Concept for D6 RPG PEACH

[GrandDukeJerot]

I'm working on a kind-of steampunk setting for this right now, with either little or no magic. There will be no classes, just ability trees. Everything is based off the D6, which is to let people just raid their monopoly sets and be completely ready to play.

You have 24 Build Points to put into all 8 of your Builds. One-to one ratio on stats, and can't have higher than a 5 in any stat. When the DM calls for a test for a certain stat, you roll D6's equal to your stat value. That way, there is a drastic change in ability if you have dump stats.

Strength: Physical strength, determines how hard one hits, and general physical power issues.
Toughness: How long you can last. Determines HP, stamina, whether you flinch after being hurt.
Dexterity: How accurate you are. Determines to hit in both range and meelee, and needed for hands-on work.
Agility: How quickly you react to things. Determines evasion, turn order, and hand-eye coordination.
Intelligence: Knowledge of typical academia for the campaign. To build traps and such, a high intelligence allows one to know what they are making. In more advanced campaigns, it would determine for repair, sabotage, and maybe even programming.
Wisdom: Knowledge of experience. Street smarts, inherent knowledge of how things work. Allows one to sense liars, expect traps, and do most things that a typical civillian should know.
Senses: Sight, Hearing, Smell, Tasting. This is used to search, to track, and to notice danger before characters have to throw down.
Sociability: How well the character can get along with others. Knowing how people tick allows characters with high sociability to bluff their way through situations, and pick up important freinds.

I'll put up the feat trees I have so far later, but I have other things to do first. If you guys could tell me what you think of the idea of using D6's, that would be great.

[[FLUX]]

Is that some West End Games-style? Not that there's anything wrong with that, I like WEG, and the lowered range of results means no more "Roll 15d6; you get all 1s and 2s. You lose!" weirdness.

Also, anything involving Steampunk is inherently awesome. How much of the setting has been established?

[GrandDukeJerot]

I built it off my love for Warhammer. I didn't use any actual RPG for the template. Just bounced the concept off a freind and then put it up on here.

The idea is that there are two major empires vying for global control in a steampunk-y cold war. The Al Reich empire has developed electricity by way of the heavy thunderstorms that populate their region. The Al Lande empire has developed steam technology, which can trace its origins back to Trevor Verne who attempted to create a water evaporator to get salt quicker than through Afric trade routes.

The area is three main continents, with various subcontinents. The main continent contains the Al Lande empire which controlls a generous coastline, and has an island known as the 'Empirical Academy of Engineering'. Only the most talented steam-junkies can hope to go there, and even fewer graduate. The rest of the land is peppered with Principalities that pay large tributes to the Al Lande throne. Quick travel is the main power of this empire, as it favors air vehicles such as Dirigibles to travel.

Continent two is the territory of the Al Reich. It is plagued with thunderstorms that have given it it's technological abilities. All villages sport at least one lightning rod to protect themselves from the dangers of the sky's allmighty power. Unlike their airborne counterparts, the Al Reich use land trains and vehicles low to the ground to protect themselves from the storms. It is postulated that these vast differences in technologicial philosophies is what drives the unrest between the two nations.

The third continent is the Afric. It is covered mostly by large jungles, filled with dangerous animals and even more deadly savage tribes of cannibals. However, even through the danger, it is one of the most popular resort locations for all wealthy persons of the world.

There are many sub-continents, which are continents of their own that are so small in size compared to the main three that they are designated with the sub- suffix. Primarily among these is Walrussia, which is known for its extensive coal, oil, and iron resources that it supplies to both the major empires. It is ruled by the Iron Lord, a mysterious figure that refuses to deal directly with any of the foreign diplomats.

The technology level, beyond what is stated, is about as good as American Civil War Era weapons. In addition, the Al Lande have created the Pump Gun, a steam powered personal machine gun that sacrifices accuracy for a ridiculously large amount of shots for an infantry weapon. The Al Reich, in turn have created the Arc generator, a devestating weapon attached to a backpack generator to pump a lethal current into its target.

[GrandDukeJerot]

Okay, now I have some ideas for feat trees. The feat trees are listed in a set of abilities. At first level, you pick two, and one more at each level afterwards. They are taken in order from top to bottom, and you can't skip abilities.:

Pistol Tree:
Use Pistols - May Weild Pistols
Mobile - When using pistols, may move and shoot without penalty.
Dual Weild - May weild two pistols at a time.

