Skjaldbakka
2008-04-29, 01:18 AM
Alright, so I was looking at this system, which is designed for running a game in middle earth. Here is a link (http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/legends-of-middle-earth) to the system, which is Free. My goal is to divorce it from the setting, so it can be used as a universal system, and to also give it some more crunch.
Task Resolution
For those who don't want to read through that, here is the basics of the system mechanics. There are a number of skills, which all start at 8, barring racial modifiers. A variable number of d6s is rolled, and the goal is to roll under your skill. The number of dice rolled is determined by the difficulty of the task, which typically range from 1 (easy) to 6 (really hard).
There are two types of rolls, tests and contests. A test has a difficulty set by the storyteller, and an example of a test might be climbing a tree with Athletics.
A contest is essentially an opposed skill check. The initiator determines the starting difficulty, and then rolls. If he fails, he fails. If he succeeds, the defender rolls his applicable skill at the same difficulty, or chooses to roll at a higher difficulty. This continues until one fails, thus determining the victor. An example of this would be trying to convince someone to do something they wouldn't normally do, likely with the Friendship or Intimidate skill (opposed by Willpower, typically).
OK, so that covers basic task resolution. Roll Xd6, with X being the difficulty of the task, on a scale of 1-6. The goal is to roll under your skill level.
Combat
Now on to combat. Here is where I think some changes are needed to make this system work. As written, combat is a contest, and the loser of the contest must then pass a stamina roll (difficulty equal to the failed combat roll), or be 'defeated', defeated typically meaning slain for an extra, or wounded for a named character, grievously enough to be out of the fight, at the least.
Here is my revision to the combat rules. Initiative is determined arbitrarily, since I haven't worked out a good system for that yet.
On your turn, you roll an attack roll, which is either melee or archery, unless you are doing something unusual. It would be a ride roll to trample someone while on horseback, for example. You set the difficulty of the roll, which represents how skillful/powerful an attack you make. If you succeed, you score a hit, and the target must roll a stamina roll at the same difficulty, or take a wound. Most extras are defeated if they take a wound, but named npcs and pcs can take multiple wounds. I will cover that system later.
If you are subjected to a successful attack, you may give up your next action to attempt to defend yourself in some way. You make a roll of an appropriate skill at the same difficulty that the attacker's roll was made at. If you succeed, you evade the attack. You can evade multiple attacks in a turn, but you are at a penalty for doing so. I haven't gone over bonuses and penalties and other modifiers yet, but I will later. One might use Acrobatics to leap out of the way of an attack, or Melee to parry, or Ride to guide your mount away from the attack, for example. In a particularly dramatic game, you might even use Intimidate to stare down your opponent, ruining their attack. It is generally encouraged that you be flexible in terms of what skill can be used here.
Death and Dying
On to wounds for PCs and named NPCs. When a character takes a wound, he must make a second stamina roll, with a difficulty equal to the total wounds taken (including the current one). If he fails, he is mortally wounded, and incurs an additional wound immediately, and is unable to take any actions. He may or may not be able to move or speak, or be conscious, depending what is dramatically appropriate, but any action that requires a roll automatically fails.
A mortally wounded character must make an additional stamina roll every round, with a difficulty equal to the number of wounds he has taken. If he fails, he incurs an additional wound, and must roll again the next round. If he succeeds, he stabilizes, for the moment. He is still considered to be mortally wounded, and can still not take any actions that require a roll. If he is still left untreated, he must make another roll in one minute. If he fails that roll, he takes a wound, and must begin rolling again every round. If he passes that roll, he does not need to roll again for another hour. If he fails that roll, he takes a wound and must roll again every round. If he passes that roll, he recovers one wound, and must roll again every hour, either failing and taking an additional wound (and starting over), or recovering a wound. He is no longer considered mortally wounded once he passes three consecutive hourly healing rolls.
Characters with a wound take a penalty equal to the number of wounds, except on stamina rolls to resist bleeding out (as that is already included above).
A character is dead when he is mortally wounded and his number of wounds exceeds his stamina (as it is then impossible for him to succeed on his stamina roll to resist bleeding out).
Recovery
Ok, so I've covered how damage is dealt, and how one can bleed to death. how do you recover a wound. First is natural healing. You can make one natural healing roll for every hour of rest, which is a stamina roll, with a difficulty equal to the total number of wounds taken. If successful, you recover one wound.
