Custom Tabletop RPG system

[Kojiro]

Hello all,

I've been plodding around with my own RPG system for some time now and I wanted to get some fresh eyes on it for (hopefully) constructive criticism. This is a very roleplaying heavy system and would likely get cumbersome with many rolls.

The general gist of character creation assumes a rating of 2 in all attributes- this being the default, average level of strength, charisma etc. During character creation players are- depending on the archetype chosen- given a certain number of traits to assign to their character. These will be from a long but not exhaustive list and are mostly short descriptors- dexterous, brawny, quick witted, handsome etc. So rather than a set of numbers/dots you'll end up with a set of descriptors about a character. Again, archetype may play a role here- Soldiers for example may receive an extra trait the must be physical, Seers would be mental etc). There are also two other types of traits- negative (which subtract from the pool where relevant) and specialised which are far less useful but grant a 2 dice bonus rather than 1.

Skills, like so many other systems, are simply on a 0-X (probably 7) scale.

When a character is called upon to make a skill check, they will roll 2 dice (the default) plus one for each trait that can be classed as positive. The GM will assign a target number (TN) and any rolls meeting or exceeding the TN are classed as successes with more successes naturally indicating better success. In addition players may add points from relevant skills to each dice to bump them up to success level. So for example a character declares he'd like to put an arrow in a given target. The GM assigns a difficulty (say . The player declares his character has the trait 'dexterous' and is awarded another die to his pool, now 3 dice. He rolls and gets a 4, 6 and a 9. With his Archery skill of 3 he can spend 2 points to bump the 6 to an 8 and the 9 is a clean success so he scores 2 successes- a pretty decent hit. The extra skill point does nothing in this case, but if it were a resisted roll against another player it would be used as a tie breaker should they otherwise have equal successes.

Combat between players/NPC non mooks would be resolved with a contested roll with the winner describing the outcome based on the degree of success. A draw results in just clash of blades/blocked blows etc.

The damage system is also somewhat unique. Weapons are all more or less equally lethal- based on the idea that a good strike with a knife is just as fatal as (if not less messy) a good strike with a warhammer. What weapons do is add to your attack pool, making more successes possible and modify armour saves (much like Warhammer fantasy battle- armour mitigates damage done, so a wound, if saved, might drop to an injury or scratch or even be completely avoided). Depending on the degree of success, attackers inflict scratches, injuries or wounds. All of these are tracked separately with one flowing into the other, should said column become full. Naturally losing your last wound puts you on the brink of death.

A single success attack will inflict a scratch, allow for a manoeuvre or press advantage. It is up to the player to describe the scene of how the 'scratch' is inflicted, be it locked swords followed by a vicious punch, a literal scratch with the blade (tradition Hollywood movie wound) or throwing the opponent into wall/corner etc- so long as they inflict a only a little damage. A manoeuvre is specifically to control the combat- rather important when you're aiming for player described cinematics. It allows them to put themselves between an attacker and someone they want to defend (or draw someone away) or otherwise move the fight/location. Pressing an advantage is similar to inflicting the scratch in terms of describing the action but rather than hurting the target causes them to lose a die from the next round of combat. This is cumulative and often the start of a losing fight.

Two successes on an attack results are similar but of course inflict injuries rather than scratches and three successes inflicts wounds. There is a short list of other things that successes can be spent on (such as disarms) and naturally one can trade down or split the successes. A 3 successes could be used to scratch an opponent, press an advantage and manoeuvre if the winner was sufficiently confident- a master deftly sending an uppity apprentice to the ground right in front of the door, for example.

For what it's worth, preliminary tests say most characters will have about 5 wounds, 3 injuries and 2 wounds. Again archetypes will come into this and traits can be selected that will enhance this.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. That the general idea.

[Gunhead]

What you're describing is pretty much a mix of Heavy Gear and Vampire the masquerade. Right of the bat, I would not fix the attributes to such a limited scale. This makes characters too similar from a game mechanics point of view and while having attribute differences exist only on the roleplaying level is fine for the most part, it can lead to situation where GM decisions can seem arbitrary by him either sometimes giving me a bonus to a roll due to my character description or never giving one because from the game mechanics point of view, I'm not entitled to one.

