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Let's Build [Crystal Pirates]: Getting Classly with Class Building!
Grunt's Ghosts
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Critical Failures Presents A Collection of Insane Ideas Because We Are Never Satisfied Tabletop Roleplaying Game To Destroy DnD Next
Hmm... Not sure what to call this. For now, let's just call it
Crystal Pirates
What Is This?
We all have our dream game. Where the math works out, the rules are simple, no class outclasses the other class or feels left behind (I got your back, Bard.) A game so perfect we will play this game when our bodies have died off and we are just a digital imprint of ourselves floating on the Cloud. And since a certain gaming franchise doesn't seem to care if we dislike their cash cow because the name will sell it, I believe we should build our own. We talk about what we want to see in a fantasy game, how we think it could run better. Maybe it's time to put our money were our mouth is (not literally, of course) and show them what we really want.
What We Really Want
That's the million dollar question. What do we want? DnD 4.5 Edition? Something with a AP/Mana system? Something with less dice? More Dice? No Dice? Sword and Sorcery or something more general that could be turned into anything? That's the point of this thread; to brainstorm, debate, argue, cry, say things we didn't mean, vote, then be super-pissed our idea didn't make the cut. What would make your fantasy gaming group wet their beards and make their wands stand hard?
Let us discuss what we want and build it. How will we do this? First we need to come up with what we want. Since the idea comes from the discussion from the DnD Next thread, I'd figure we might do a Sword and Sorcery game that's grid combat centered. But if the majority wants something different, I'm more than willing to head that way. After that, we need to decide on what kind of system are we using. d20, Cortex, Fate, hybrid of two or more systems in a crazy Frankenstein way, something never seen before? I think once we get those two things down then we will have the foundation of what we are working with.
Most things will be put to a vote if we have two or more conflicting ideas, but remember that we are trying to make something that works with everything so if an idea is so far out there it would be too hard or impossible to integrate into the project without doing major reworking of everything, then it won't be used, or might be dumb down, or stripped and only small parts are used.
So what kind of game do you guys want to work on?
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Theme: Age of Piracy (Boats, The Sea, Pirates, etc.)
Name: Crystal Pirates (Work In Progress)
System: Fudge Dice
Abilities: Cunning, Agility, Physique, Presence
Needs to be completed/discussed about:
Skills (?????)
Limit of spellcasters How many, how powerful, how useful, ect.
Level Curve
Classes (How will they work?)
Tech Level (no idea about this tbh; do we discuss what kind of technological prowess the setting has?)
Momentum resource for martial fighters. Mana/Concentration for Spellcasters/Gunners.
Actions (What are considered cross class actions? What are considered class specific actions?)
On the table at the moment (discussions):
Auralynx's Map (sweet map btw).
Background setting (aka History of the realm)
...I'm nearing a playable state of my XCOM game that is feeling more and more like D&D.
But I don't think that's everybody's dream game.
For example, make a game that tries to be a fantasy dungeon crawler and nothing else. To start. And then you can grow out from there, if you want. Or see if it can be swapped to cover other settings.
Trying to start with a system that can handle everything under the sun seems a bit overly ambitious to me, but that is just my two cents.
So, I am not suggesting anything in particular yet but, I feel like it would be better to start focused, rather than general.
Of course, that means taking the design goals of Next as our own and determining what that means.
We've got the standard fantasy, D&D esque, dungeon crawl. Bog standard, but, there is a reason why it is the standard.
Sword and Sandals, that is to say, an ancient Roman setting. Romans are cool! Seems to be an underused setting.
The Wild West! Pretty much embodies the spirit of adventure, the problem is dealing with guns and combat. Certainly doable, but, just a whole different ball of wax from swords.
Cyberpunk future. Pretty much all the rage these days. Nice because your creativity can go nuts. But, sort of inherently complicated if you want to get into meat space and cyber space, especially at the same time.
Napoleonic. Okay, I am putting this one here just because I love the Napoleonic period. But, really, when I think of this I just think of a pen and paper game that is more focused on things like court life than combat. Which I think is an idea totally worth exploring.
Or perhaps I completely invented setting, I don't know. This as just off the top of my head. What's kicking around in the heads of you guys?
Firefly is "The Rugged West Vs. The Urban East, but in space."
Battlestar Galactica is "Robot Uprising, but they won, and the story is about what happens after."
So for the example given of Pirates, how about this?
"Pirates...but underground in a vast network of endless caverns."
Followed shortly by pirates, but the ocean is the sky.
So, sand ships or skies of arcadia, really, :P
It would be like Aladdin meets Pirates of the Caribbean.
I also like the "magic is science" idea. But that seems like something steampunk.
Edit: Or I can refresh and see Inquisitor has already said it.
