuver: You may add 2 to a Skill’s rolls until your next turn.
Explosive Maneuver: You may make each success of your action to both have another target and raise the effectiveness of your ability on all targets. (3 successes lets you deal 3 damage to 3 targets).
Expert Maneuver: Use a Skill otherwise unusable in a Play by Play as an action. (Healing to heal, Wealth to have something on hand, Charisma to make some really fast friends)
You may only spend 1 Grit Point per round, if you have multiple.

[LecternOfJasper]

Game Flow

There are 3 different stages of play, depending on the time scale and intensity of a given scene: Play by Play, Free Form, and Downtime.

Play by Play:
This is the most structured stage, as it is used for tense situations, such as combats, heists, and the more heated types of negotiations. This is also the one where Stamina is most likely to come into play.

In a Play by Play, the turn order alternates between the Player Characters involved and the Non Player Characters. Once every involved character has taken a turn, a new round begins. Each round, the Players determine the order in which they take turns, and the GM determines the order the Non Player Characters go in. This order can change every round for both sides, but should be determined before either side declares any actions. Every character on their turn may generally move somewhere and use a Skill. If there are more than two teams in a given conflict, the turn order rotates between all teams involved.

Depending on the speed of play, movement can differ in effectiveness. In a boxing match or duel, a combatant may only be able to move a few feet per turn without exchanging blows, but in other tense situations you can probably cross a mid-sized room, climb a stair, or swing from a rope fairly readily.

Some Skills are ineffective in many Play by Play situations (Stealth in a pitched battle may not work very well, and Wealth is almost certainly useless), though a Player may spend a Grit Point to bend this rule. For the most part, Skills are used to lower the target’s Stamina in order to force them to concede, either by breaking them physically, stopping them completely, or breaking their will.

When a Skill is used during a Play by Play, roll your Skill in d6’s against the difficulty set by the target’s Defensive Skill or the same Skill. Normally this matches the same general type as the Skill you’re using. Deal 1 damage per success to the Stamina type that makes sense for the attack - this isn’t always the same as the Defensive Skill used to defend against it (for instance, a spider may have attacked your Might, but its poison affects your Speed. Or a Curse cast by a foul sorcerer may be warded off with your Will, but its insidious workings deal Might damage). You may choose a different target for any dice not yet rolled (or decide them all beforehand to speed things up). Creative use of your equipment and Abilities will let you target otherwise unlikely defenses.

Once an involved character reaches 0 Stamina in one of its tracks, that character is incapacitated for the rest of the Play by Play, or until whatever affect that incapacitated them is removed. A Play by Play ends when one side is completely defeated or concedes. At this point whoever lost is generally at the mercy of those who won, though this often does not mean death for the defeated party - though it might in violent situations with unscrupulous individuals. In purely social encounters, loss may just mean you lost an argument in the eyes of the populace, or were potentially convinced of the opposing side.

Free Form:
This is the general case that most of the game will be in, with no immediate threat. Though some actions may take extended periods of time, nearly all Skills can be useful in a Free Form situation.

Downtime:
This is an extended period of time (several hours to a day), and Skills taken in this time generally are targeted at groups and areas (outside of healing abilities). Examples of Downtime activities are:

Rest and Recuperation: Regain 1 point per Tier of Stamina in each track. You or someone else may spend their downtime administering aid, rolling a Skill relevant to the type of healing you need and you regain an additional amount of Stamina equal to the number of successes.

Searching Far and Wide: Roll a Wealth check, or something else that will help in seeking whatever you’re after. The difficulty is set based on what you want to find, and truly great things may both require multiple successes and have further complications. More successes may reduce the amount of complications. You may not use this Skill more than once in the same place for the same goal.

Conducting Reconnaissance: Roll an appropriate Skill to stake out, scout, or otherwise gather information on a particular area or set piece. The difficulty is set based on where/what you are investigating. You learn one pertinent fact per success you get.