Second, an appropriate skill roll can be made to tend a character's wounds. One roll can be made per round to stabilize a bleeding out character, at a difficulty equal to the number of wounds. Once successful, the character no longer has to make rolls to resist bleeding out, as long as you continue to tend his wounds. You must continue to care for the mortally wounded character for at least one hour, and the target receives a bonus on his stamina roll to recover a wound. If he succeeds, he is no longer mortally wounded. If he fails, you must make an additional skill roll as he starts to bleed out again.
Thirdly, spells and magic can be used, with varying degrees of potency depending on the magic/science level of the setting. In Middle Earth, a spells roll can be used as an appropriate skill to tend a subjects wounds, and a successful roll recovers a wound after an hour of treatment, unless the wound was of a particularly grievous nature (such as the Morgul blade). A Magic roll would immediately recover one wound, and completely heal the target after an hour with a successful roll and the expenditure of a story token (again, except for wounds from exceptional sources, such as the Morgul blade).
Skills
Skills in this system are broken down into three groups, Prowess, representing physical skills, Bearing, representing mostly social skills, and Lore, representing knowledge and trade skills.
Prowess:
Acrobatics
Alertness
Archery
Athletics
Melee
Riding
Sneaking
Stamina
Bearing:
Deceit
Friendship
Intimidation
Leadership
Magic
Rhetoric
Truth
Willpower
Lore
Art
Beasts
Craft
Regional lore
Performance
Spells
Survival
Tradeskill
I don't really agree with how all the skills are matched up, but that is the as-currently written skills. Notably lacking is any kind of medical skill, aside from possibly tradeskill (doctor).
Story Tokens
A character begins the game with a certain number of story tokens, based on their race and class. A hobbit for example gets 4 story tokens. I will be adding a system for designing classes and races, and one of the tradeoffs for a more powerful race/class is to start with less story tokens.
Story tokens refresh at the beginning of every game session, or, in the case of a marathon 18 hour game, every 3-5 hours or so.
A story token can be used in the following ways:
-Rerolling a failed skill check.
-Dramatic Editting. You can spend a story token to alter a small detail about a scene. This is up to the storyteller's discretion. For example, if you returned to a town to find it burnt to the ground, you could spend a story token for their to be a small group of survivors that made it to a safe place, perhaps with a specific NPC from the town amongst them.
-Uses of the Magic skill. The Magic skill is used to perform truly wondrous and powerful effects, and its use requires a story token, or possibly more, if you are using weak magic, such as Elven magic in the core rules.
Spells and Magic
There are two skills in this setting that pertain to the use of magic, or, in some settings, advanced science. In some settings, the spells skill should be re-named science, and the magic skill might be re-named psionics, or super-science, or heck, even technobabble.
The Spells skill represents having a special knowledge of how the universe 'really works'. To those who aren't privy to this information, what you do seems like magic, but it really isn't. For example, in the middle earth setting, words really do have power, and so weapons ensorcelled with runes and speaking the right words to open a sealed door would all be the Spells skill (although Crafts is also involved in making weapons, and magical weapons involve Crafts, Arts, and Spells, and possibly also Magic, depending on what you are doing, which I will get to later).
Similarly, in say, Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, throwing a fireball with 'magic' is something that makes perfect sense to someone who knows how. Speak the right words, and make certain passes with your hands, while holding the right components, and certain effects happen in a predictable manner.
The Magic skill is used for much more potent effects, that is beyond the purview of the Spells skill. In Middle Earth, the forging of the One Ring would have involved the Magic skill, as would Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff, turning pinecones into fiery missiles, and shattering the bridge in Moria.
Now a look at the mechanics of these two skills. First, use of the Magic skill always requires a story token. If you are using weaker magic, it requires two story tokens for any task with a base dice of 4 or more. The spells skill does not.
The Spells skill should be able to do the following tasks:
-Grant a bonus to another skill roll. The difficulty of this roll is equal to the difficulty of the skill roll to be given the bonus, plus the amount of bonus desired. So, to give a bonus to a difficulty 3 skill roll is a difficulty 4 Spells roll, and to give a bonus of two would be a difficulty 5 Spells roll. This is generally the same action as the skill to be boosted, but not always, and typically requires the ability to speak magic words, make strange gestures, or access to components. This can be used to give a bonus to a Magic skill roll as well.
-When setting appropriate, be used for some form of magical attack. A attack using the Spells skill will always allow the target to resist, without forfeiting their next action to do so, and without a penalty to future rolls to avoid an attack. A wizard casting a fireball would be rolling Spells to hit, and the opponent would likely use Acrobatics to dodge (or possibly Spells to use a counterspell).
An attack spell that can effect multiple targets should have a penalty based on the area it effects, or on the number it effects, if it effects multiple targets without hitting an 'area'.
