Back here I posted about the Softrope soundscape program (which I've also used successfully as a live theatre soundboard program). A couple of days ago, I stumbled across something else as well.
It's called Syrinscape, and at first glance it seems really spiffy. They have two programs, actually: one devoted to fantasy gaming, and one to sci-fi/post-modern. It looks fairly polished, and uses algorithms to make the different soundscapes sound more organic rather than like a looping tape. It is already programmed to fade in and fade out certain effects like background music and rainstorms when toggled. Not bad.
But there are a couple of issues:
1) It is entirely self-contained. You cannot add in your own sounds or music files to plug into different soundscapes, so you are limited to what is packaged with the program. Now, in total that may not be terribly restricting, as there is a fair variety of sounds available, but...
2) The majority of the prepackaged soundscapes are unlocked through either a subscription service (which, to its credit, permanently unlocks any new 'scapes released while the subscription is active) or by purchasing them directly. Without one or the other, you are limited to two 'scapes in either the fantasy or sci-fi program.
3) I personally would have preferred they not split the 'scapes into fantasy and sci-fi. Doing so requires that anyone wanting to be fully prepped for, say, Shadowrun has to have both programs up and running, since the Shadowrun setting incorporates both post-modern weaponry and magic.
It seems almost like the Syrinscape creator saw Softrope and thought, "Hey, I could put together sound packages and charge people for the convenience of not having to find sounds and put together their own." And that's not a bad thought, but most gamers I know don't tend to have much expendable income, myself included.
The one aspect of Syrinscape, though, that could really sell the product is something that Softrope doesn't have and, judging by their website that doesn't look like it's changed since I first wrote about them, likely never will: mobile support. Syrinscape is available in both the iTunes app store and on Google Play for Androids, and is intended for tablet use (you can use it on a smartphone, too, but it isn't optimized for it). Being able to take your soundboard with you on a tablet is a nice feature, making it a lot more mobile and less visually distracting than a laptop.
Is that worth $6.50-10.00 per month? For me, not really. I don't tend to have more than one actual tabletop game every three months. I'd be more likely to spend $5-10 getting a Roll20 membership, which would let me use their site on a mobile device as well. It's possible I might decide to pick up a sound pack here and there, but at $4 each or $20 for a six-pack, it still seems a bit pricey. I'll stick with my Softrope.
Showing posts with label RPGs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPGs. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2015
Monday, September 1, 2014
Gem Magic
One of the several d20 books I have on my shelves is R.A. Salvatore's Demonwars Campaign Setting book. It's got a neat flavor to it, despite that I've never read the books its based on. Definitely a lower magic setting than traditional D&D, with most hybrid classes only being permitted if they drop their spellcasting abilities, and clerics/druids/wizards/sorcerers being replaced entirely with setting-appropriate casting types based on the indigenous magic system: specially imbued gemstones.
Woo, objectification.
Sexualized cover art aside, I really like the concept of gem magic and the way it has been implemented in this system. Enough that I would use it, perhaps slightly modified, in my own games, except that as it is I'm already struggling with too many options and magic systems. I had wanted to make this system less complicated, not more, and having multiple systems of magic and spellcasting does not fit with that goal.
Regarding the setting's system, essentially there are gemstones which are imbued with magic (as well as naturally occurring gemstones that are not imbued, and can't be used to cast spells). The type of stone determines what type of magic or effects it can produce in the hands of a skilled wielder. Certain feats permit wielding two or even three stones at once, combining them to produce new effects not possible with only one gemstone.
The setting uses a mana-type system instead of spells-per-day, since you invoke the power of a stone through channeling that mana into/through it, and gem-wielding classes get 1d8 mana per level, with a bonus from their Con modifier. This still provides a limiter, which is what a spells/day system does, but there is also the secondary limiter of having any magic dependent upon having one of these special gemstones. There's no learning new spells each level, or scroll scribing giving a wizard a utilitarian edge. You either have the stone you need, or you don't - leveling just gives you more mana. Multiple gem wielders, though, can potentially share stones with each other, and I don't think there's any mention of stones breaking or losing their magical properties with use.
Combining it with any other magic system has the potential to make gem magic significantly under-powered, which means if I do want to use it, it may have to be the only magic system available. Alternatively, I could keep all these systems as options and leave it up to the players as to what gets used.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Monday, April 8, 2013
Online Gaming Resources
I came across this site a couple months ago, and overall I like it: http://fabletop.com/ Simple, easy to use, great for quick pick-up games. Biggest problem is there is very little you can do to customize the system to suit your tastes. The system in place is good, not saying otherwise, but it makes playtesting my own system on the site rather difficult. Also, though there were a small number of people running games when I first joined, the site seems to be languishing right now, possibly due to a lack of GMs. If you already have a playerbase to bring to the site, not so much an issue, but it can be hard (as a player) to find a game when you're available to play.
So I also came across this site: http://roll20.net/ Not quite as simple and certainly not as quick and easy to set up a game, but the customization is much more universal. Dice are customizable, and I can actually use my own system on the site. Plus, the option of voice and video chat between players is a nice touch. I played around with it a lot tonight, and I'll probably end up using it to run games soon. It seems vastly more populated than Fabletop, though that's less of a concern for me there since I'll be playtesting my own system.
On a side note, I may need to tweak the bonuses for weapon skills. It looks as though I may have been a wee bit generous.
So I also came across this site: http://roll20.net/ Not quite as simple and certainly not as quick and easy to set up a game, but the customization is much more universal. Dice are customizable, and I can actually use my own system on the site. Plus, the option of voice and video chat between players is a nice touch. I played around with it a lot tonight, and I'll probably end up using it to run games soon. It seems vastly more populated than Fabletop, though that's less of a concern for me there since I'll be playtesting my own system.
On a side note, I may need to tweak the bonuses for weapon skills. It looks as though I may have been a wee bit generous.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Staring back at myself
Sometimes I just have to stare something in the face long enough before I can see it.
Sorcery is Arcane. Ritualism is Divine. The four schools that were under each are combined into one skill.
Is this a perfect balance? Well, no. Transmutation as a spell group has always dominated the list by the sheer number of spells it has. As it is, I'll be going through the Arcana Unearthed spells and redistributing them as I feel appropriate. Because I can do that. And I'll probably add in a few here and there that I really liked the flavor of (probably a good deal from the Arcanis system). And I'll remove the typical summoning spells, replacing them with my preferred one-shot summons, and that by itself should help balance between the two groupings.
Spellcraft as a skill would allow access to more complex magics from the other magical discipline (skill in either discipline would give access to the simple spells from any school). Exotic spells from your own discipline could be learned at ranks 3, 6, and 9, and more could be learned (from either discipline) through the use of Combat Proficiencies.
Unrelated quick thought: Base exotic weapon proficiency on a new Weaponmaster skill - each rank gives access to the exotic weapons of a different basic group (polearms, heavy blades, etc.), chosen by the player upon placing points in the skill.
Sorcery is Arcane. Ritualism is Divine. The four schools that were under each are combined into one skill.