You can spread this around a bit by having the first step give +1 dice to the dice pool when unopposed but when you're contesting with another character, you compare the differences between attributes and the character with the higher attribute gets the advantage. You can even spread this out to +2 if the difference is bigger than say 2 steps.
You're still stuck with the problem that your negative modifiers to the dice pool are at max -1 dice so basically all characters will be more or less average as rolling only 1 die is basically worthless even with high skill, as he might be able to succeed in an unopposed skill test but rolling against anyone with basic attributes and some skill he is basically fucked.

I'm going by the assumption that in most cases only one attribute is counted into the roll. This is because while on paper having multiple attributes have an effect in a roll, either by giving a higher bonus or negative modifiers counting against positive ones might seem like a good idea, it more often leads to arguments on what attributes apply. This is more pronounced in combat where having both high strength and agility / dexterity would almost always seem as countable bonuses.

Last thing. Your idea of adding more dice into the pool from weapons is a horrible one. You should stick with a fairly limited dice pool and have different weapons have different damage numbers and just use a single die to determine if the wound connects modified by armor. So the combat rolls would be opposed roll, winner gets say 2 successes, declares he'll try to wound, opponent has leather armor (base target say 3) and is well built (+1 to soak, damage resistance etc.) Attacker has a sword (+0) is fairly strong (+1 to wound) rolls two dices gets 3 and 8 scoring one wound.
Now the numbers and so on I just made up as I went but this is just a demonstration how to avoid the dicepool bloat that plagued vampire and still keep the number of rolls down to a minimum.

I'll post more when I have time.

-Gunhead

[TheHammer]

The traits aspect sounds similar to what is used in Crusader Kings, with positive and negative traits affecting stats. It makes for an interesting character creation mechanism. However, one suggestion I might make is rather than letting archetype dictate traits, you should let traits dictate archetype (at the player's option) - If that makes sense.

Essentially, you figure out what physical/mental traits your character is "born" with, and then figure out what archetype they should go into, if any. I'd also make at least some (if not all) of the trait selections random just for more unique characters. Obviously, some traits would likely be mutually exclusive (can't be both Brawny and weak, etc), but that's something that could be worked out. Perhaps with the option to "buy" additional good trait rolls, or "sell" bad trait rolls from a pool of stat points that can be assigned at the end of creation.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem with that system is that people usually have a pretty good idea what kind of character they want to play before they start rolling dice. Systems that 'realistically' start by modeling your character's abilities first, then deciding their career second, are usually a lot more cumbersome and irritating because they force players to reroll when they don't get the result they want and/or need for game balance.

[TheHammer]

The problem with that system is that people usually have a pretty good idea what kind of character they want to play before they start rolling dice. Systems that 'realistically' start by modeling your character's abilities first, then deciding their career second, are usually a lot more cumbersome and irritating because they force players to reroll when they don't get the result they want and/or need for game balance.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of random rolling for traits, followed by allocation of stat points from a pool, then picking a class and subsequently skills/abilities associated with that class. Obviously you could make that part optional. If you're looking to make something significantly "different" than D&D or its various clones, that would be a good start.

It might not appeal to everyone, but a group looking for a challenge and tired of the same old same old might find playing non-standard character archetypes interesting. That's especially true if the emphasis is heavy on role-playing versus simply building a perfectly balanced squad of Tank, Healer, DPS Mage, etc. After all, a good GM builds a game around his players rather than the other way around.

[Lord Revan]

few things I'd like say is that make certain that there's no "one archetype to rule them all" or "one build per archetype", since if there's a one style of play that's clearly superior to the others it will kill any narrative or role-play since everyone will play that way.

Also make the backstories of the characters matter in the game play.

[bilateralrope]

It might not appeal to everyone, but a group looking for a challenge and tired of the same old same old might find playing non-standard character archetypes interesting.That's especially true if the emphasis is heavy on role-playing versus simply building a perfectly balanced squad of Tank, Healer, DPS Mage, etc. After all, a good GM builds a game around his players rather than the other way around.

Then they can go and create a non-standard character when they feel like playing one. Not be forced to play one they don't want to play because of randomness in character generation. Frankly, I find randomness in character generation to be bad for role-play because if you go into character generation with a character concept in mind, because the dice are likely to fuck it up.

