What genre are you going with webguy? I don't see it actually listed (I may be blind and just missing it).
Initial setting is going to be Eberon/13th age equivalent. One of the goals though is to divorce the core mechanics from the setting, so it will be easier to do something in the future in a different setting if it ever gets to that.
Would you consider having three tables of armor and weapons for Past, Present, and Future settings? I've been mulling over "the perfect system" in my head and for ease of use I think it would make sense to include those rules. I feel like we're probably fighting the same fight here.
If I did that it would be in an expansion. the way I plan combat to work, it would take into account everything except for long range rifle fire, which outside of niche combat really isn't too much of an issue for most campaigns anyways. I think I've actually thought of an elegant way to do combat that is more complex than 13th age, but easier than grid.
Mostly I'm going for easy re-skinning. I like the idea of being able to re-skin weapons, monsters, armor in an easy consistent way. I'm not going to lie, I really dislike the "natural" language of 5th ed. Give me clear concise terms like 4th ed mostly succeeded at. It's trying to tell me how to play the game by the rules we've all agreed on after all. The biggest thing I think for present and future is to add a more robust "cover" system to account for significantly more ranged combat, but I think that can easily be do-able in a system that is driven by a simple core set of rules that isn't too concerned with simulation. I want the world feel just real enough that the players stay immersed, without simulating every little thing. More like "Just Cause 2" than "ARMA".
I know that won't be for everyone, but I think there is a pretty big crowd that would like to do awesome things, without having a bunch of time burned going through a bunch of rules.
If you're looking for detailed Social encounter schemes, Burning Wheel has Battle of Wits, which seems pretty thorough and like it would be satisfying in play.
There's also Hillfolk which is a game solely based around social interaction. A fascinating game system from a fascinating game designer.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Posted this in the D&D thread, but it goes here as well.
Weapons are separated out into 3 classes; Light, Medium and Heavy
Untrained you do 1d4 with any of them.
Trained Light is 1d6, Medium is 1D8 and Heavy is 1D10
Expertise Light is 1d8, Medium is 1D8 and Heavy is 1D12
There are weapons perks, and during character creation pick X number and add to your weapon (Like how Legend does it with weapon Creation), but have the perks be unique to each weapon type.
You could then have quests, or the weapons level up or whatever but then you could add perks to your weapons as you go along. Who knows, still spitballing.
So a wizard might be untrained in everything, but takes a feat or something else to be trained with Light weapons, so he has some cool weapon that he makes up that fits the bill.
On the other hand the Fighter comes being trained in everything, and as part of his class progression can specialize in one type of weapon class to become expert and beyond, so going up to 1d12, then maybe even 2d6 and 2d8. Whatever.
That's not a bad sort of outline (assuming a typo there in that expertise medium is 1D10).
Don't worry too much about the specifics of your dice right now. That'll come later. I recommend taking this approach:
Determine the number of hits you want it to take for the average character to be felled by an average attack with average dice results. This gives you a general sense of how many rounds it'll take to complete (assume one attack per round for now).
Decide how much variance you want in how much punishment different types of characters can take.
Decide what your standard chance of hitting a target should be.
Put all of this together to show expected # attacks to kill per type of target.
From there you can play with HP totals and dice sizes based on criteria like how much variance you want (in hit chance, dice results, attack potential ranges, and number of dice rolled).
Ways of modifying variance:
Higher-sided dice give greater variance, especially at lower dice numbers. Lower-sided dice give less variance, especially at higher dice numbers.
Ratio of average static modifiers to dice potential is the "easiest" way to mess with variance without getting complicated with the dice your game calls for, presuming you intend to use them.
Circumstantial bonuses and penalties to damage potential (like being able to sometimes make multiple attacks or having your damage cut in half under various situations) add further dynamism.
Once you have your HP ranges, target # of hits per kill, and wanted variance values defined, the dice you should use for weak/medium/strong attacks will become obvious. This is especially true once you factor in player resources -- how much is a feat or whatever worth in terms of the hits-per-kill math? Investing in a stronger weapon should give the appropriate return in that area.