Is this a perfect balance? Well, no. Transmutation as a spell group has always dominated the list by the sheer number of spells it has. As it is, I'll be going through the Arcana Unearthed spells and redistributing them as I feel appropriate. Because I can do that. And I'll probably add in a few here and there that I really liked the flavor of (probably a good deal from the Arcanis system). And I'll remove the typical summoning spells, replacing them with my preferred one-shot summons, and that by itself should help balance between the two groupings.
Spellcraft as a skill would allow access to more complex magics from the other magical discipline (skill in either discipline would give access to the simple spells from any school). Exotic spells from your own discipline could be learned at ranks 3, 6, and 9, and more could be learned (from either discipline) through the use of Combat Proficiencies.
Unrelated quick thought: Base exotic weapon proficiency on a new Weaponmaster skill - each rank gives access to the exotic weapons of a different basic group (polearms, heavy blades, etc.), chosen by the player upon placing points in the skill.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Sorcery vs. Ritualism
In the interests of simplicity, then, I'm once again taking a look at the magic system. Dividing things up into schools of magic, while it makes sense in some ways, has also imposed some limits that were not intended. Not to mention that the sheer volume of spells I've accumulated from so many different sourcebooks in order to fill out the lists of some of the lesser endowed schools (such as Divination) makes sifting through them prohibitive. Of course, the idea of rendering all that work invalid has only been more and more distasteful the more I've added to it, but I think something needs to give.
Part of this stems from reading through another sourcebook, Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. In this book, magic has been separated according to complexity. Every level has simple spells, which any caster might access, complex spells which might require greater training or access, and exotic spells, spells that might become the signature ability of a character because of their rarity or difficulty. And the book has its own magic spells, already separated into these categories.
Trying to just cram it into the full list would destroy the balance. Trying to split the full list into simple, complex, and exotic is an ambitious and prohibitive project. It would be easiest, if I want to use this method, to simply use only this one spell list, but it is tiny in comparison to what I have, and there are entire schools with less than ten spells total, and none in the first few levels. Transmutation, as per the usual, has the most spells, including a few I disagree should be placed there, but others have also commented on the favoritism Cook shows for Transmuters. Obviously, this wouldn't work for a system where schools of magic are learned individually.
And so I'm considering scrapping all of this subdivision, and offering simply two choices: Sorcery, and Ritualism.
Sorcery, based on Mind stats, akin to Dragaeran sorcery, where the caster simply pulls energy (either to him or from within, I'll leave that to the player's flavor preference) and tosses it to achieve the desired effect. This would apply also to any magic system where memorization is more important than intuition, though it could be argued that the use of magical formulae is ritualistic.
Ritualism, based on Soul stats, which might be Eastern witchcraft, or religion-based, or even bardic magic - any ritual-based magic.
I'm not sure if this will be the final iteration or not. There are some discrepancies, I'm sure. Discworld wizards, for example, might well be ritualists with such a system, especially when you consider some of the high-powered magic such as the Rite of AshkEnte. But, considering how the Disc works, and what that Rite in particular does, that may not be inappropriate, especially if you go back to Pratchett's Sourcery. More concerning might be that magic used by divine beings might be categorized as Sorcery, since they're simply lobbing energy. Another explanation might be that they're imposing their will upon the cosmos, which would place their magic as being based on Willpower stats.
But all of this is simply a matter of semantics, a matter of the magic's origin, and not a matter of what you can do with it. Arcana Unearthed uses the same spell list for all caster types, leaving it to the player (and a handful of various feats and methods of altering magical effects selected by the player) to determine the flavor. This method would mean that the source of magic has no bearing on its limits - a Sorcerer might heal someone just as well or better than a Ritualist. It does away entirely with the debate of cleric vs. mage, arcane vs. divine, and says instead, "This is what is possible. How you get there is the fun part."
In some ways, though, it seems they should complement each other. Let's use the Force as an example: most of the active abilities used in combat such as a Force Push or even the Jedi Mind Trick would be based in Sorcery, in the Mind. The ability to use the Force as a means to predict the future, or to commune with deceased Masters, or to sense a great "disturbance" would be based in Ritualism, in the Soul. So how do I account for this?
Maybe I should just forego Mind and Soul entirely, and create a Magic stat, then separate spells by casting time - anything longer than a standard action is based in Ritualism.
Part of this stems from reading through another sourcebook, Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. In this book, magic has been separated according to complexity. Every level has simple spells, which any caster might access, complex spells which might require greater training or access, and exotic spells, spells that might become the signature ability of a character because of their rarity or difficulty. And the book has its own magic spells, already separated into these categories.
Trying to just cram it into the full list would destroy the balance. Trying to split the full list into simple, complex, and exotic is an ambitious and prohibitive project. It would be easiest, if I want to use this method, to simply use only this one spell list, but it is tiny in comparison to what I have, and there are entire schools with less than ten spells total, and none in the first few levels. Transmutation, as per the usual, has the most spells, including a few I disagree should be placed there, but others have also commented on the favoritism Cook shows for Transmuters. Obviously, this wouldn't work for a system where schools of magic are learned individually.
And so I'm considering scrapping all of this subdivision, and offering simply two choices: Sorcery, and Ritualism.
Sorcery, based on Mind stats, akin to Dragaeran sorcery, where the caster simply pulls energy (either to him or from within, I'll leave that to the player's flavor preference) and tosses it to achieve the desired effect. This would apply also to any magic system where memorization is more important than intuition, though it could be argued that the use of magical formulae is ritualistic.
Ritualism, based on Soul stats, which might be Eastern witchcraft, or religion-based, or even bardic magic - any ritual-based magic.
I'm not sure if this will be the final iteration or not. There are some discrepancies, I'm sure. Discworld wizards, for example, might well be ritualists with such a system, especially when you consider some of the high-powered magic such as the Rite of AshkEnte. But, considering how the Disc works, and what that Rite in particular does, that may not be inappropriate, especially if you go back to Pratchett's Sourcery. More concerning might be that magic used by divine beings might be categorized as Sorcery, since they're simply lobbing energy. Another explanation might be that they're imposing their will upon the cosmos, which would place their magic as being based on Willpower stats.
But all of this is simply a matter of semantics, a matter of the magic's origin, and not a matter of what you can do with it. Arcana Unearthed uses the same spell list for all caster types, leaving it to the player (and a handful of various feats and methods of altering magical effects selected by the player) to determine the flavor. This method would mean that the source of magic has no bearing on its limits - a Sorcerer might heal someone just as well or better than a Ritualist. It does away entirely with the debate of cleric vs. mage, arcane vs. divine, and says instead, "This is what is possible. How you get there is the fun part."
In some ways, though, it seems they should complement each other. Let's use the Force as an example: most of the active abilities used in combat such as a Force Push or even the Jedi Mind Trick would be based in Sorcery, in the Mind. The ability to use the Force as a means to predict the future, or to commune with deceased Masters, or to sense a great "disturbance" would be based in Ritualism, in the Soul. So how do I account for this?
