Magic Sytem and Other RPG building things

[Thatwarforged]

Read. Before you sit down to write your own RPG, you should read (and, ideally, try) a number of other systems, just to see what's out there. D&D is only one way of doing things. Look at hings like Fate (available as a pay-what-you-will), GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds (available as an SRD), Savage Worlds ($10 for a paperback; quickplay rules available), at least one White Wolf Storyteller-based game (Exalted, Vampire: The Masquerade, etc-- you might try to look at both New and Old World of Darkness books. I know there's at least one free nWoD quickstart adventure out there)... anything, really, especially if the rules look really different from those you know. The more sources you can draw on for inspiration, the better.

Also, when you're done with your reading, build the basic mechanics first. It took me four drafts of STaRS to get the core elements right; I imagine that you'll face a similar experience. Make sure the game flows properly before you worry about the exact numbers, make sure the numbers scale properly before you write core rules, make sure the core rules for combat and skills and such work before you start writing actual abilities and spells and such.


3d6 will have a strong bell curve. Almost fifty percent of rolls will be between 9 and 12. Extend that up to 8-13, and you're talking two thirds of all rolls. Modifiers will have a much larger impact than in a 1d20 system like D&D. On the plus side, you can make pretty reasonable assumptions about rolls:

• You have a 90% chance of rolling 7 or more
• You have a 75% chance of rolling 9 or more
• You have a 50% chance of rolling 11 or more
• You have a 25% chance of rolling 13 or more
• You have a 10% chance of rolling 15 or more

Does that help?

This does help to some degrees, After this I found a possible roll chart for a 3D6 system and calculated the exact percentages of rolling what. I have read savage worlds (Though I'm not that impressed with it), I've read a bit of GURPs but its a bit of a lot to take in. I have personally played D&D 3.5 and 4e, D6 System, Dark Heresy, Big Eyes, Small Mouth and Dragon Age Set one. If that helps with any suggestions you can make.

The Spheres of Power system might work for this, it separates the magic into different schools of magic and it should be able to replicate your different forms of magic through it's Spellcasting Traditions system.

The only downsides I see is that Spheres of Power is not free, and the elemental schools (such as Air) are separated into Destruction, Nature, and Weather.

I will have to look in Used book stores then. Thank you.



One thing I've been thinking of is a Skill system, This is what I have so far tell me what you think of it and be honest.
When you make a skill check roll 3D6 + ability + Skill boost + any relevant Perks. Roll additional D6 equal to the skill boost, you can replace one of your Die rolls with one of the Die roll from your skill boost, that die roll cannot be the Wild Die. Your skill boost is the ranks you have which are (0-5 for average games, but can be extended to 0-9 for high leveled games).
For Example: Cedrick is a great scout and is a Journeyman (2) in Stealth, he is hiding in the Woods from orc raiders. He rolls a Stealth check and has a 2 in his dexterity and no stealth perks, so he rolls his stealth check (3D6 + 2 dex, +2 stealth boost) he also rolls an additional 2D6. He rolls a 3 on his wild die and 4 and a 2 on his other die, His two skill die is a 3 and 1. He decides to replace his 2 on his normal roll for his 3. His total being 14 (10 from his roll and +4 from his ability and skill boost), he succeed on avoiding detection.