You can play a little loose with this at first if you're willing to run lots of playtests to zero in on what "feels" the best; you don't have to have all the mathcraft solved before the first run. But it's arguably the core of the game, so it's really important to have it right at some point, especially in a game with mathematical character builds and a tactical approach to conflict resolution.
And of course, it's also very important to consider at this stage:
If you're giving equal weight to interaction and exploration versus combat alone, what are the corresponding mechanisms you'll use for weapon/spell damage and HP tracking in those areas?
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited October 2016
It's going to be challenging to pay homage to the track system in Legend but not outright copy it. I know it is going to be simpler per class due to the fact that social encounters are going to play a much bigger part of my system. That should hopefully be enough to differentiate it.
Hopefully I can give players enough depth to still make interesting tactical decisions, in combat and social encounters.
Welp probably doesn't matter too much now. Browsing their forums it looks like Legend is dead. at least it hit 1.1 with a PDF. Sucks for all the kickstarter backers though.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited October 2016
The Content that Wizards has released under the SRD (System Reference Document) of your system of choice. So almost all of 3.5 is released as a SRD that can be used in conjunction with the OGL.
So the flipside to "Open Game Content" is "product identity". These are the things that are uniquely yours. So for example for D&D they define the following things as product identity, and you cannot use them when creating your own game using the "Open Game Content" with the OGL.
"The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, character names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti."
Now what is interesting is if you look at the Legend PDF, On the Title page they note that certain elements of chapters 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 are considered "Open Game Content" and you can see where they have taken chunks of the standard D&D SRD and where they have created things whole cloth. From what I can find though they never define what exactly those elements are.
The Content that Wizards has released under the SRD (System Reference Document) of your system of choice. So almost all of 3.5 is released as a SRD that can be used in conjunction with the OGL.
So the flipside to "Open Game Content" is "product identity". These are the things that are uniquely yours. So for example for D&D they define the following things as product identity, and you cannot use them when creating your own game using the "Open Game Content" with the OGL.
"The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, character names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti."
Now what is interesting is if you look at the Legend PDF, On the Title page they note that certain elements of chapters 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 are considered "Open Game Content" and you can see where they have taken chunks of the standard D&D SRD and where they have created things whole cloth. From what I can find though they never define what exactly those elements are.
That's an interesting list because in 13th Age, the bold elements are in the game. I don't have the book on me to see what they say about those things, but wouldn't that mean that WotC could sue them?
I don't believe mind flayer is something they actually have TM/CR'd, I know they show up in demon's souls, bloodborne, and final fantasy. Along with a handful of other games.
It is probably specifically referring more ot the culture they have created for those types.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I don't believe mind flayer is something they actually have TM/CR'd, I know they show up in demon's souls, bloodborne, and final fantasy. Along with a handful of other games.
It is probably specifically referring more ot the culture they have created for those types.
It could also be that they were used in so many properties in the 80s and 90s that they can be challenged if Wizards makes a fuss, so they leave them in so to keep most people from using them.
You know, at some point I wanted to make my own chimera of a system but the more I learn about game design and the more I read I think it would just be more worthwhile for me to make a really good social encounter system to just drop/hack into 5e. If I could make it one or two pages when finished, give it actions/rules that partially mirror what players are used to with combat it'll be good. Really it was Spellbound Kingdoms that introduced me to the idea that some systems incorporate what I want much better and more naturally than D&D and it was listening to DMs on the internet that introduced me to using systems for their intended purposes.
That said, 5e is what I play the most, will continue to play, and is very popular right now so a whole new niche system nobody will play isn't very viable, but people homebrew and modify with 5e all the time.
Throwing social interaction into D&D has the problem of scale. Making it more than a skill roll vs randomly assigned DC means you not only have to create a system, but you also have to it scale with levels, items, and feats. You'd essentially have to make a social combat module, complete with classes and 1-20 progression.
In order to avoid that, I use the same system I've been using since 3.5e.
Base DC 10 for a single, immediate action (stand aside, unlock that chest, give me 20 gold, cast a spell).