Maybe I should just forego Mind and Soul entirely, and create a Magic stat, then separate spells by casting time - anything longer than a standard action is based in Ritualism.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
System Overhaul
When last we left our intrepid game designer, he was blathering on about some dream, completely unrelated to the task of creating a gaming system. After several months of not much progress, a recent visit from a close friend and play-tester yielded an unexpected result.
"Dude, you're making things way too complicated."
Faced with the accuracy of the statement, the game designer leapt to his mental feet and declared, "I have so much work to do!" before collapsing into the fetal position at the prospect of the undertaking now at hand.
Outside the city, in a remote location, our hero worked tirelessly at his task. Though he'd broken the archetypal classes into their base components already, he still had ended up with what was essentially a class-based system, one which dizzied the mind with its complexity as he strove to make a fantasy gaming structure more realistic. Taking up the tools of his craft, he tore this structure apart and rebuilt it into something simpler, cleaner, more fluid. The basic details and abilities of a character could be seen with a single glance. He had done the unthinkable.
The System was reborn. Three stats, from which all else derived. No classes, nor class-fragments, but a comprehensive list of skills to govern the abilities of a character. And yet this simplicity maintained, at its core, a means to fit within the dynamics of 3rd Edition rules, providing the ability to use available Monster Manuals.
The game designer sat back to survey his work, making small adjustments. He found it to be shiny. But there were still questions to be answered, regarding how much of a role the character's level was to play, in contrast with skills and ability scores.
And so he sat, fondly inspecting his new creation, awaiting the chance to see it in action.
"Dude, you're making things way too complicated."
Faced with the accuracy of the statement, the game designer leapt to his mental feet and declared, "I have so much work to do!" before collapsing into the fetal position at the prospect of the undertaking now at hand.
Outside the city, in a remote location, our hero worked tirelessly at his task. Though he'd broken the archetypal classes into their base components already, he still had ended up with what was essentially a class-based system, one which dizzied the mind with its complexity as he strove to make a fantasy gaming structure more realistic. Taking up the tools of his craft, he tore this structure apart and rebuilt it into something simpler, cleaner, more fluid. The basic details and abilities of a character could be seen with a single glance. He had done the unthinkable.
The System was reborn. Three stats, from which all else derived. No classes, nor class-fragments, but a comprehensive list of skills to govern the abilities of a character. And yet this simplicity maintained, at its core, a means to fit within the dynamics of 3rd Edition rules, providing the ability to use available Monster Manuals.
The game designer sat back to survey his work, making small adjustments. He found it to be shiny. But there were still questions to be answered, regarding how much of a role the character's level was to play, in contrast with skills and ability scores.
And so he sat, fondly inspecting his new creation, awaiting the chance to see it in action.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Mad RP Skillz
One of the people I follow on G+ linked to this livejournal post by Monte Cook, which started me thinking about things, but it wasn't until I read one of the comments on the post by Bryan Schuder that things started clicking for me. He wrote:
Secondly, it was nice to see that my decision to try and minimize any rules based on movement and grid-style tactics is not necessarily a terrible one. I still enjoy seeing a layout, and I still enjoy having miniatures as character and monster representations, but trying to lock down how fast or far someone can move tends to only slow combat down, and if combat isn't the primary focus of the game then that seems to be a mistake.
Thirdly, while reading through this I was reminded of skill systems in both D&D and Shadowrun, and how the GM's I've played under have handled skill resolution in the past. One thing that really frustrated me (as well as other players) at the Tuesday Game(tm) Shadowrun sessions was that we, the players, were more or less limited to our own experiences and personal strong points in designing characters to play. The GM ran most non-combat skills solely through RP, whether it was a social skill in trying to bluff or negotiate, checking for traps on a closed entryway, even disabling those traps. This depended on the player having knowledge that the character should have had, or been trained for, and it meant you were pretty much incapable if you didn't have player knowledge of how to do these things. If it was combat, or a skill the GM didn't have a personal basis for judgment on, you could just roll the dice.
Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun at the games, and in Shadowrun, but often I would end up feeling like the points I would put into skills were wasted. Most often I played a Face/Negotiator type character, and the points I put into social skills meant I didn't have some of the machine, vehicle, or combat skills that others did. So when it came time for combat, I'd get one pistol shot and had to hope it would hit, as opposed to two or three initiative passes with machine guns or heavy artillery. Even if I took the cinematic route in combat, it still meant I'd maybe put down one baddie in the entire battle. Yet the sacrifice to my combat abilities felt meaningless, because not once did I ever pick up the dice to roll a social skill, despite having amazing dicepools in them. The only times my character would shine were at the beginning and end of a run, when the team had to meet with the contact to get the job and when we got paid, and maybe an occasional social infiltration.
Here's an anecdotal example: The proverbial poo has hit the fan, with the party down on the docks outside a warehouse. Enemy targets are everywhere, including a helicopter. Police forces are on the way, but the gates to the dock are shut and locked. Since my character can't do anything meaningful in combat anyway, I pull back and hustle to the gatehouse to find the key and unlock the gate. The GM rules it will take me X rounds to get to the gatehouse, so I'm investing a lot of time and focus into this action while everyone else is making with the fireworks. I get to the gatehouse, grab the key, and start running for the gate. One of the party members with a heavy gun of some kind manages to disable the enemy helicopter. I reach the gate just as the helicopter crash lands into it, taking the gate down entirely. I'm left standing there, key in hand, having wasted all that time doing less than nothing, rather than even the next-to-nothing I'd have done if I'd stayed in combat with my pistol. I was so invested in trying to do the thing that was seen as most helpful to the situation, that I was unable to come up with alternative methods of involving myself in the scenario which might have had more ultimate effect.
The image of my character standing there with the key in hand, staring dumbfounded at the now destroyed gate, burned itself into the minds of the players there, and everyone else got a big laugh. I grinned and bore it, then, but it has always bothered me. I had accepted the fact my character was more useful in doing this menial task than in trying to fight, and then was essentially told that no matter what I tried to do, my character's actions were entirely meaningless to the scenario. Thinking on that, and looking back now, I have to wonder how much any of the characters' actions in those runs made any difference, whether we actually made a difference to how things went or whether we were all just railroaded through the storyboards in the GM's head.
This is one of the things that I keep in mind when I think about skill systems, and one of the reasons I lean towards a "tight rules" mentality when working out the mechanics of those skills. If my players want to roleplay out a situation, that's great. I would definitely give a bonus to their skill check if I thought they did a good job. But basing the entire result on their RP, and ignoring whatever bonus they actually have to the skill, means that you never actually end up with people roleplaying their characters. Instead, they end up just playing themselves, because that's the only way to progress.
In one of my gaming groups, we had an interesting contrast that occurred that exemplifies why more constraint leads to constraint thought.