It doesn't have to be steampunk. You can get glimpses of a semi-scientific approach to magic, or more commonly the shattered wreckage of one, in a lot of Michael Moorcock's work (as well as at least one take on the sufficiently advanced technology deal in his End Of Time stories). Magiscience could also lend itself well to other very-high fantasy settings: do you really think a castle made of permanent ice that casts rainbows in the sunlight happened by accident or because of one guy?
For example, I've had story worlds where magic is basically something that normal living things can tap into, which allows them to assert and magnify (or focus) force. Items thus have to be powered up by living things, while spiritual creatures like demons and spirits can't produce their own magic, and instead have to draw it from mortal creatures, but their ability to manipulate it is far more efficient, leading to demon pacts and so forth.
You can eventually turn that into rune-mechas, sure, but history has to get to that point first.
I had it were dwarves were masterwork craftsmen whose machines and runes were second to none but expensive and goblins built similar machines, but with spare junk and those machines would work, but also had a chance of malfunction and explode (or worst). Orcs were no longer a stupid race that was all "WARG" but were more like the Mongols who raid small towns and skyships (or trains, autowagons A.K.A cars, and seaships) and used Goblins to build their war machines. More war smarts than anything else, but a rare few could work with them.
Most people lived in grand cities, which would lend itself to a number of stories, from dirty street crimes to high noble drama, and outside those cities is a wild west feel (Much like Felix Gilman's Half Man World).
So far it seems we are thinking this:
Pirates but in X (sand sea, sky, underground, ect.)
Magic is a Science
I'd like to hear more thoughts since we just started about what kind of game this should be.
I guess I see your point. But I like the idea of getting a sense of what kind of game, in this case so far pirates which tells us fast pace combat, a lot of moving, jumping, and using the environment (like you see in PoC or Assassin Creed: Black Flag), so getting a general sense of the setting would determine what kind of system you want. We know we want combat, navel combat even. We want magic, so far used in as a science. Magic will have to be just a fast and flowing as melee combat so magic users aren't just standing around firing spells while everyone is playing Dodgeball around them.
I like where you are coming from. So let me ask, what kind of system do you believe would best fit a fast pace freeflowing combat system? And allow collaborative navel combat?
But I do think that we have enough of an idea of what kind of game we will be doing. Something with fast paced combat, lots of movement, some sort of science magic. Naval battles. I think we are at the point Aegeri is talking about, which is what system do we want.
I'd like combat to be fast, but with dept. I might be a bit bias but the momentum system I talked about in the Next thread seems perfect for this kind of setting. Gain momentum from swinging into combat, doing rolls to dodge attacks, keeping momentum, attacking leads into new, stronger attacks at a cost of momentum. That was talking about using a d20 system. I'm not sure if that would capture the spirit of what we are doing (fast combat) but then again, we don't have to use WotC/DnD d20 system either.
Do we want grids? I think yes, but I also like Hex grids because of the way it opens up your options of movement, the way it better represents circles, and since ships don't turn on a dime, it would make ship movement more realistic. Thoughts?
Spelljammer.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
What if we didn't make separate attack and movement actions?
What if we had a pool of say stamina which each turn was assigned into either attacking or moving?
The idea would be along the lines of some sort of resource where each point gives you either a movement bonus or an attack bonus. At a basic level, an attack point would give you a to hit and damage bonus, whereas a movement point would give you a hex of movement and a reflex defense bonus.
On top of this, there would also be some sort of flexibility character trait that determines how quickly you can move these points between these categories. So you might be someone with a large stamina pool but can only change between movement and attack categories at one point a turn, whereas someone with half the pool might be able to do as they please with their points. These would be a high stamina low flexibility class/toon, and a low stamina high flexibility character.
Or even, have both points increase attack and defense but only to their own stats. The attack resource we'll call martial, and the movement resource we'll call momentum (aka unexpected).
So an attack point would give you extra defense against a martial attack and would give you extra to hit against the opponents martial defense. A martial attack would also deal more damage than a momentum attack.
A movement point would give you a hex of movement, extra defense against a movement attack (opportunity attacks would likely be movement attacks) and extra to hit on movement attacks. Movement attacks would deal less damage than a martial attack, if any, but would do interesting things such as charge pushing attacks, knocking prone, etc. Things that require dexterity to pull off.
There would also be a called attacks which allow a character to stow their martial points for the turn and then use these to counter the next attack that gets thrown at them. If it's a martial attack, nothing changes. The person who stored their power unleashes their attack first against the martial defense of their opponent, whilst the opponent then gets to attack with their martial attack next on the defender's martial defense. But if it's a momentum attack, then the defender still gets to throw their martial attack at the opponent, but at their momentum defense instead. And likewise the attacker's momentum attack then fires but on the defender's martial defense.