-More as they come to mind.
The following effects are the purview of Magic:
-Replacing another skill roll with a Magic roll, especially Prowess skills.
-Making a magical attack. An attack made with the magic skill does not allow any defense except with the Magic skill, or with the Spells skill at a penalty. Defending against Magic with Magic requires a story token, as with any other use of Magic.
-Dramatic and powerful effects, such as stopping time.
With dramatic uses of Magic, the sky is the limit. The storyteller assigns a difficulty based on how powerful the effect is. If you want to call down a meteor to destroy the planet, that is probably going to have a pretty high difficulty, possibly in the 7 or 8 range. Magical effects with a difficulty of 8 or higher require an additional story token per 4 difficulties above 4. With weaker magic, an extra story token is required for magic with a difficulty of 4 or higher.
Character Creation
1) Determine whether or not you have access to magic, and whether you have Magic or "Weaker Magic". If you have access to Magic, you receive 2 story tokens, if you have access to Weaker Magic, you receive 3 story tokens. If you do not have magic, you receive 4 story tokens.
2) Assign Skills. You may assign a +2 to any 10 skills. You may select one skill which you can take three times (+6), and two skills which you may take two times (+4). You may take a -2 penalty on two skills in the same group to get an extra +2 to assign as normal.
3) Spend starting advancement levels (usually two).
Glossary
Base Dice: the number of dice rolled before bonuses and penalties are applied. In a contested roll or in combat, the base dice is the number of dice your opponent must roll, before his modifiers.
Bonus: Every bonus you have on a roll removes a die from your roll (before the roll is made). Expressed as a bonus or bonuses on the roll. (i.e. you are at a bonus to this roll, or at a bonus of two to this roll).
Penalty: Every penalty you have on a roll adds a die to your roll. Expressed as apenalty or penalties on the roll.(i.e. you are at a penalty to this roll, or at a penalty of two to this roll).
Modifier: Certain items increase or decrease your actual skill (in my version of the rules, not in the core rules). Expressed as +/- X to a skill. (i.e. the crossbow gives a +2 to the user's archery skill)
Level: Some advancements reference a level of the advancement. An advancements level is equal to the number of points in the advancement.
Increment: Some advancements reference increments. Increments are the levels at which an advancement gives additional benefit. The increments use a mathematical function I don't recall the name of:
1/3/6/10/15/21/28/36/45/55/66/78/...
Task Resolution
For those who don't want to read through that, here is the basics of the system mechanics. There are a number of skills, which all start at 8, barring racial modifiers. A variable number of d6s is rolled, and the goal is to roll under your skill. The number of dice rolled is determined by the difficulty of the task, which typically range from 1 (easy) to 6 (really hard).
There are two types of rolls, tests and contests. A test has a difficulty set by the storyteller, and an example of a test might be climbing a tree with Athletics.
A contest is essentially an opposed skill check. The initiator determines the starting difficulty, and then rolls. If he fails, he fails. If he succeeds, the defender rolls his applicable skill at the same difficulty, or chooses to roll at a higher difficulty. This continues until one fails, thus determining the victor. An example of this would be trying to convince someone to do something they wouldn't normally do, likely with the Friendship or Intimidate skill (opposed by Willpower, typically).
OK, so that covers basic task resolution. Roll Xd6, with X being the difficulty of the task, on a scale of 1-6. The goal is to roll under your skill level.
Combat
Now on to combat. Here is where I think some changes are needed to make this system work. As written, combat is a contest, and the loser of the contest must then pass a stamina roll (difficulty equal to the failed combat roll), or be 'defeated', defeated typically meaning slain for an extra, or wounded for a named character, grievously enough to be out of the fight, at the least.
Here is my revision to the combat rules. Initiative is determined arbitrarily, since I haven't worked out a good system for that yet.
On your turn, you roll an attack roll, which is either melee or archery, unless you are doing something unusual. It would be a ride roll to trample someone while on horseback, for example. You set the difficulty of the roll, which represents how skillful/powerful an attack you make. If you succeed, you score a hit, and the target must roll a stamina roll at the same difficulty, or take a wound. Most extras are defeated if they take a wound, but named npcs and pcs can take multiple wounds. I will cover that system later.