[Gunhead]

There's nothing wrong with randomizing stats if you do it right. You just skew the rolls into the desired direction, then, more importantly, you place the rolls in desired places. Yea, rolling a bad string can still screw you over but I find this to be more preferable to having a straight point buy. In a straight point buy system, people tend to optimize their stats so you're never going to have a character with a stat that's very high or very low unless it's part of a specific combo. For example, if you said you're going to make a fighter for a generic TL4 GURPS 3rd ed. game with 100 points , I could pretty much guess your stat line.
Point buys also tend to favor characters with narrower focus, which can be troublesome if you have only few players and don't want them dragging NPCs around all the time. You can work around this by giving player more points, but then you have to trust your players to widen their skills etc. and not just dump more points into the characters main focus.
Now the arguably good thing about point buys is that you get exactly what you paid for so to speak.

I personally favor a mix of both where you mostly roll your characteristics and then you have points to buy skills, abilities and tweak your stat line so you can get over those all important thresholds if you scored a bit on the shy side.

-Gunhead

[Jub]

There's nothing wrong with randomizing stats if you do it right. You just skew the rolls into the desired direction, then, more importantly, you place the rolls in desired places. Yea, rolling a bad string can still screw you over but I find this to be more preferable to having a straight point buy. In a straight point buy system, people tend to optimize their stats so you're never going to have a character with a stat that's very high or very low unless it's part of a specific combo. For example, if you said you're going to make a fighter for a generic TL4 GURPS 3rd ed. game with 100 points , I could pretty much guess your stat line.
Point buys also tend to favor characters with narrower focus, which can be troublesome if you have only few players and don't want them dragging NPCs around all the time. You can work around this by giving player more points, but then you have to trust your players to widen their skills etc. and not just dump more points into the characters main focus.
Now the arguably good thing about point buys is that you get exactly what you paid for so to speak.

I personally favor a mix of both where you mostly roll your characteristics and then you have points to buy skills, abilities and tweak your stat line so you can get over those all important thresholds if you scored a bit on the shy side.

-Gunhead

Not to mention that there is a certain something that one can only get while rolling up a character and being unsure of exactly how things will go. I enjoy games with point buy systems, but I think I tend to enjoy character creation more with at least a little randomness thrown in for good measure.

[Simon_Jester]

I was actually thinking more along the lines of random rolling for traits, followed by allocation of stat points from a pool, then picking a class and subsequently skills/abilities associated with that class. Obviously you could make that part optional. If you're looking to make something significantly "different" than D&D or its various clones, that would be a good start.

It might not appeal to everyone, but a group looking for a challenge and tired of the same old same old might find playing non-standard character archetypes interesting. That's especially true if the emphasis is heavy on role-playing versus simply building a perfectly balanced squad of Tank, Healer, DPS Mage, etc. After all, a good GM builds a game around his players rather than the other way around.

Yes, but if I want to play a technician and I roll up stats suited for a commando... I've wasted my time. It's irritating. No game should operate on the principle of "so sorry, you can't have the kind of fun you wanted, try again!"

Point buys let you craft a character in line with a backstory or concept you already have in mind. Choice of where to 'put' randomly generated stats is just about as good (nod to Gunhead).

Now, I LIKE the idea of introducing some randomness- the trick is to find ways to introduce randomness without letting randomness prevent anyone from playing the character they want.

[bilateralrope]

There's nothing wrong with randomizing stats if you do it right. You just skew the rolls into the desired direction, then, more importantly, you place the rolls in desired places. Yea, rolling a bad string can still screw you over but I find this to be more preferable to having a straight point buy. In a straight point buy system, people tend to optimize their stats so you're never going to have a character with a stat that's very high or very low unless it's part of a specific combo. For example, if you said you're going to make a fighter for a generic TL4 GURPS 3rd ed. game with 100 points , I could pretty much guess your stat line.
Point buys also tend to favor characters with narrower focus, which can be troublesome if you have only few players and don't want them dragging NPCs around all the time. You can work around this by giving player more points, but then you have to trust your players to widen their skills etc. and not just dump more points into the characters main focus.
Now the arguably good thing about point buys is that you get exactly what you paid for so to speak.

I personally favor a mix of both where you mostly roll your characteristics and then you have points to buy skills, abilities and tweak your stat line so you can get over those all important thresholds if you scored a bit on the shy side.

-Gunhead

Point buy and random rolling are not the only options. Personally I prefer something like what Ironclaw does:
- For traits (equivalent to D&D characteristics) you are given an array of numbers, one for each trait, and you pick which trait gets which number.
- For skills you get a number of points to put into skills, but no skill can be put above rank x during character creation.
- Then you pick a number of gifts (equivalent to D&D talents) to take on top of those provided by your species and career.