+3 for each significant measure of time it takes to complete the task (distract that guard for a few minutes, take me to the merchant district, drive me across the province, marry that stranger).
-5 to +15 depending on how detrimental the task is to the person (-5 "give me a high five", -2 "guard, someone's breaking into that house", 0 "i was robbed, can you cut me a deal?", +3 "give me your money", +6 "give me something hard to replace", +9 "betray someone", +12 "betray your ideals", -15 "kill yourself")
-5 to -10 if the players backup the roll with good RP and/or mitigating factors (DC 0 "high five me or my group of dragonslayers will burn down your house")
Intimidation: Do this or we'll make things worse for you; requires a credible threat to the target for the duration of force action
Deception: This isn't true, but we're making you think it is; requires the truth to be either obscured or contestable
Persuasion: You don't feel this way, but you will when I'm done; requires the task being completed or not to be based on thoughts or emotion
"If you don't marry the evil prince to stop the war, we'll conquer your kingdom, adopt you by decree, and forcibly marry you off"
Intimidation DC 31 (+9 for duration, +12 for severity); -5 if they've gone out of their way to make themselves look like conquerors, and -5 if they made a deal with a mercenary lord to use their army.
"I take it from your pendant that you worship Helm? Then it is your duty to give his paladins the aid they require in their pursuit of justice. Give me your horse."
Persuasion DC 21 (+6 for how long it would take him to replace the horse, +6 for severity); -5 for roleplaying well, -5 for being an actual paladin of Helm.
"I take it from your pendant that you worship Helm? Then it is your duty to give his paladins the aid they require in their pursuit of justice. Give me your horse."
Deception DC 21 (+6 for how long it would take him to replace the horse, +6 for severity); -5 for roleplaying well, -5 for wearing the armor he looted off of that paladin of Helm he just killed.
As for my SciFi RPG, I'm mostly just trying to figure out what I want to space combat to look like, and if single combat should be different from fighting multiple ships. If you just have one ship, and you're facing two or more ships, you're going to die really quick if your ship isn't several times more powerful. That means there needs to be a 'story' reason you have a powerful ship, or combat needs to be abstract and gamey.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
Arise thread!
So I'm still plinking away at this, due to some crazy work stuff (Going through a company shutdown and downsizing) I haven't spend as much time as I wanted.
I do want to share an update though. I've been thinking through it and I think I'm going to drop ability scores. I think I'm going to go to a modular character design. So for example when creating a character would would go through the following steps...
1. Pick Combat Class (fighter, rogue, cleric, etc...)
2. Pick sub class (Barbarian, sword and board, war cleric, swashbuckler, etc...)
3. Pick Social Class ( main 4 personality type)
4. Pick social sublclass (specialized type of personality type)
5. Pick skill sets (combination of combat and social and skill challenge)
6. Pick Race ( Pick culture type/social type, I don't want to have the whole "All Elves are like this, All Dwarves are like this..") Not quite sure how to make this interesting and not blatantly fantasy racist but still keep them mechanically interesting.
So yea, a person builds their character based on these modular components, and they all have level progression mechanics tied to them.
At some point though, especially with this at what point am I far enough away from D&D that I can say my game is unique and not tied to the OGL?. Hrmmm.
Posts
If I did that it would be in an expansion. the way I plan combat to work, it would take into account everything except for long range rifle fire, which outside of niche combat really isn't too much of an issue for most campaigns anyways. I think I've actually thought of an elegant way to do combat that is more complex than 13th age, but easier than grid.
Mostly I'm going for easy re-skinning. I like the idea of being able to re-skin weapons, monsters, armor in an easy consistent way. I'm not going to lie, I really dislike the "natural" language of 5th ed. Give me clear concise terms like 4th ed mostly succeeded at. It's trying to tell me how to play the game by the rules we've all agreed on after all. The biggest thing I think for present and future is to add a more robust "cover" system to account for significantly more ranged combat, but I think that can easily be do-able in a system that is driven by a simple core set of rules that isn't too concerned with simulation. I want the world feel just real enough that the players stay immersed, without simulating every little thing. More like "Just Cause 2" than "ARMA".