Making Friends: Roll an appropriate Skill to convince people you’re likeable, or at least like them. The difficulty is set based on what crowd you are mingling with. You add one to Circles checks related to the friends you made on one roll per success you get.

Important note: Circles

One Skill that is likely to be in most games is Circles.

Circles - Measure of a character’s prominence in society. Can be used whenever a new situation is entered to know someone. The number of successes determines how helpful they are. The difficulty is set by the situation in question (It’s harder to have met royalty than a man at the pub).

[LecternOfJasper]

Progression:

There are 8 Levels past the starting Level that can be earned. Every Level takes 6 Experience to get. You gain one point of Experience every session and another point if a major goal was accomplished that session. This way it will take 3 and 6 sessions per Level, which is in my experience the most interesting rate of progression in other games. The table can also opt to level up at milestones in the story (which are determined by the GM).


At every level, your character gains some new Abilities and a number of Skill Points equal to a quarter of the Skills in use (rounding down).

Abilities are special things your character can do outside of general Skill actions. Oftentimes these are situational modifiers, unique abilities, or special defenses. The Abilities you have access to are determined by your Tier. There are 3 Tiers of play in this game: levels 1-3 are Tier 1, levels 4-6 are Tier 2, and levels 7-9 are Tier 3. These Tiers also determine the maximum you can raise a Skill level to: 4 at Tier 1, 5 at Tier 2, and 6 at Tier 3. Abilities are listed after this section.

Additionally, a character's Stamina also increases by 3 each at each Tier. For example, a Tier 2 character has a base Stamina of 6 per Defensive Skill, plus that Defensive Skill, and a Tier 3 character has a base Stamina of 9 per Defensive Skill, plus that Defensive Skill.

This progression is shown on the table below.

Character Level and Ability Gains:




Level
Raise Gain
Total Raise
Ability Gain
Total Abilities
Guard Gain
Grit Points/Scene


1
+1/2 * Skill#
1/2 * Skill#
3
3
1
1


2
+1/4 * Skill#
3/4 * Skill#
1
4
0
1


3
+1/4 * Skill#
1 * Skill#
1
5
0
1


4
+1/4 * Skill#
5/4 * Skill#
2
7
1
2


5
+1/4 * Skill#
3/2 * Skill#
1
8
0
2


6
+1/4 * Skill#
7/4 * Skill#
1
9
0
2


7
+1/4 * Skill#
2 * Skill#
2
11
1
3


8
+1/4 * Skill#
9/4 * Skill#
1
12
0
3


9
+1/4 * Skill#
5/2 * Skill#
1
13
0
3

[LecternOfJasper]

Abilities:

TIER 1:

Circumstantial Advantage:
Pick a Skill. Choose a specific circumstance that should not affect more than half of all rolls with this Skill (if your target is smaller than you, if they are surprised, if they are a specific type of creature); double the severity of your rolls with said Skill. You may take this ability multiple times, but only once per Skill.

Example: Double Melee effects if catching the opponent by surprise. Double the Severity of your spell on each opponent if they are elves.

Circumstantial Immunity:
Choose a specific problem to ignore. You do not take circumstance penalties from and are immune to this problem. You may gain this ability multiple times.

Example: Acclimation to different weather, poisons, diseases, starvation, a specific type of magical or environmental effect, whatever.

Passive Ability:
Choose a specific passive ability to have. Passive abilities generally add on to things you can already do. You may gain this ability multiple times.

Example: Darkvision, Flight, Water Breathing.

Unique ability:
Choose an ability not reasonably covered by the current list of Skills. Gain a Skill in that ability at 3d6. This Skill does not affect the amount Raises you gain per level.

Example: Pyromancy, Surgery, Business Administration, Teleportation

Defender:
Pick a Skill and two defenses. During a Play by Play, you may use your action to Defend and pick another involved character. When that character would have one of those defenses targeted, use your defense value, and you take the effects of each success instead. This happens automatically on a number of successes equal to your rating in the chosen Skill, or until your next turn.