Basic Pistols - 60 Feet Range (Beyond that, they are assumed to be so innacurate that they won't work.), 3d6 Damage. 6 Rounds per clip.

Engineering Tree:
Repair - Given the necescary tools and parts, may repair any non steam or electric based technology (those will be part of successive skill trees). Roll a Intelligence+Dexterity roll at DC of Dm's disgression for repair roll. If failed, it is assumed that repairer has either broken the parts, or doesn't know why it is not working, and may not try again for a day.
Sabotage - May booby-trap non steam or electric technology. Next use breaks the item, and damage is at the DM's disgression, although sabotaged weapons should deal their damage to user. Roll a Int+Dex roll. If it fails by 6 or more, the sabotage effect is resolved upon the saboteur.
Salvage - With broken equipment, may take parts from it with a roll of Wisdom+Dexterity, at a DC of the DM's Disgression.

Rifle Tree:
Use Rifles - May use Rifles
Line up - May spend both actions firing, adding two dice to the to hit roll, and one to the damage roll (aiming for kill shots).
Rapid Reload - May spend one action reloading, rather than both.

Basic Rifle - 160 Feet Range, 5d6 Damage, 10 Bullet Clip

Soldier Tree (Requires full Rifle Tree) -
Use Bayonet - May attach bayonets to Rifles
Cover Fire - May fire at a target as a special attack. Rather than dealing damage if succeding the to hit roll, the target has one less action this round than normal.
Overwhelm - In meelee, opponent has one less die on rolls to evade and to sustain, as the attacker is going on the offensive with well placed, fast blows.

Basic Bayonet - Meelee Range, 7d6 Damage. Ignores Cloth Armor.


This is all I have for now. Here's some cliff notes for combat system, to help make sense of things.

Two actions a turn, like in DnD. Everything is one action, unless stated otherwise. Distance squares are 20 Sq. Feet, which makes every diagonal square about 30 ft.

To Hit, whether range or meelee, is Senses+Dexterity dice. To Evade, is the same roll. On ranged attacks, the evadee must be aware of the shooter to successfully evade.

To Wound, is based upon weapon damage. The target's toughness is rolled opposing the damage, so damage subtracted from HP is:
To Wound Roll Result - Toughness Roll Result

After that, the wounded character must take a Sustain test. They roll toughness again. If they fail, they must spend their next turn (fully) taking it again. This continues until they pass. If this is failed, they are prone, and are considered untargetable unless in meelee.

I am planning two successor feat trees for each basic skill tree, and the basic skill trees are:

Pistols
Engineering
Rifle
Shotgun
Scoundrel
Jockey (They are the more combative version of engineering)

If anyone has ideas for progressive skill trees, feel free to contribute!

[Hazkali]

Hmm, an ambitious project, for sure. Is the purpose of the game to be able to play in the Steampunk setting, or is the setting a compliment to the game? If the former then I'd advise hammering another RPG ruleset until it resembles the game you want to play, and then roll with it from there. There's no sense diverting time and energy away from gaming designing your own system when you can do with something ready-made.

If you're actually interested in making the system, then you've gone the way of madness. Be careful of trying to make it do everything and then falling flat on its face.

Take standard D+D; it does fighting and adventuring very well (depending on personal taste, of course, but roll with me), but the economic rules leave a lot to be desired. Likewise, if you were designing Bankers and Businesses I would expect the rules for the economic systems to be well-thought-out, realistic and in-depth, but rules for hitting people with pointy bits of metal to be lacking.

The only two pieces of advice I can give are:


Get a standard grasp of probability; dice are nice and easy because each roll is independent. If you need pointers, try here (http://www.feartheboot.com/resources/28_StatisticalAnalysis.pdf) for a VERY basic overview.
Develop a good writing style. Avoid colloquialisms and chatty language; be succinct, standardised and cover as many eventualities as possible. If you need to develop your own terms, then do so, and include a glossary.

Oh, and playtest like crazy.

Also, for Thor's sake use some formatting! Bold! Italic! Underline!

Bullet Lists!


Spoilers!

[GrandDukeJerot]

I cleaned up the textwork as you suggested, Hazkali. Thank you very much for the suggestions. I am familiar with probability and statistics, it was what my Mathematics Final Project was based on last year. Hoewver, if I ever make a book for this, I will have to have a chapter on setting DC levels.