I know that won't be for everyone, but I think there is a pretty big crowd that would like to do awesome things, without having a bunch of time burned going through a bunch of rules.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
There's also Hillfolk which is a game solely based around social interaction. A fascinating game system from a fascinating game designer.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Weapons are separated out into 3 classes; Light, Medium and Heavy
Untrained you do 1d4 with any of them.
Trained Light is 1d6, Medium is 1D8 and Heavy is 1D10
Expertise Light is 1d8, Medium is 1D8 and Heavy is 1D12
There are weapons perks, and during character creation pick X number and add to your weapon (Like how Legend does it with weapon Creation), but have the perks be unique to each weapon type.
You could then have quests, or the weapons level up or whatever but then you could add perks to your weapons as you go along. Who knows, still spitballing.
So a wizard might be untrained in everything, but takes a feat or something else to be trained with Light weapons, so he has some cool weapon that he makes up that fits the bill.
On the other hand the Fighter comes being trained in everything, and as part of his class progression can specialize in one type of weapon class to become expert and beyond, so going up to 1d12, then maybe even 2d6 and 2d8. Whatever.
I think that could work.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Don't worry too much about the specifics of your dice right now. That'll come later. I recommend taking this approach:
- Determine the number of hits you want it to take for the average character to be felled by an average attack with average dice results. This gives you a general sense of how many rounds it'll take to complete (assume one attack per round for now).
- Decide how much variance you want in how much punishment different types of characters can take.
- Decide what your standard chance of hitting a target should be.
- Put all of this together to show expected # attacks to kill per type of target.
From there you can play with HP totals and dice sizes based on criteria like how much variance you want (in hit chance, dice results, attack potential ranges, and number of dice rolled).Ways of modifying variance:
- Higher-sided dice give greater variance, especially at lower dice numbers. Lower-sided dice give less variance, especially at higher dice numbers.
- Ratio of average static modifiers to dice potential is the "easiest" way to mess with variance without getting complicated with the dice your game calls for, presuming you intend to use them.
- Circumstantial bonuses and penalties to damage potential (like being able to sometimes make multiple attacks or having your damage cut in half under various situations) add further dynamism.
Once you have your HP ranges, target # of hits per kill, and wanted variance values defined, the dice you should use for weak/medium/strong attacks will become obvious. This is especially true once you factor in player resources -- how much is a feat or whatever worth in terms of the hits-per-kill math? Investing in a stronger weapon should give the appropriate return in that area.You can play a little loose with this at first if you're willing to run lots of playtests to zero in on what "feels" the best; you don't have to have all the mathcraft solved before the first run. But it's arguably the core of the game, so it's really important to have it right at some point, especially in a game with mathematical character builds and a tactical approach to conflict resolution.
And of course, it's also very important to consider at this stage:
If you're giving equal weight to interaction and exploration versus combat alone, what are the corresponding mechanisms you'll use for weapon/spell damage and HP tracking in those areas?
Hopefully I can give players enough depth to still make interesting tactical decisions, in combat and social encounters.
Welp probably doesn't matter too much now. Browsing their forums it looks like Legend is dead. at least it hit 1.1 with a PDF. Sucks for all the kickstarter backers though.
http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,1341.msg26304.html?PHPSESSID=647cc39643de4cfe512628b2bd25a042#msg26304
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
It would be nice if more than a handful of WotC's links about the OGL actually fucking worked. Goddamn.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
So the flipside to "Open Game Content" is "product identity". These are the things that are uniquely yours. So for example for D&D they define the following things as product identity, and you cannot use them when creating your own game using the "Open Game Content" with the OGL.
"The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, character names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti."
Now what is interesting is if you look at the Legend PDF, On the Title page they note that certain elements of chapters 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 are considered "Open Game Content" and you can see where they have taken chunks of the standard D&D SRD and where they have created things whole cloth. From what I can find though they never define what exactly those elements are.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
That's an interesting list because in 13th Age, the bold elements are in the game. I don't have the book on me to see what they say about those things, but wouldn't that mean that WotC could sue them?