Example:
Bodyguard(Melee): If the Bodyguard has Melee 4 as their Defender Skill, they may choose to Defend their squishy Client. Actions targeting the Might or Speed of the Client instead target the Bodyguard. This happens automatically until the Bodyguard is affected by 4 dice.

Debilitating Bind:
Choose a user defense, a target defense, a Skill, and either Concentration or Binding. You may use this Skill to temporarily inhibit a target instead of permanently damaging them; when you choose to do this, the target treats all damage taken as double severity, but the chosen option comes into play:
Concentration: If someone damages you in your chosen defense, the target regains all damage taken from this bind. OR:
Binding: The target gets a free check to break free from this effect on their turn; others may also roll to break the target free; breaking free requires the same roll an attack against the user in the chosen defense would, but does not deal damage to the user.
You may gain this ability multiple times, but may not use the same Debilitating Bind again while it is still in effect.
Examples:
Grappling (Might, Speed, Melee, Concentration). May use your action to damage a target’s Speed by double normal severity. Broken if someone damages your Might.
Wasting Curse(Will, Might, Magic, Binding). May use your action to damage a target’s Might by double normal severity. Broken if someone beats your Will.

Serious Gambit:
Pick a Skill. You may choose to gain two extra dice when using this Skill, but each opponent gains an extra die on their next move against you. You may gain this Skill multiple times.

Weal/Woe:
Pick a Skill. You may spend your action harrying or distracting someone to aid an ally. Roll your Skill at difficulty 3. Your ally or enemy gains a bonus or penalty of 1 on one action per success. You may spread your successes across multiple targets should you have enough.

Addle:
Pick a Skill. When trying to damage an enemy with this Skill, you may take a -1 penalty to your rolls. If you succeed, you deal 1 damage per success, and allies gain a bonus of 1 on one action per success against that enemy.

Transformation:
Pick two Skills. You may choose as your action during a Play by Play or during free play to temporarily subtract up to 2 points from one of these Skills and add them to the other. This cannot raise a Skill beyond the maximum value for the Tier you are in (see Progression). Work with your DM to come up with at least one restraint or problem associated with this ability (e.g. it only works at night, has a slow onset, is really, really disgusting, or severely alters your personality are all reasonable examples, though finding one that works well with the type of game you’re playing is key.)

Defensive Mastery:
Pick a Defensive Skill. Raise that Defensive Skill by 1. You may select this ability once before Tier 3 and once after.

TIER 2:

Counter:
Pick a Skill. During a Play by Play, you may use your action to Cover, and choose either an involved character or another Skill. When either the involved character performs an action or the Skill chosen is used, you may roll your chosen Skill against them. You may use your successes from this roll to negate the opposing character’s successes on a one for one basis instead of the normal effects.

Spray n Pray:
Pick a Skill. You may gain two extra dice when you use this Skill in exchange for a -1 penalty on all your rolls.

Wilting Presence:
Pick a Skill you have at 2 or lower. Opponents treat their rating in that Skill as one lower while using it or defending with it in your presence. If you raise this Skill at a later date, you may exchange this ability for a different one.

Riposte:
Pick a Skill you have at 4 or above. When defending with this Skill, if your opponent rolls a 1 or 2 they take 1 damage in the same track as you would.

Example: Melee: If someone attacks you with Melee, and you defend with Melee, for each 1 or 2 they roll they take 1 damage.

Uncanny:
Pick a Skill. Once per roll, you may reroll a number of dice equal to your Tier when using this Skill.

Dangerous Play:
Pick a Skill. You may choose to take two points of damage any time you use this Skill. WHen you do so, add one to your rolls with this ability. When appropriate, it may be possible to use this to add to an ally’s rolls.