It doesn't have any random elements that could screw over your character concept. It forces characters to be a more well rounded than what is likely to come out of a straight point buy.

[Kojiro]

Sorry for the delay, been busy. Thank you for the feedback!

What you're describing is pretty much a mix of Heavy Gear and Vampire the masquerade. Right of the bat, I would not fix the attributes to such a limited scale. This makes characters too similar from a game mechanics point of view and while having attribute differences exist only on the roleplaying level is fine for the most part, it can lead to situation where GM decisions can seem arbitrary by him either sometimes giving me a bonus to a roll due to my character description or never giving one because from the game mechanics point of view, I'm not entitled to one.

Well that's where the specialised traits come in- if you want to have traits that are overly specialised- like say 'steady hands' which is obviously not as good as simply being 'coordinated' in most situations, hence it will grant a larger bonus when it is. To an extent you're right, and the objection has been raised within my player group that it may simple be better to have as generic traits as possible which means you may as well simply have Vampire like dots for strength, dex etc. The other idea is that less 'common' traits would be purchased on a 2 for 1 basis. In short, less useful traits will either provide bigger bonuses or cost less.

You can spread this around a bit by having the first step give +1 dice to the dice pool when unopposed but when you're contesting with another character, you compare the differences between attributes and the character with the higher attribute gets the advantage. You can even spread this out to +2 if the difference is bigger than say 2 steps.

From the playtesting we've done we've found that unopposed rolls are- due to the way skills are added, working very well. Even with at TN of 8 and no attribute bonuses a skilled character (3 skill level) will still succeed with a single 5 or more on 2 dice.

You're still stuck with the problem that your negative modifiers to the dice pool are at max -1 dice so basically all characters will be more or less average as rolling only 1 die is basically worthless even with high skill, as he might be able to succeed in an unopposed skill test but rolling against anyone with basic attributes and some skill he is basically fucked.

Well no, you can get a penalty of greater than -1 dice through situations (indeed you can also get bonus dice) and there is a willpower (to use Vampire again) like boosting mechanic and unspent skill points can be used to 'pop' natural tens. While I agree that someone reduced to 1 die vs someone with 3 dice is in trouble I don't see it as a bad thing. The lesser warrior will get hit- as they likely should.

I'm going by the assumption that in most cases only one attribute is counted into the roll. This is because while on paper having multiple attributes have an effect in a roll, either by giving a higher bonus or negative modifiers counting against positive ones might seem like a good idea, it more often leads to arguments on what attributes apply. This is more pronounced in combat where having both high strength and agility / dexterity would almost always seem as countable bonuses.

Well the system is applicable for more than just physical conflicts. Indeed in some ways it's meant to offset the purely dice rolling aspect present in combat that doesn't crop up (at least in my games) where social situations are involved. But you can add as many traits as are applicable to the roll.Yes, there's a chance the GM will not agree something is applicable but that's no different to the GM saying 'and you get a -1 penalty for such and such'. There will be times where 'agile' won't help you- say the confines are so tight there's no room to move. Likewise being 'brawny' isn't going to help you worth a damn against a swarm of flesh eating little critters. But yes, you can stack multiple traits if you want but you only have so many- 8-9 and you've got to add social and mental traits too. Well you don't have to, but if you want to engineer a pure combat wombat... eh.

Last thing. Your idea of adding more dice into the pool from weapons is a horrible one. You should stick with a fairly limited dice pool and have different weapons have different damage numbers and just use a single die to determine if the wound connects modified by armor. So the combat rolls would be opposed roll, winner gets say 2 successes, declares he'll try to wound, opponent has leather armor (base target say 3) and is well built (+1 to soak, damage resistance etc.) Attacker has a sword (+0) is fairly strong (+1 to wound) rolls two dices gets 3 and 8 scoring one wound.
Now the numbers and so on I just made up as I went but this is just a demonstration how to avoid the dice pool bloat that plagued vampire and still keep the number of rolls down to a minimum.

I'll admit I'm not a fan of admit the dice to the pool. It's simply the logical way to add damage to roll without adding another roll. Another suggestion was to add dice to the pool that counted only in the event of winning the contested roll. It should be noted that while I don't mind adding another step/roll from my groups perspective less rolls is better but I would like to have as broad an appeal as possible.