I don't actually like RP-ing too much. I've done it a few times, but I don't devote my time to it very much. The reason I got into DnD in the first place was because I was fascinated with the rules and stuff. So, call me crazy, but I want to make my own system. And then, since I know the ins and outs of it, I can truly enjoy playing it.

As for the style, this is designed to have a focus on combat, but with the extended number of attributes and little actual skill form (so far), it allows characters to easily accomplish what any single person should be able to do. For example, if you want to run a buisness, you may use a combination of Wisdom and Sociability to represent picking out the good employees, Wisdom and Intelligence to find good suppliers, Sociability and Intelligence for coming up with marketing slogans. A lot of the system rests on the shoulders of the DM.

It is Steampunk-set right now because I don't want to have to deal with magic, but the only significant difference from this setting to any other is creating a new set of skill trees. For magic, I was thinking of a mana based magic system with a more freestyle attitude to spells, but I haven't come up with any good ways of doing that.

More Skill Trees:

Shadow Tree: (Must have completed Rifle Tree First)
Use Scopes - May attach scopes to rifles.
Prone Shot - When opponents are prone due to failing sustain rolls, you may target them.
Blend In - In combat, may blend in using cover. Roll a combined Dexterity and Senses roll. Opponents attempting to hit you must beat your result on a combined roll of their Wisdom and Senses attributes.

Basic Scope - Scopes modify the rifle's line up ability. When used with the Line Up ability, the Basic Scope changes the to hit bonus to 3 dice and the to wound bonus to 2 dice. It also increases the range to 200 feet.

Shotgun Tree:
Use Shotguns - May use Shotguns.
Charge - May move and shoot without penalty.
Stock Bash - In meelee while weilding a shotgun, may add 2 dice to the strength of any to wound rolls.

Bruiser Tree: (Must have completed Shotgun Tree)
High Constitution - May add 2 dice to any sustain rolls.
Berzerk - In close combat, may add 1 die to each roll for every attack they are making this turn. (For example, if the character uses both actions to attack, he adds two dice to his to hit rolls, and to his to wound rolls)
Shrug Off - Once per day, when the character is facing damage that would reduce them to 0 HP or less, they are reduced to 1 HP instead.

[GrandDukeJerot]

And so I return!

After a while off, I decided to return to this project, finish it, then get a playtest set running before school starts again. So, to start if off, I just want to consolidate the basic classes into one post.

Skill Trees


Engineering

Description: The Engineer is the building block of society. Basic machinery, metallurgy, chemistry and physics are ingrained into these scholars of technology from an early age. In a world driven by developments and research, even the most common man must pick up a little of these concepts.
Engineering Tree:
Repair - Given the necescary tools and parts, may repair any common technology (no steam or electricity). Roll a Intelligence+Dexterity roll at DC of Dm's disgression for repair roll. If failed, it is assumed that repairer has either broken the parts, or doesn't know why it is not working, and may not try again for a day.
Sabotage - May booby-trap common technology. Next use breaks the item, and damage is at the DM's disgression, although sabotaged weapons should deal their damage to user. Roll a Int+Dex roll. If it fails the roll by 6 or more, the sabotage effect is resolved upon the saboteur.
Salvage - With broken equipment, may take parts from it with a roll of Wisdom+Dexterity, at a DC of the DM's Disgression.



Rifle Use
Description: The most common weapon on the market is the rifle. It may not be as quick and easy to use as a pistol, or as devestating as a Steam Gun or an Arc Cannon, but it gets the job done. Most military services utilize the reasonable range of this long barreled weapon.

Use Rifles - May use Rifles without the penalty for non-proficiency.
Line up - May spend both actions firing, adding two dice to the to hit roll, and one to the damage roll (aiming for kill shots).
Rapid Reload - May spend one action reloading, rather than both.
The Rifle:
The standard rifle has:

160 Foot Range
5d6 Damage
A clip of 10 shots, which takes both actions in a turn to reload.



Pistol

Description: Pistols are the clear everyday use weapon. Perfect for personal protection, they are designed for close quarters. Best of all, they are quick to draw, meaning that it will be difficult for an opponent to get the drop on you.

Pistol Tree:
Use Pistols - May Weild Pistols without penalty.
Mobile - When using pistols, may move and shoot without penalty.
Dual Weild - May weild two pistols at a time.

Basic Pistols - 60 Feet Range (Beyond that, they are assumed to be so innacurate that they won't work.), 3d6 Damage. 6 Rounds per clip.

I'll add in the rest later, but I've got some other work to do.