If you are subjected to a successful attack, you may give up your next action to attempt to defend yourself in some way. You make a roll of an appropriate skill at the same difficulty that the attacker's roll was made at. If you succeed, you evade the attack. You can evade multiple attacks in a turn, but you are at a penalty for doing so. I haven't gone over bonuses and penalties and other modifiers yet, but I will later. One might use Acrobatics to leap out of the way of an attack, or Melee to parry, or Ride to guide your mount away from the attack, for example. In a particularly dramatic game, you might even use Intimidate to stare down your opponent, ruining their attack. It is generally encouraged that you be flexible in terms of what skill can be used here.
Death and Dying
On to wounds for PCs and named NPCs. When a character takes a wound, he must make a second stamina roll, with a difficulty equal to the total wounds taken (including the current one). If he fails, he is mortally wounded, and incurs an additional wound immediately, and is unable to take any actions. He may or may not be able to move or speak, or be conscious, depending what is dramatically appropriate, but any action that requires a roll automatically fails.
A mortally wounded character must make an additional stamina roll every round, with a difficulty equal to the number of wounds he has taken. If he fails, he incurs an additional wound, and must roll again the next round. If he succeeds, he stabilizes, for the moment. He is still considered to be mortally wounded, and can still not take any actions that require a roll. If he is still left untreated, he must make another roll in one minute. If he fails that roll, he takes a wound, and must begin rolling again every round. If he passes that roll, he does not need to roll again for another hour. If he fails that roll, he takes a wound and must roll again every round. If he passes that roll, he recovers one wound, and must roll again every hour, either failing and taking an additional wound (and starting over), or recovering a wound. He is no longer considered mortally wounded once he passes three consecutive hourly healing rolls.
Characters with a wound take a penalty equal to the number of wounds, except on stamina rolls to resist bleeding out (as that is already included above).
A character is dead when he is mortally wounded and his number of wounds exceeds his stamina (as it is then impossible for him to succeed on his stamina roll to resist bleeding out).
Recovery
Ok, so I've covered how damage is dealt, and how one can bleed to death. how do you recover a wound. First is natural healing. You can make one natural healing roll for every hour of rest, which is a stamina roll, with a difficulty equal to the total number of wounds taken. If successful, you recover one wound.
Second, an appropriate skill roll can be made to tend a character's wounds. One roll can be made per round to stabilize a bleeding out character, at a difficulty equal to the number of wounds. Once successful, the character no longer has to make rolls to resist bleeding out, as long as you continue to tend his wounds. You must continue to care for the mortally wounded character for at least one hour, and the target receives a bonus on his stamina roll to recover a wound. If he succeeds, he is no longer mortally wounded. If he fails, you must make an additional skill roll as he starts to bleed out again.
Thirdly, spells and magic can be used, with varying degrees of potency depending on the magic/science level of the setting. In Middle Earth, a spells roll can be used as an appropriate skill to tend a subjects wounds, and a successful roll recovers a wound after an hour of treatment, unless the wound was of a particularly grievous nature (such as the Morgul blade). A Magic roll would immediately recover one wound, and completely heal the target after an hour with a successful roll and the expenditure of a story token (again, except for wounds from exceptional sources, such as the Morgul blade).
Skills
Skills in this system are broken down into three groups, Prowess, representing physical skills, Bearing, representing mostly social skills, and Lore, representing knowledge and trade skills.
Prowess:
Acrobatics
Alertness
Archery
Athletics
Melee
Riding
Sneaking
Stamina
Bearing:
Deceit
Friendship
Intimidation
Leadership
Magic
Rhetoric
Truth
Willpower
Lore
Art
Beasts
Craft
Regional lore
Performance
Spells
Survival
Tradeskill
I don't really agree with how all the skills are matched up, but that is the as-currently written skills. Notably lacking is any kind of medical skill, aside from possibly tradeskill (doctor).
Story Tokens
A character begins the game with a certain number of story tokens, based on their race and class. A hobbit for example gets 4 story tokens. I will be adding a system for designing classes and races, and one of the tradeoffs for a more powerful race/class is to start with less story tokens.
Story tokens refresh at the beginning of every game session, or, in the case of a marathon 18 hour game, every 3-5 hours or so.
A story token can be used in the following ways:
-Rerolling a failed skill check.
-Dramatic Editting. You can spend a story token to alter a small detail about a scene. This is up to the storyteller's discretion. For example, if you returned to a town to find it burnt to the ground, you could spend a story token for their to be a small group of survivors that made it to a safe place, perhaps with a specific NPC from the town amongst them.
-Uses of the Magic skill. The Magic skill is used to perform truly wondrous and powerful effects, and its use requires a story token, or possibly more, if you are using weak magic, such as Elven magic in the core rules.