One GM started out the campaign in DnD 2nd Edtion, took it to 3.5, and then finally Pathfinder. To give him a break during the big changes and reworkings, I'd get to GM and prototype my game system and setting. My system is designed to be loose and admits to have gaps in coverage, but with the understanding that those are taken care of by things outside the core rules (game master or setting specific rulings). It was a blast, my players got to play all kinds of crazy characters (even players with no real combat skills that actually saved the day many, many times), do wild things (nano-tech infested player hijacks a pre-fall robot to distract and wrestle another robot infested with extra-dimensional bacteria.. while all the other players are trying to gun it down), and they felt their creativity would be greatly rewarded. (You know that hijacked pre-fall robot? They took it with them. It has it's own trailer. They used it to loot plasma cannons off of the turrets they disabled.) I'm an on-the-fly GM, so stick with outlines and let the players fill in the rest.
The interesting part came when we switched back to the other GM's campaign. Finally, in a discussion about tactics, the GM spouted, "Why don't you do crazy stuff in my game like you do in his game?" A player responded, "Well, in DnD there's all these rules and we try to do crazy cool stuff and it never works or we just can't do it." While I had a grin on my face, that statement stuck with me.
If your rules prevent anything outside their explicit domain from happening, players are going to naturally trend towards sticking within them. It's simple game theory; if no reward is had for an action, it will occur with decreasing frequency. Another situation came when our group tried out grid combat. While it allowed everything to be laid out well, our groups tendencies towards cool, creative ideas decreased quite rapidly. This bothered the GM and so we got rid of exact dimensions combat. After some testing, he went with the "not-to-scale minimap" setup. Allows the group to understand the layout, but not feel they are constrained to it any arbitrary movement rules. The creativity came back and all was good.First off, this helps me to realize that it might be okay to not have everything accounted for in the rules. My focus on playtesting was spurred by concerns about powergamers, rules lawyers, and just generally those people who would try to take advantage of any system, no matter how well designed. But honestly, the chances of me ever publishing whatever system I end up with are slim at best, and I don't see my playerbase growing at any point in the near future, so chances are good I can stop worrying about playtesting and just start playing.
Secondly, it was nice to see that my decision to try and minimize any rules based on movement and grid-style tactics is not necessarily a terrible one. I still enjoy seeing a layout, and I still enjoy having miniatures as character and monster representations, but trying to lock down how fast or far someone can move tends to only slow combat down, and if combat isn't the primary focus of the game then that seems to be a mistake.
Thirdly, while reading through this I was reminded of skill systems in both D&D and Shadowrun, and how the GM's I've played under have handled skill resolution in the past. One thing that really frustrated me (as well as other players) at the Tuesday Game(tm) Shadowrun sessions was that we, the players, were more or less limited to our own experiences and personal strong points in designing characters to play. The GM ran most non-combat skills solely through RP, whether it was a social skill in trying to bluff or negotiate, checking for traps on a closed entryway, even disabling those traps. This depended on the player having knowledge that the character should have had, or been trained for, and it meant you were pretty much incapable if you didn't have player knowledge of how to do these things. If it was combat, or a skill the GM didn't have a personal basis for judgment on, you could just roll the dice.
Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun at the games, and in Shadowrun, but often I would end up feeling like the points I would put into skills were wasted. Most often I played a Face/Negotiator type character, and the points I put into social skills meant I didn't have some of the machine, vehicle, or combat skills that others did. So when it came time for combat, I'd get one pistol shot and had to hope it would hit, as opposed to two or three initiative passes with machine guns or heavy artillery. Even if I took the cinematic route in combat, it still meant I'd maybe put down one baddie in the entire battle. Yet the sacrifice to my combat abilities felt meaningless, because not once did I ever pick up the dice to roll a social skill, despite having amazing dicepools in them. The only times my character would shine were at the beginning and end of a run, when the team had to meet with the contact to get the job and when we got paid, and maybe an occasional social infiltration.
Here's an anecdotal example: The proverbial poo has hit the fan, with the party down on the docks outside a warehouse. Enemy targets are everywhere, including a helicopter. Police forces are on the way, but the gates to the dock are shut and locked. Since my character can't do anything meaningful in combat anyway, I pull back and hustle to the gatehouse to find the key and unlock the gate. The GM rules it will take me X rounds to get to the gatehouse, so I'm investing a lot of time and focus into this action while everyone else is making with the fireworks. I get to the gatehouse, grab the key, and start running for the gate. One of the party members with a heavy gun of some kind manages to disable the enemy helicopter. I reach the gate just as the helicopter crash lands into it, taking the gate down entirely. I'm left standing there, key in hand, having wasted all that time doing less than nothing, rather than even the next-to-nothing I'd have done if I'd stayed in combat with my pistol. I was so invested in trying to do the thing that was seen as most helpful to the situation, that I was unable to come up with alternative methods of involving myself in the scenario which might have had more ultimate effect.
The image of my character standing there with the key in hand, staring dumbfounded at the now destroyed gate, burned itself into the minds of the players there, and everyone else got a big laugh. I grinned and bore it, then, but it has always bothered me. I had accepted the fact my character was more useful in doing this menial task than in trying to fight, and then was essentially told that no matter what I tried to do, my character's actions were entirely meaningless to the scenario. Thinking on that, and looking back now, I have to wonder how much any of the characters' actions in those runs made any difference, whether we actually made a difference to how things went or whether we were all just railroaded through the storyboards in the GM's head.
This is one of the things that I keep in mind when I think about skill systems, and one of the reasons I lean towards a "tight rules" mentality when working out the mechanics of those skills. If my players want to roleplay out a situation, that's great. I would definitely give a bonus to their skill check if I thought they did a good job. But basing the entire result on their RP, and ignoring whatever bonus they actually have to the skill, means that you never actually end up with people roleplaying their characters. Instead, they end up just playing themselves, because that's the only way to progress.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Racial Diversity in Gaming
Once again I'm trying to tackle the question of how much or how little difference race selection should make in the game. It seems like any explanation for giving bonuses or detriments, whether to stats, skills, or classes, is based on an attempt to propagate a stereotype of the race in question. Yet this is generally only helpful if you intend to play to the stereotype, and most players I know like to break them instead. Further, if you are playing in a system that allows you to place your ability scores as you like, rather than as you rolled them, then you're already optimizing for the class you want to play, and can manipulate the placement to either offset disadvantages or boost bonuses.
Back to the stereotyping issue: "Everyone" knows humans jack all the trades, elves are better at everything except being clerics and taking hits, dwarves are better at hitting things, getting hit, and making stuff, and sometimes being clerics, halflings are good at being sneaky, stealing anything not bolted down, and in some cases being clerics, while gnomes are the quirky alchemically-inclined arcanists. If anyone plays a half-orc, it's always optimized for bashing things. There are sub-races that break some of these rules, but generally speaking you don't see gnome barbarians, dwarven wizards, or half-orc bards. There are various "reasons" given for these things, but without the setting's background it more or less seems arbitrary. It gives a bit of flavor, another choice for the player, while still remaining (in theory) numerically balanced.