Combo:
Pick a Skill. During a Play by Play, if you incapacitate an enemy using this Skill, you may take another action. This can only happen once per turn.

TIER 3:

Unparalleled:
Pick a Skill you have at 6. Pick a specialization within this Skill. Add one to all rolls when using that specialization (this does not incur a penalty like normal specializations).

Mastery of Forms:
Pick a Skill. You may use that Skill in place on one of your defensive Skills. This ought to be at least somewhat believable and is subject to the discretion of the GM.

Example: Melee for Might: Your peerless fighting prowess allows you to easily deflect physical harm away from yourself.

Resurgence:
Once per level, if you become incapacitated, on your turn roll the appropriate defensive Skill at difficulty 3 and regain that number of successes in Stamina.

[LecternOfJasper]

Example Characters

Shadowrun:
Nighthaunt, Burnt Out Mage (Level 1)

Might 3 (6)
Speed 3 (6)
Will 4 (7)
Melee 2
Ranged 4
Hacking 2
Magic 1
Stealth 3
Awareness 3
Charisma 2
Wealth 2
Circles 3

Guard: Might

Abilities:
Defensive Mastery (Will)
Circumstantial Immunity (Darkness)
Circumstantial Advantage (Ranged vs. Mages)

Nighthaunt had been in the game a long time. Once an aspiring Corpo-mage, he was making it a decent way up that ladder before a rival sold out his position during a stakeout. He escaped with his life, but only after straining his magical prowess further than it could recover from. Nighthaunt will never cast a spell again, but had enough saved up to install some Nighteyes, Nervewires and Dermasteel before he began stalking the streets to take his revenge.

The total number of skills in Shadowrun is 9. Therefore, a Level 1 character starts with 4 raises. To emphasize Nighthaunt’s loss of magical ability, a penalty was taken in Magic to drop it to one, which refunded a single Skill Point. The 5 total Skill Points were used raising Ranged to 4 (up to the maximum a level 1 character can have), Stealth to 3, Awareness to 3, and Circles to 3.


Nighthaunt, More Gun Than Man (Level 9)

Might 3 (12)
Speed 3 (12)
Will 5 (14)
Melee 4
Ranged 6
Hacking 3
Magic 1
Stealth 5
Awareness 6
Charisma 3
Wealth 5
Circles 5

Guard:
Might 2
Speed 1

Abilities:
Defensive Mastery (Will)
Circumstantial Immunity (Darkness)
Circumstantial Advantage (Ranged vs. Mages)
Neuro Shot (Ranged). May use your action to damage a target’s Will by double normal severity. Broken if someone damages your Speed or manages to pull the bullet off.
Circumstantial Immunity (Point Blank Issues)
Circumstantial Immunity (Vertical Surfaces)
Wilting Presence (Magic)
Spray n Pray (Ranged)
Uncanny (Ranged)
Defensive Mastery (Will)
Unparalleled (Ranged)
Mastery of Forms (Ranged/Might)
Resurgence

The next 8 levels gave Nighthaunt 16 more Skill Points (2*8) and 10 more Abilities. 3 Abilities were drawn from the Tier 2 list, and 4 were drawn from the Tier 3 list. Nighthaunt's Stamina in Tier 3 in each category is 9 plus the relevant Defensive Skill. Between Spray n Pray, Uncanny, and Unparalleled, Nighthaunt can roll 8 dice on a Ranged attack (or 6, each with a +1), with each success dealing 1 damage normally or 2 against Mages. That is pretty good.