It is probably specifically referring more ot the culture they have created for those types.
It could also be that they were used in so many properties in the 80s and 90s that they can be challenged if Wizards makes a fuss, so they leave them in so to keep most people from using them.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
That said, 5e is what I play the most, will continue to play, and is very popular right now so a whole new niche system nobody will play isn't very viable, but people homebrew and modify with 5e all the time.
@Carnarvon I'm looking forward to seeing your development too.
LAzy!
I've been working on how I want to do combat, which is styled like 13th age Kinda. I gotta get it all written down though.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
In order to avoid that, I use the same system I've been using since 3.5e.
Base DC 10 for a single, immediate action (stand aside, unlock that chest, give me 20 gold, cast a spell).
+3 for each significant measure of time it takes to complete the task (distract that guard for a few minutes, take me to the merchant district, drive me across the province, marry that stranger).
-5 to +15 depending on how detrimental the task is to the person (-5 "give me a high five", -2 "guard, someone's breaking into that house", 0 "i was robbed, can you cut me a deal?", +3 "give me your money", +6 "give me something hard to replace", +9 "betray someone", +12 "betray your ideals", -15 "kill yourself")
-5 to -10 if the players backup the roll with good RP and/or mitigating factors (DC 0 "high five me or my group of dragonslayers will burn down your house")
Intimidation: Do this or we'll make things worse for you; requires a credible threat to the target for the duration of force action
Deception: This isn't true, but we're making you think it is; requires the truth to be either obscured or contestable
Persuasion: You don't feel this way, but you will when I'm done; requires the task being completed or not to be based on thoughts or emotion
"If you don't marry the evil prince to stop the war, we'll conquer your kingdom, adopt you by decree, and forcibly marry you off"
Intimidation DC 31 (+9 for duration, +12 for severity); -5 if they've gone out of their way to make themselves look like conquerors, and -5 if they made a deal with a mercenary lord to use their army.
"I take it from your pendant that you worship Helm? Then it is your duty to give his paladins the aid they require in their pursuit of justice. Give me your horse."
Persuasion DC 21 (+6 for how long it would take him to replace the horse, +6 for severity); -5 for roleplaying well, -5 for being an actual paladin of Helm.
"I take it from your pendant that you worship Helm? Then it is your duty to give his paladins the aid they require in their pursuit of justice. Give me your horse."
Deception DC 21 (+6 for how long it would take him to replace the horse, +6 for severity); -5 for roleplaying well, -5 for wearing the armor he looted off of that paladin of Helm he just killed.
As for my SciFi RPG, I'm mostly just trying to figure out what I want to space combat to look like, and if single combat should be different from fighting multiple ships. If you just have one ship, and you're facing two or more ships, you're going to die really quick if your ship isn't several times more powerful. That means there needs to be a 'story' reason you have a powerful ship, or combat needs to be abstract and gamey.
So I'm still plinking away at this, due to some crazy work stuff (Going through a company shutdown and downsizing) I haven't spend as much time as I wanted.
I do want to share an update though. I've been thinking through it and I think I'm going to drop ability scores. I think I'm going to go to a modular character design. So for example when creating a character would would go through the following steps...
1. Pick Combat Class (fighter, rogue, cleric, etc...)
2. Pick sub class (Barbarian, sword and board, war cleric, swashbuckler, etc...)
3. Pick Social Class ( main 4 personality type)
4. Pick social sublclass (specialized type of personality type)
5. Pick skill sets (combination of combat and social and skill challenge)
6. Pick Race ( Pick culture type/social type, I don't want to have the whole "All Elves are like this, All Dwarves are like this..") Not quite sure how to make this interesting and not blatantly fantasy racist but still keep them mechanically interesting.
So yea, a person builds their character based on these modular components, and they all have level progression mechanics tied to them.
At some point though, especially with this at what point am I far enough away from D&D that I can say my game is unique and not tied to the OGL?. Hrmmm.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981