I guess what I'm getting into is flavor vs. substance. Ice cream is ice cream, but choosing chocolate, vanilla, or any of the other 47 flavors is what makes the experience personalized, unique, and memorable. Yet when it comes to race, what would be the ultimate difference between playing an elf (for example) rather than a human? If you're already placing stats as you want them, you can put your high numbers in Dex and Int if you want to play to the widespread stereotypes. Is it enough to simply state "my character is an elf?" Is roleplay the major factor, or does there need to be a mechanical variance in order to really feel like you made a defining choice in the character's development?
I spoke with my wife about some of this, and came to the conclusion that I don't like assigning racial stereotypes. Considering I'm a Sociology major, I guess this shouldn't be a surprise. I'd rather leave it up to the player to determine what stereotype, if any, they want to play to or break away from. But if there are no defined norms or stereotypes to begin with, then the player has nothing to guide him or her. Stereotypes and norms would only come about by having enough player-created characters to build them organically.
Overall, I've decided that it isn't within the scope of mechanics-building to define these things, but in setting or world-building. It is the campaign world which determines what is the norm, and mechanics are altered to suit. I could build a world where dwarves are the penultimate magic-users, elves have developed steam technology, halflings can take a severe beating and still keep going, and humans are terrible at everything except being clerics. Sure, this flies in the face of most fantasy literature, and I'd have to come up with some fairly solid reasoning and explanation for why things were that way, but there's nothing stopping me from doing so. The biggest problem with this, though, is that if I provide a setting with norms that are too different from what players expect, it will likely be (at least at first) confusing and may put them off if they don't enjoy it. If someone expects chocolate ice cream, and gets pistachio instead, they probably won't be happy.
On the far side of the moon, I remember one of my gaming books mentioning that, yes, the setting does have set and discriminatory gender roles, but that's just part of the game society and is something the character will have to deal with, either by trying to blend in or by fighting the system and trying to enact change. By creating norms and stereotypes, I'd also be providing a social contract for the characters to either adhere to or challenge, which can make for really good RP, but doesn't necessarily help me test my game mechanics.
Okay, I've gotten sidetracked here. Determining whether this is a system issue or a setting issue doesn't help me to decide what sorts of mechanical differences I should be applying.
Size is basic, and easy. Regardless of what a race is called or whatever abilities it may have, its relative size to humans is something that doesn't bug me to include. It determines non-magical weaponry available, and by 3rd Ed. also has an effect on armor class. Also by 3rd Ed. it has an effect on movement speed, and my friend brought up the effect of size on reach as well, but that tends to get into positional combat tactics that I was trying to avoid, for the most part, in system construction. There is a part of me that it appeals to, but it also can slow combat down in contrast with the system I grew up on.
Various vision types are available, with variations between editions to draw upon. It still touches on pre-existing stereotypes of what defines a race, but it's easier for me to deal with than stat boosts.
Bonuses with weapons or skills and stat bonuses, and even discounted experience costs for certain classes based on race, are things that would make mechanical differences, but are the strongest "offenders" as far as stereotyping go. Is it somehow inherently flawed or wrong if every race is capable of being just as much a jack-of-all-lanterns as humans are? Should humans have some sort of specialty as well?
Too many questions, and I've run out of pebbles for now.
Back to the stereotyping issue: "Everyone" knows humans jack all the trades, elves are better at everything except being clerics and taking hits, dwarves are better at hitting things, getting hit, and making stuff, and sometimes being clerics, halflings are good at being sneaky, stealing anything not bolted down, and in some cases being clerics, while gnomes are the quirky alchemically-inclined arcanists. If anyone plays a half-orc, it's always optimized for bashing things. There are sub-races that break some of these rules, but generally speaking you don't see gnome barbarians, dwarven wizards, or half-orc bards. There are various "reasons" given for these things, but without the setting's background it more or less seems arbitrary. It gives a bit of flavor, another choice for the player, while still remaining (in theory) numerically balanced.
I guess what I'm getting into is flavor vs. substance. Ice cream is ice cream, but choosing chocolate, vanilla, or any of the other 47 flavors is what makes the experience personalized, unique, and memorable. Yet when it comes to race, what would be the ultimate difference between playing an elf (for example) rather than a human? If you're already placing stats as you want them, you can put your high numbers in Dex and Int if you want to play to the widespread stereotypes. Is it enough to simply state "my character is an elf?" Is roleplay the major factor, or does there need to be a mechanical variance in order to really feel like you made a defining choice in the character's development?
I spoke with my wife about some of this, and came to the conclusion that I don't like assigning racial stereotypes. Considering I'm a Sociology major, I guess this shouldn't be a surprise. I'd rather leave it up to the player to determine what stereotype, if any, they want to play to or break away from. But if there are no defined norms or stereotypes to begin with, then the player has nothing to guide him or her. Stereotypes and norms would only come about by having enough player-created characters to build them organically.
Overall, I've decided that it isn't within the scope of mechanics-building to define these things, but in setting or world-building. It is the campaign world which determines what is the norm, and mechanics are altered to suit. I could build a world where dwarves are the penultimate magic-users, elves have developed steam technology, halflings can take a severe beating and still keep going, and humans are terrible at everything except being clerics. Sure, this flies in the face of most fantasy literature, and I'd have to come up with some fairly solid reasoning and explanation for why things were that way, but there's nothing stopping me from doing so. The biggest problem with this, though, is that if I provide a setting with norms that are too different from what players expect, it will likely be (at least at first) confusing and may put them off if they don't enjoy it. If someone expects chocolate ice cream, and gets pistachio instead, they probably won't be happy.
On the far side of the moon, I remember one of my gaming books mentioning that, yes, the setting does have set and discriminatory gender roles, but that's just part of the game society and is something the character will have to deal with, either by trying to blend in or by fighting the system and trying to enact change. By creating norms and stereotypes, I'd also be providing a social contract for the characters to either adhere to or challenge, which can make for really good RP, but doesn't necessarily help me test my game mechanics.
Okay, I've gotten sidetracked here. Determining whether this is a system issue or a setting issue doesn't help me to decide what sorts of mechanical differences I should be applying.
Size is basic, and easy. Regardless of what a race is called or whatever abilities it may have, its relative size to humans is something that doesn't bug me to include. It determines non-magical weaponry available, and by 3rd Ed. also has an effect on armor class. Also by 3rd Ed. it has an effect on movement speed, and my friend brought up the effect of size on reach as well, but that tends to get into positional combat tactics that I was trying to avoid, for the most part, in system construction. There is a part of me that it appeals to, but it also can slow combat down in contrast with the system I grew up on.
Various vision types are available, with variations between editions to draw upon. It still touches on pre-existing stereotypes of what defines a race, but it's easier for me to deal with than stat boosts.
Bonuses with weapons or skills and stat bonuses, and even discounted experience costs for certain classes based on race, are things that would make mechanical differences, but are the strongest "offenders" as far as stereotyping go. Is it somehow inherently flawed or wrong if every race is capable of being just as much a jack-of-all-lanterns as humans are? Should humans have some sort of specialty as well?