London but Underground:
Kiegan Belreve, a Gentleman of Discretion and Suavity (Level 4)

Wounds - 3 (9)
Suspicion - 2 (8)
Scandal - 4 (10)
Nightmares - 4 (10)
Iron/Dangerous - 1
Mirrors/Watchful(Honey) - 3 (4/2)
Veils/Shadowy - 3
Hearts/Persuasive - 5
Wealth/Echoes - 2
Circles/Renown(Bohemia) - 3 (4/2)
Sequencing - 4

Guard:
Scandal 1
Nightmares 1

Abilities:
Unique ability(Sequencing)
Defensive Mastery (Nightmares)
Circumstantial Advantage (Hearts/While Honey Addled)
New Sequence (Sequencing). May use your action to damage a target’s Nightmares by double normal severity. Broken if someone damages your Nightmares or manages to get the victim out of the light.
Circumstantial Immunity (Silence)
Riposte (Hearts)
Transformation (Iron/Veils)

There are 6 skills in London but Underground (not counting Kiegan's Unique Skill, Sequencing). Therefore, the amount of points a Level 4 character should have is 3 from level 1 and 1 for every level after, for a total of 6. Kiegan's Iron/Dangerous was dropped to 1 to grant an extra Skill Point, for a total of 7. Kiegan is Specialized in performing Mirrors/Watchful actions while Honey-Addled and relating to Prisoner's Honey, and is Specialized in moving in Bohemian circles, to the detriment of his standing elsewhere. Over his career, he has developed the unique ability of Sequencing the sigils of the stars, which he has used to great effect in his research and on his growing number of enemies. His research is changing him, leading to him being seemingly incapable of being Silenced, whether by gag or by icy stares, and flecks of fire dance on his words.

[LecternOfJasper]

That should be all for now!

The main question I currently have is: are movement rules and attacks of opportunity important? I am hoping to keep this easily in the theater of the mind, but I recognize people enjoy the tactical nature of standing in front of someone and/or far away behind a rock.

Current thoughts on this are: In a given scene, you may chose to enter a Melee with a suitable opponent. When in a Melee, you are generally close enough to anyone else in the Melee to be hit with short range weapons, and have difficulty using long range Skills (a -1 penalty on rolls, I suppose). The Melee ends when one group prevails, or there is only one team left.

You may choose to leave a Melee on your turn, but if you do so each enemy may roll an Attack of Opportunity using a number of dice up to their Tier using an appropriate Melee skill against your Speed (or other appropriate Defensive Skill), dealing 1 damage per success against the appropriate state (usually Might or Speed, depending on their methods). If the number of total successes against you equal your Tier (so if the enemies get 1 success when you're in Tier 1, 2 when you're in Tier 2, and 3 when you're in Tier 3), you failed to leave the Melee. Your allies raise the number of total successes needed to stop you from leaving on a one to one basis.

Adding Tiers on both sides means the ability to leave a Melee outpaces the ability to keep someone in one in an even matchup of Tiered enemies.

An Action you may take to roll an appropriate Skill to actively evade capture and negate these successes can probably be added. If you want to get away from an even match, spending an action should all but guarantee you do so (maybe by picking up the Counter Ability instead of having available for free?).

For example, if you are facing 2 Tier 1 Guards and 1 Tier 2 Captain, and you and your 2 companions are Tier 1 and in a Melee with them, a total of 4 dice are rolled against your Speed. Since you have 2 allies with you, the Guards need to roll 3 successes to keep you there as your allies run interference (harder than average vs a Speed of 3).

If an ally tried to leave on their turn, the total successes the guards need would be 2 using 4 dice against the ally's Speed (average roll vs a Speed of 3).

If you and your two allies are Tier 2, the guards would need 4 successes, meaning they likely won't stop you with their 4 dice, but they will still deal damage.

If you, your allies, and all 3 guards are Tier 2, the guards would have 6 dice and need 4 successes (mildly harder than average roll vs a Speed of 3).

If you, your allies, and all 3 guards are Tier 3, the guards would have 9 dice and need 5 successes (average roll vs a Speed of 3).

This is... not elegant, but it factors in changing power levels, different amounts of people on both sides, your defensive ability to evade (Speed), and ranged Skill penalties in a Melee, without actually having to tie people into points on a map. It does, however, introduce characters rolling for things outside of their turns, which was not in the game before this. Hmmm.