Spells and Magic
There are two skills in this setting that pertain to the use of magic, or, in some settings, advanced science. In some settings, the spells skill should be re-named science, and the magic skill might be re-named psionics, or super-science, or heck, even technobabble.
The Spells skill represents having a special knowledge of how the universe 'really works'. To those who aren't privy to this information, what you do seems like magic, but it really isn't. For example, in the middle earth setting, words really do have power, and so weapons ensorcelled with runes and speaking the right words to open a sealed door would all be the Spells skill (although Crafts is also involved in making weapons, and magical weapons involve Crafts, Arts, and Spells, and possibly also Magic, depending on what you are doing, which I will get to later).
Similarly, in say, Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, throwing a fireball with 'magic' is something that makes perfect sense to someone who knows how. Speak the right words, and make certain passes with your hands, while holding the right components, and certain effects happen in a predictable manner.
The Magic skill is used for much more potent effects, that is beyond the purview of the Spells skill. In Middle Earth, the forging of the One Ring would have involved the Magic skill, as would Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff, turning pinecones into fiery missiles, and shattering the bridge in Moria.
Now a look at the mechanics of these two skills. First, use of the Magic skill always requires a story token. If you are using weaker magic, it requires two story tokens for any task with a base dice of 4 or more. The spells skill does not.
The Spells skill should be able to do the following tasks:
-Grant a bonus to another skill roll. The difficulty of this roll is equal to the difficulty of the skill roll to be given the bonus, plus the amount of bonus desired. So, to give a bonus to a difficulty 3 skill roll is a difficulty 4 Spells roll, and to give a bonus of two would be a difficulty 5 Spells roll. This is generally the same action as the skill to be boosted, but not always, and typically requires the ability to speak magic words, make strange gestures, or access to components. This can be used to give a bonus to a Magic skill roll as well.
-When setting appropriate, be used for some form of magical attack. A attack using the Spells skill will always allow the target to resist, without forfeiting their next action to do so, and without a penalty to future rolls to avoid an attack. A wizard casting a fireball would be rolling Spells to hit, and the opponent would likely use Acrobatics to dodge (or possibly Spells to use a counterspell).
An attack spell that can effect multiple targets should have a penalty based on the area it effects, or on the number it effects, if it effects multiple targets without hitting an 'area'.
-More as they come to mind.
The following effects are the purview of Magic:
-Replacing another skill roll with a Magic roll, especially Prowess skills.
-Making a magical attack. An attack made with the magic skill does not allow any defense except with the Magic skill, or with the Spells skill at a penalty. Defending against Magic with Magic requires a story token, as with any other use of Magic.
-Dramatic and powerful effects, such as stopping time.
With dramatic uses of Magic, the sky is the limit. The storyteller assigns a difficulty based on how powerful the effect is. If you want to call down a meteor to destroy the planet, that is probably going to have a pretty high difficulty, possibly in the 7 or 8 range. Magical effects with a difficulty of 8 or higher require an additional story token per 4 difficulties above 4. With weaker magic, an extra story token is required for magic with a difficulty of 4 or higher.
Character Creation
1) Determine whether or not you have access to magic, and whether you have Magic or "Weaker Magic". If you have access to Magic, you receive 2 story tokens, if you have access to Weaker Magic, you receive 3 story tokens. If you do not have magic, you receive 4 story tokens.
2) Assign Skills. You may assign a +2 to any 10 skills. You may select one skill which you can take three times (+6), and two skills which you may take two times (+4). You may take a -2 penalty on two skills in the same group to get an extra +2 to assign as normal.
3) Spend starting advancement levels (usually two).
Glossary
Base Dice: the number of dice rolled before bonuses and penalties are applied. In a contested roll or in combat, the base dice is the number of dice your opponent must roll, before his modifiers.
Bonus: Every bonus you have on a roll removes a die from your roll (before the roll is made). Expressed as a bonus or bonuses on the roll. (i.e. you are at a bonus to this roll, or at a bonus of two to this roll).
Penalty: Every penalty you have on a roll adds a die to your roll. Expressed as apenalty or penalties on the roll.(i.e. you are at a penalty to this roll, or at a penalty of two to this roll).
Modifier: Certain items increase or decrease your actual skill (in my version of the rules, not in the core rules). Expressed as +/- X to a skill. (i.e. the crossbow gives a +2 to the user's archery skill)
Level: Some advancements reference a level of the advancement. An advancements level is equal to the number of points in the advancement.
Increment: Some advancements reference increments. Increments are the levels at which an advancement gives additional benefit. The increments use a mathematical function I don't recall the name of:
1/3/6/10/15/21/28/36/45/55/66/78/...