Too many questions, and I've run out of pebbles for now.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
With Great Power Comes A Need For Control
I recently showed my static mana plan to my mother, the woman who raised me in modified AD&D. She liked the concept and implementation, up to a point - she raised concerns over it being too much power for a low-level character. My original thought was that, yeah, a 1st level mage might end up being able to cast 18 magic missiles, but magic is to a wizard what a sword is to a fighter, and the latter aren't restricted to how many swings in a day.
But then I thought about some of the other system changes I'd made from 1st and 3rd, and how weaponry and armor, as well as multiple attacks, have less to do with your class and more with your inherent stats. A mage might have stats optimized for casting, but if they'd taken fighter as a class instead they'd be no better off in physical combat. Any class can wear any armor, and my spell failure for arcane magic is based off of how much metal is in the armor rather than how much it inhibits arm movements for somatic components (something which seemed far too easily remedied with careful manufacture anyway).
So maybe I'm being too nice to casters.
Rather than come up with a system that limits how much mana is available until the maximum is reached, however, I thought about the possibility that spells might, at first, take more mana than would be indicated by their level. Say, for example, that at first level, a 1st level spell costs 5 mana instead of 1. You're just starting out in the world of magic, you haven't had a lot of practical experience, and you're still learning how to properly, and efficiently, wield the power you have. At second level, the cost goes down by 1 point. At third level, it now takes 3 mana for a 1st level spell, and so on until you reach the minimum of 1 point for a 1st level spell at 5th level.
Every time you gain access to a new level of spells, the cost of them is X higher than normal, let's say 4. That would mean that 4 levels after you start getting spells of that level, they would cost the normal minimum of 1 mana per spell level.
This could be a bit confusing for cantrips, since they normally take 1/4th of a mana. I could start them at 4, or I could be nice and start them at 1, dropping by 1/4 each level until the minimum.
Thoughts?
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Keep Those Dice a'Rollin'
So my friend Jonathan came out this past week (Huzzah!) and we got to game a little bit. I am still fairly enamored with my new experience system, especially how clean it looks/feels to me at the moment. One potential concern that I noticed is that my system for saving throws and skill checks may be inherently flawed. The concept is that you roll 3d10, and you are aiming for a number lower than the relevant stat with a bonus gained from a secondary stat. With an expected average stat of 15, and a range of 3 to 30, I figured 3d10 would be appropriate. However, it seems that the majority of rolls are landing above 16 even after adjustments. I should have expected this, but I'm not yet sure how to deal with it. I was trying to approximate a d30, but I don't actually have any of those and they're not terribly common anyway. I suppose I could do a d6 and a d10, like how d20 rolls used to be done before d20s became popular. 1-2 on the d6 means the d10 is 1-10, 3-4 means it's 11-20, and 5-6 means 21-30. I'll have to do some blank rolling to find out if that brings the average down.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Experience Overhaul
Thank you for the comments on my last post. They allowed me to realize that the numbers were hiding a flaw in my entire system of experience.
My original intent with my system, as I explained here, was to reflect easier or greater difficulty in progressing, based on Intelligence and how many classes you took, and eliminate the feeling of "wasting" a high Intelligence by not taking as many classes as it could handle. While it did do this to some degree, it was flawed in the fact that it based experience per level more off of the number of classes than the Intelligence. There was nothing in place to adjust difficulty for relative Intelligence. A low-Int character would simply not have access to the more "valuable" classes, but it could still out-level a higher-Int character that had more classes in short order.
That's been fixed now. A low-Int character taking its recommended maximum number of classes will now progress at the same speed as any other character that is also taking the recommended maximum number of classes for the character's Intelligence score. I may tweak it some from here, as I lost some "downward mobility" in the advantage a person gets by not filling up on classes, but I think this is the form I was going for earlier. The numbers were just getting in the way, so I couldn't see it. So again, thank you.
My original intent with my system, as I explained here, was to reflect easier or greater difficulty in progressing, based on Intelligence and how many classes you took, and eliminate the feeling of "wasting" a high Intelligence by not taking as many classes as it could handle. While it did do this to some degree, it was flawed in the fact that it based experience per level more off of the number of classes than the Intelligence. There was nothing in place to adjust difficulty for relative Intelligence. A low-Int character would simply not have access to the more "valuable" classes, but it could still out-level a higher-Int character that had more classes in short order.
That's been fixed now. A low-Int character taking its recommended maximum number of classes will now progress at the same speed as any other character that is also taking the recommended maximum number of classes for the character's Intelligence score. I may tweak it some from here, as I lost some "downward mobility" in the advantage a person gets by not filling up on classes, but I think this is the form I was going for earlier. The numbers were just getting in the way, so I couldn't see it. So again, thank you.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Experience Over Time
I've always had alt-itis, I guess. I generally don't get any D&D character past 4th level except under extraordinary circumstances. Tonight, though, I thought I'd do a quick comparison check to see how the experience tables I have worked up for my game (based loosely off of 3rd Edition's charts) stacked up against the old 1st Edition AD&D tables I grew up using. What I saw surprised me a bit.
At 11th level, a Paladin from 1st Edition had amassed over a million experience points. By 15th, the Thief class crossed the one million mark, followed only by Bard at 16th level (which doesn't really count since it was the 1st Edition equivalent of a Prestige - you had to be both a Fighter and Thief for 5+ levels before you could become a Bard). To get to 20th, you're talking 3.3 million for the most lenient table, ranging up to nearly six million points for Paladin.
By comparison, the pure 3rd Edition chart is child's play: 2nd level at a mere 1,000 points (The least expensive in 1st Ed., Thief, was 1,251), 10th level at only 45,000 which provides you with a "massive" gap to the 190,000 total needed for 20th level. Add to that the fact that 3rd edition experience is granted, according to the DMG, as an even split to all participants in an encounter (rather than being awarded individually based on damage dealt and treasure found - a bane to all low-level spellcasters) and you have what seems to be a supercharged elevator to the top. No wonder WotC came out with Epic Level handbooks so quickly!
I remember, as a child, sitting in a restaurant with my parents, and overhearing a conversation from a booth behind me: one guy was telling his friends about a campaign that took place in some tower, and his Paladin character made it all the way up to 50th level, only to be defeated or level-drained or some-such, and had to start over again at the bottom, so he did it again and got up to 50th level, and he got booted back down again, etc. Being the naive, inexperienced youth that I was, I got excited because they were talking about D&D, and I suppose I asked my mother why she didn't seem interested in asking them to game with us. That's when she explained to me the concept of "Monty Haul" gaming, and why it was generally considered to be a lesser form or of poorer quality among serious gamers.
I have to wonder if WotC was intentionally reducing the difficulty in such a manner, hoping to snare old and new players alike by promising greater rewards at a much quicker pace. Perhaps they thought that the attention span of modern gamers wouldn't last as long as it used to? Or maybe they simply believe most gamers play infrequently enough that too wide a gap between levels is discouraging, a belief I can't readily refute given that I typically only manage 1d4+1 sessions a year.
Now, however, I'm left with the concern that my own table is likewise too lenient. After all, even my highest chart only requires about 370,000 points for 20th level, and that assumes a character with a maximum class load.