The idea here is, once you're 5 on 1 you don't want the last enemy being able to constantly heckle everyone to death or at least, so anyone who has space to concentrate can temporarily turn the tables, and thus encircle and restrict the last guy that way.
As for when you can attack, you can attack at any point during your movement. Depending on the movement attack, momentum attacks generally like movement, so they can only generally be used after some portion of the turn's movement quota has been used. There would possibly be momentum attacks that initiate movement but would consume movement points and deal little damage, such as a kick or something that disarms an opponent momentarily allowing you to escape, but these would not be basic attacks. Your basic attack would probably be a charge (end of movement, deals damage dependent on straight line movement and pushes) and a bounce (midway through movement, deals small damage, disarms opponent (-1 to hit and defenses) and prevents being oppied, allows redirection of a straight line at that point for momentum purposes, failure to hit kills momentum).
Martial attacks can be used at any time during your movement, but only up until your limit of martial attacks (dependent on weapons being used), and a martial attack kills any momentum you may have built during your movement.
I'm thinking that each martial or momentum point spent or harvested on a particular attack gives you +1 to hit, +1d4 damage. When splitting attacks between two different weapons in martial combat, the points are assigned per weapon, so that the stat and damage total stays the same, but the distribution can be assigned as wanted. That said, you're probably looking at a base 1d4/1d6 for light weapons and anywhere up to 1d12 for two handed. I'm not sure how balanced this is, whether having two attacks at 50% accuracy that you can assign to two different enemies is worth replacing a single attack that deals much the same damage and that hits 60% of the time on one enemy. I mean, being able to move between the one-handed attacks allows for more use of the two attacks.
Naval combat would share a similar system (reskinned as crew points being assigned to sails and cannons).
Martial/cannon combat would be the only combat though, unless you really want to ram other vessels.
Cannons would have to be turned to face the enemy, so some sort of bearing on the hex grid would be defined by previous move actions.
Later on, with bigger ships, maybe the players would be forced to distribute the cannon fire between movement steps, just so as to not capsize the boat in one giant volley of cannon fire.
Edit: Also cannons have to be reloaded with a martial point before they can be fired.
Pirates, but in a vast city-dimension like Ravnica.
We don't have to. Most of the ideas Aegeri expressed plague other systems as well. Sure, he writes from d20 concept in mind but issues with stuns can be said with Cortex and their complication. Those rules says anyone who takes a d12 worth of a complication is automatically stress out. Problem, that includes people who have 3d12 Physical Stress Bars.
I like the stun is more of a daze idea. Instead of being frozen and not acting, maybe either have it where, if they walk, they have a chance of falling down (since the world is shaking and you are seeing two) or if they attack and roll X or lower they give Combat Advantage. Or, but this might go against your action economy, have it were daze causes you to only have one action this round. Attack or Move. It's a though, but I like the former more.
I also agree with Aegeri that I hate the way DnD has done Feats. I've only seen one person ever take a Linguist feat and that was because he's character wanted to read that game's version of the Necronomicon (he lost his mind and got possessed by a powerful demon. That was fun...) I'm just not sure how to fix that.
Ravnica is the city with the guilds, like Rakdos and Orzhov? I love the cards from that series.
1. Another dice array than d20, please. Core mechanic is important and while d20 is a common medium, it's also pointlessly complex in places we don't really want or need complexity.
2. If this is going to be a game about pirates, then naval combat has to be tight and enjoyable before we worry about whether pirates can do pirouettes off the boat.
3. "Magic is technology" is easy, provided you have a good idea of the technology level you're looking to emulate. The golden age of pirates was 1660 or so, meaning if we're going to try to keep the timeline we're talking not about steampunk but about magic replacing Renaissance technologies like astrolabes, cannon casting, wheel-lock pistols, high carbon steel smelting, etc.
Side suggestion: eastern setting because Pirates of the South China Sea hasn't really been done yet.
Also, before you pick a die for combat, it might be best to understand the goal of randomization in the game. Is it to measure the level of success or success period? Is it to limit options or availability of action?
Second to that line of thinking, I've been toying with the idea of the "to-hit" roll being replaced with whether you can use an advanced attack or not. All attacks would be a standardized damage (which is modifiable), and then the advanced attacks are riders to what you're doing - like extra damage, pushing, disarming, marking a foe, etc.
I also like the idea of maybe defense rolls in such a system, with armor as damage reduction.
Also...if we do dice pools, I like the idea of momentum being bonus dice.
Also, casters should burn momentum instead of temporarily spending it.
If we go in with the presumption that casters have a handful of powerful long-range spells, a few short range combat spells, and a moderate amount of support spells (to include things like spells designed to make ships travel faster or reflecting fire) then there's no "surprise" when they take a backseat to swashbucklers and axemen in boarding actions.
Well, we have GtC suggesting Fudge dice, which I like.