Thoughts?

[Maat Mons]

It reminds me of Fudge, except you use a range of 1-6 for Skills instead of 1-7. And you use a dice pool instead of always rolling 4d3-8.

Does there exist any correlation between different skills? For example, in D&D, Acrobatic and Stealth are correlated, since high Dexterity makes a character better at both, and low Dexterity makes a character worse at both.

[LecternOfJasper]

It reminds me of Fudge, except you use a range of 1-6 for Skills instead of 1-7. And you use a dice pool instead of always rolling 4d3-8.

Does there exist any correlation between different skills? For example, in D&D, Acrobatic and Stealth are correlated, since high Dexterity makes a character better at both, and low Dexterity makes a character worse at both.

Interesting, I should look at Fudge.

And no, there is not at this point. I was assuming when making the skill lists that anything worth making a separate skill ought to be distinctive enough to invest in separately. Your rating in a Skill at this point represents the total of your natural aptitude, training, hard learned lessons, and whatever else might give you an edge. I just took out the middle man, as it were.

The only problem I've found with this reasoning is that it leaves no room for people to lose whatever equipment they have baked into their skills, but that's something that I only ran into in one game, once, voluntarily, so I'm not sure if that is going to be much of a problem.

Somewhat related tangent: Magic items and such things that ought to give characters a bonus beyond their current power level could grant them an appropriate ability or two... Orcrist giving a Circumstantial Advantage against Orcs, and all that. That would be easy enough to track and is pretty flexible.

[Glimbur]

Making specializations matter but not be mandatory seems tricky. My first example is Melee: Swords (or any weapon), in a setting where you are expected to keep the same weapon or have many options when you do need to rearm it is an easy pick. Too easy. But it gets weirder than that, consider Charisma: Lying or Perception: Vision or... I think in writing enough rules to keep specializations in check you end up losing your rules lightness. I'd remove it.

[LecternOfJasper]

Making specializations matter but not be mandatory seems tricky. My first example is Melee: Swords (or any weapon), in a setting where you are expected to keep the same weapon or have many options when you do need to rearm it is an easy pick. Too easy. But it gets weirder than that, consider Charisma: Lying or Perception: Vision or... I think in writing enough rules to keep specializations in check you end up losing your rules lightness. I'd remove it.

Yeah, I was mostly thinking in terms of the D&D and Shadowrun analog when it comes to specializations, and hadn't considered if they would apply well to other settings. Notably I didn't give those two a "Perception" skill, as that is a much more narrow concept than "Awareness." "Awareness" can probably be divorced into Social and Physical or some such (or, in the latter case, Stealth or Perception/Investigation), which is are much broader categories that are likely to come up. The Melee and Charisma examples I'm mostly fine with, provided the GM's intent is to make character's specializations meaningful.

For instance, Melee: Swords is a cue for the GM to try and have at least one situation where a sword is unavailable, or to introduce a non-sword weapon that gives some sort of benefits as a trade-off.

Regarding Charisma: Lying, the GM ought to introduce situations where lying would not be as beneficial as other avenues of persuasion.

I tend to view running a game as an exercise in creating dramatic and interesting situations, and Specializations tend to add more nuance to characters and are a pretty big invitation to introduce different types of those situations. If a character specializes in Lying, making situations where lying will work well is just as important as creating situations where lying will work poorly.

In order to address this concern, I suppose a paragraph explaining this intent could be introduced. Or, similar to the Basements & Bottom-Dwellers line-up, a short list of specializations can be introduced for each skill, either as a soft guide (something like this) or a hard limit (one of these two).

Another option is adding: "Specializations should generally apply to no more than half of all possible uses of a Skill. If the other possible uses of the skill are very unlikely to come up in play (i.e. the GM has no good ideas for introducing scenarios you are NOT specialized in), the Specialization should be reconsidered or unavailable at the determination of the GM."