I could make a return to the charts of old, or try to find some balance between the old and the new. After all, with the more generous experience rewards given by 3rd Edition rules, it might somewhat bridge the gap between players of different editions. Or, I could shove it off to the side for now, perhaps ruminating further upon it when I actually have players with characters above 4th level in the current system. At present rate, that might only take five years.
At 11th level, a Paladin from 1st Edition had amassed over a million experience points. By 15th, the Thief class crossed the one million mark, followed only by Bard at 16th level (which doesn't really count since it was the 1st Edition equivalent of a Prestige - you had to be both a Fighter and Thief for 5+ levels before you could become a Bard). To get to 20th, you're talking 3.3 million for the most lenient table, ranging up to nearly six million points for Paladin.
By comparison, the pure 3rd Edition chart is child's play: 2nd level at a mere 1,000 points (The least expensive in 1st Ed., Thief, was 1,251), 10th level at only 45,000 which provides you with a "massive" gap to the 190,000 total needed for 20th level. Add to that the fact that 3rd edition experience is granted, according to the DMG, as an even split to all participants in an encounter (rather than being awarded individually based on damage dealt and treasure found - a bane to all low-level spellcasters) and you have what seems to be a supercharged elevator to the top. No wonder WotC came out with Epic Level handbooks so quickly!
I remember, as a child, sitting in a restaurant with my parents, and overhearing a conversation from a booth behind me: one guy was telling his friends about a campaign that took place in some tower, and his Paladin character made it all the way up to 50th level, only to be defeated or level-drained or some-such, and had to start over again at the bottom, so he did it again and got up to 50th level, and he got booted back down again, etc. Being the naive, inexperienced youth that I was, I got excited because they were talking about D&D, and I suppose I asked my mother why she didn't seem interested in asking them to game with us. That's when she explained to me the concept of "Monty Haul" gaming, and why it was generally considered to be a lesser form or of poorer quality among serious gamers.
I have to wonder if WotC was intentionally reducing the difficulty in such a manner, hoping to snare old and new players alike by promising greater rewards at a much quicker pace. Perhaps they thought that the attention span of modern gamers wouldn't last as long as it used to? Or maybe they simply believe most gamers play infrequently enough that too wide a gap between levels is discouraging, a belief I can't readily refute given that I typically only manage 1d4+1 sessions a year.
Now, however, I'm left with the concern that my own table is likewise too lenient. After all, even my highest chart only requires about 370,000 points for 20th level, and that assumes a character with a maximum class load.
I could make a return to the charts of old, or try to find some balance between the old and the new. After all, with the more generous experience rewards given by 3rd Edition rules, it might somewhat bridge the gap between players of different editions. Or, I could shove it off to the side for now, perhaps ruminating further upon it when I actually have players with characters above 4th level in the current system. At present rate, that might only take five years.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Step by step, inch by inch...
I now have a "course description" document (22 pages long) that does a fair job, I think, of explaining the various classes and class segments I have available in the game. There are a couple of classes which don't have all the details in that listing, due to the expected rarity of the classes and the fact that they essentially have their own spell lists and that would just be way too much to put in there.
My next project, I think, is to finally get around to a full list of equipment that isn't weaponry or armor. Which means I'm getting closer to needing a campaign idea to kick things off with.
My next project, I think, is to finally get around to a full list of equipment that isn't weaponry or armor. Which means I'm getting closer to needing a campaign idea to kick things off with.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Racial Benefits
Prior editions of D&D gave various bonuses to the different races when it came to class. Some classes were even limited to certain races. I have some Combat Proficiencies like that, but so far none of my classes are race-restricted. However, I just recently considered the option of giving a reduced experience cost to certain classes, based on race. At this point I'm not sure how much of a bonus it should be, or if it's even truly desirable as an aspect of the game. I would like to include some sort of technical variance due to race, but I could just include the bonuses based on size and the different types of vision and be done with it. Thoughts?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Death and Dying
I found some RPG discussion forums today, and through them came across someone else's house rules for death and dying here. Essentially, it increases the amount below zero a character's hit points can go to before the character is dead, allows normal healing spells to work on a character that has died within 24 hours of death, and removes the ability to bring the dead back to life beyond that timespan completely.
While I understand not liking the revolving door of death, I'm not sure I'm ready to remove those spells just yet, and I don't know that I like normal curing spells bringing someone back from the dead, even at less than 24 hours, without the formerly-deceased also needing something to restore their mental faculties after their brain has been without oxygenated blood for so long. I dunno, I guess that might fall under the same healing spell.
I do like the idea of changing the amount below zero, though, for much the same reason as the person expresses: it reduces the lethality of a higher-level battle, where any hit sufficient to drop your character to negatives is also likely to kill outright. It also makes characters or NPCs with less than 10 hp a bit more realistic. That goblin with 4 hp and your 20 Con, 3rd level Fighter both need to hit -10 to die?
That said, I think making the "death threshold" equal to the inverse of the maximum hp is a bit much. I'm thinking more like half would be reasonable, and allow a bit more wiggle room without making it nigh-impossible to kill anyone at higher levels.
So, a third level fighter with a max of 30 hp gets dropped to -3 from a nasty critical hit. They make a save to resist falling unconscious. If successful, they are awake but still disabled, so they can't move as quick and anything more strenuous than talking causes them to take a point of damage. Unless they get their wound bound or stabilize on their own, they also take a point of damage each round, and if they do get bound it will reopen and need to be bound/stabilized again if they take any strenuous action. On top of that, any time they take damage, they have to resist passing out again. A couple of rounds resisting oblivion and still trying to fend off the enemy puts the fighter at -15. Unless help arrives swiftly, next round they'll die from blood loss.
This is extremely theatrical, allowing scenes similar to Boromir's last stand. I'll probably end up using it.
While I understand not liking the revolving door of death, I'm not sure I'm ready to remove those spells just yet, and I don't know that I like normal curing spells bringing someone back from the dead, even at less than 24 hours, without the formerly-deceased also needing something to restore their mental faculties after their brain has been without oxygenated blood for so long. I dunno, I guess that might fall under the same healing spell.
I do like the idea of changing the amount below zero, though, for much the same reason as the person expresses: it reduces the lethality of a higher-level battle, where any hit sufficient to drop your character to negatives is also likely to kill outright. It also makes characters or NPCs with less than 10 hp a bit more realistic. That goblin with 4 hp and your 20 Con, 3rd level Fighter both need to hit -10 to die?
That said, I think making the "death threshold" equal to the inverse of the maximum hp is a bit much. I'm thinking more like half would be reasonable, and allow a bit more wiggle room without making it nigh-impossible to kill anyone at higher levels.
So, a third level fighter with a max of 30 hp gets dropped to -3 from a nasty critical hit. They make a save to resist falling unconscious. If successful, they are awake but still disabled, so they can't move as quick and anything more strenuous than talking causes them to take a point of damage. Unless they get their wound bound or stabilize on their own, they also take a point of damage each round, and if they do get bound it will reopen and need to be bound/stabilized again if they take any strenuous action. On top of that, any time they take damage, they have to resist passing out again. A couple of rounds resisting oblivion and still trying to fend off the enemy puts the fighter at -15. Unless help arrives swiftly, next round they'll die from blood loss.
This is extremely theatrical, allowing scenes similar to Boromir's last stand. I'll probably end up using it.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Class Building Blocks: Lego or Duplo?
Seeing 41 different options on my current character class list is a lot less impressive than it should be. First off, a character without any special starting abilities, like being an awakened psion or of a particular bloodline, only has access to 35 of those options. Further, a lot of the things listed on the "Class" list are more like Class fragments. Magic has been broken up into its various Schools, and each School is taken individually. Some of the iconic abilities of various classes have been stripped away from the class, and divided up into smaller packages.
For instance, the Paladin abilities such as Detect Evil and Lay on Hands are now distributed amongst Crusader, Temple Knight, and Faith Healer. These "fragments" have a lower experience cost if taken alone, obviously, but the idea is that you can build your own adventurer. One of the fragments is simply an extra starting combat proficiency, which could be anything from another weapon proficiency to metamagic. Some of the fragments are levelable, improvable crafting "classes" such as Bowyer, Armorer, and Alchemist.
And, one is simply a "Citizen" class: no abilities, no special stuff, you get the benefits inherent to your ability scores. That was mostly just to give me something I can use for NPCs, but it could be fun to start a group off as Citizens and have them progress to other classes and abilities through training.
The image I have in my head of how all this should work seems good: a mix between a class-based and a skill-based game with enough variance and limiters that not every character is going to be able to do everything, but will have more varied abilities than a typical character in a class-based system.
I still need to finish separating the magic into schools, to make it easier to roll them, and I still need to determine a setting, at least a small area to start in. Then comes the fun part.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Game Projects
Skill System...........................Done
Spell System..........................Done
Crafting System.....................Done
Class System..........................Done
Spell List...............................Done
Weapon List..........................Done
Armor List.............................Done
Other Equipment Lists...........Umm... no.
Combat System......................Done
Campaign Setting..................In Review
Campaign Ideas....................Way too many
Run Playtest.exe (y/N)? y
Starting Playtest.exe.........Error! Setting.ini not found! Abort, Retry, Fail?
*sigh*
Fail.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Typing to hear myself think
After discussing skill systems late last night with my conscripted playtester, it seems that a simple stat-based system which does not use skill points would be preferable over a stat-based system that uses minimal skill points or a percentage based, customizable improvement system. While this certainly makes things easier for me, it was a bit of a surprise since he had some time ago argued for the ability to improve skills through training. I should probably ask him again sometime when he isn't falling asleep at the computer.
I'm also considering an a la carte system for character creation, which would essentially allow players to create their own class. Magic is already divided into different schools, so that's easy enough. I can strip the special class-based abilities away from the classes, and either offer them as-is to be added on, or figure out a value for each ability to allow further customization. This could be an additional method on top of keeping the regular classes, maybe with the regular classes having a lesser experience cost to level than they would if broken into their individual abilities.
On the surface, this looks like it would make things more difficult or make creation take longer, but it would also allow me to take a new player, ask them what they want to be able to do, and put together a conglomeration of abilities that would approximate their desires.
I do have ideas for making individual schools of magic based on different stats for learning and casting. This would be a way for dedicated spellcasters to have more casting ability despite the static mana system, since different types of spells may draw from different resources.
I'm also considering the option of allowing some method of choosing spells, instead of having them random by default, since the sheer number of spells I have compiled makes it statistically daunting for a cleric to get any healing spells. This could change if schools of magic were taken a la carte, though. Something to keep in mind.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Cunning is Confusing
In reconsidering a skill system, I'd come across the fact that I don't have a lot tied to the Cunning stat, and so was considering whether it should be kept. It plays a part in Psionics, and I had previously set it to determine how many fighting skills a Fighter would get per level. After some review, and re-reading the dictionary definition, I'm not sure the latter use is appropriate.
Cunning is this strange conglomeration, made up of aspects of the other mental attributes: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Bluffing or conning someone, or feinting in combat are good examples of using Cunning. Seducing someone could be Cunning mixed with Charisma, as would (potentially) disguising yourself or acting out a role. A master tactician would be intelligent (having learned about tactics and studied them in history), wise (know your enemy, know yourself), and also cunning (applying strategies in unpredictable ways, developing new techniques). Cunning seems to be concerned with the application of these other abilities (Int, Wis, Cha) in base, predatory ways, while preventing others from knowing what you're up to.
Despite the closely-tied nature of these stats, though, it's obvious that a highly developed Cunning can exist even without Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. Goblins and Bugbears are frequently considered cunning, despite not being the brightest or most beautiful. Captain Jack Sparrow showed a great deal of cunning, and had some Charisma to back it up, but was not portrayed as the most wise or intelligent individual.
As a character stat, it's difficult to pin down what exactly Cunning should (or should not) affect. I considered the option of having Cunning directly affect the amount of extra damage dealt by a Sneak Attack, but one of my players expressed the opinion that the ability to strike vulnerable areas is a learned skill and should therefore be improvable. I could make another Combat Proficiency which would allow for that.
My wife mentioned the possibility of Cunning as a skill, rather than a stat, making the argument that one's shrewdness and guile could be practiced and improved. The question there would be, though, what would Cunning, as a skill, do? Most of what we came up with would cause it to affect other skills, rather than do something on its own like the other skills.
Still exploring possibilities with this.
Cunning is this strange conglomeration, made up of aspects of the other mental attributes: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Bluffing or conning someone, or feinting in combat are good examples of using Cunning. Seducing someone could be Cunning mixed with Charisma, as would (potentially) disguising yourself or acting out a role. A master tactician would be intelligent (having learned about tactics and studied them in history), wise (know your enemy, know yourself), and also cunning (applying strategies in unpredictable ways, developing new techniques). Cunning seems to be concerned with the application of these other abilities (Int, Wis, Cha) in base, predatory ways, while preventing others from knowing what you're up to.
Despite the closely-tied nature of these stats, though, it's obvious that a highly developed Cunning can exist even without Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. Goblins and Bugbears are frequently considered cunning, despite not being the brightest or most beautiful. Captain Jack Sparrow showed a great deal of cunning, and had some Charisma to back it up, but was not portrayed as the most wise or intelligent individual.
As a character stat, it's difficult to pin down what exactly Cunning should (or should not) affect. I considered the option of having Cunning directly affect the amount of extra damage dealt by a Sneak Attack, but one of my players expressed the opinion that the ability to strike vulnerable areas is a learned skill and should therefore be improvable. I could make another Combat Proficiency which would allow for that.
My wife mentioned the possibility of Cunning as a skill, rather than a stat, making the argument that one's shrewdness and guile could be practiced and improved. The question there would be, though, what would Cunning, as a skill, do? Most of what we came up with would cause it to affect other skills, rather than do something on its own like the other skills.
Still exploring possibilities with this.
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