To use your above example, are you suggesting that any attack have a chance at causing a wound- that is the game mechanic term- or are you speaking of generally hurting the opponent? The initial roll describes the quality of the hit and 2 successes would preclude a wound. Are you suggesting that on hit, the player would get a TN of (arbitrarily made up here) say 4 to scratc, 6 to injure or 8 to wound and rolls a number of dice equal to successes against that TN (modified appropriately)? Am I understanding you right?

I'll post more when I have time.

-Gunhead

Thanks for your input!

[LaCroix]

For a point buy system, I think it pays off to create more base attributes - for example split DEX into real Dexterity and Agility, and you make specializing more of a thing - being able to fight with a sword doesn't mean you can play the piano or pick a lock. Get INT, WIS and an extra Awareness (for spot checks and initiative) stat. A highly intelligent person can be a complete dolt in picking stuff up (See Sheldon Cooper who maximizes INT&WIS, but dumps all other stats.)

Im my opinion, it's always a good idea to tie skill values to attribute values (at least at creation, but it also works during a game - a whimp will never become a good fighter unless he puts on some muscle). If someone wants to have a huge starting skill in fighting, he needs high Str&Dex. But initiative, for example, needs high INT(and/or Awareness - pick stuff up and figure out how to react). So you can make a top fighter, but he will be the slow to react brute always moving last, unless you also make him intelligent in some way.

Also, he will permanently pay too much for equipment because his CHA is too low, which caps his barter skill. (Make them pay prices for starting equipment according to their barter skills, and you make that thing hurt enough to make them dump that stat less.)

A well done spread of needed base attributes basically forces players to create (quite) well-rounded characters. They can go all out, but they suffer a lot for it if they deviate from the average.

[TheHammer]

I was actually thinking more along the lines of random rolling for traits, followed by allocation of stat points from a pool, then picking a class and subsequently skills/abilities associated with that class. Obviously you could make that part optional. If you're looking to make something significantly "different" than D&D or its various clones, that would be a good start.

It might not appeal to everyone, but a group looking for a challenge and tired of the same old same old might find playing non-standard character archetypes interesting. That's especially true if the emphasis is heavy on role-playing versus simply building a perfectly balanced squad of Tank, Healer, DPS Mage, etc. After all, a good GM builds a game around his players rather than the other way around.

Yes, but if I want to play a technician and I roll up stats suited for a commando... I've wasted my time. It's irritating. No game should operate on the principle of "so sorry, you can't have the kind of fun you wanted, try again!"

Point buys let you craft a character in line with a backstory or concept you already have in mind. Choice of where to 'put' randomly generated stats is just about as good (nod to Gunhead).

Now, I LIKE the idea of introducing some randomness- the trick is to find ways to introduce randomness without letting randomness prevent anyone from playing the character they want.

Aren't you already at the mercy of the dice on a role-playing game? If your technician ventures out and is killed because of some unlucky dices rolls ten minutes in, that would be as much a waste of time would it not? lol

Like I said, its one of those things that's a matter of style. There is no reason you couldn't come up with a system that appeals to both types. Perhaps a "traditional" you pick it system, with the option of "going random" and getting some sort of special/rare/magical bonus item to encourage people to try that route. As noted, its still not completely random since you'd in theory have some allocation points you could use to fill out your character, as well as picking the skills.

I was thinking along the lines of what Revan mentioned that a radomized trait system would prevent the "superior archetype" issue. Like when everyone playing Star Wars online wanted to be a Jedi, when Jedi should have been rare and powerful. By making certain traits random, you can alleviate that to an extent. If for example there is a "genius" trait with bonuses to spell casting and intelligence, then everyone is going to want to have that for their mage. Sure you could make a trait purchasing system where you'd make being a "genius" expensive, but then you have a bunch of club-footed genius mages hobbling around.

[Kojiro]

The problem with that system is that people usually have a pretty good idea what kind of character they want to play before they start rolling dice. Systems that 'realistically' start by modeling your character's abilities first, then deciding their career second, are usually a lot more cumbersome and irritating because they force players to reroll when they don't get the result they want and/or need for game balance.

This is theoretically supported by the archetypes. Again, if you want to play a warrior, that archetype is overlayed over the basic template granting a few free traits that must go towards physical type traits, a bigger health pool and access to the feats appropriate (note the feats tend to be more story focused than individual abilities). Your character will never be restricted by your stats as you'll be choosing a package to make your character out of.

As for random traits... no, neither I nor my group would like those. As this is an exercise in collaborative storytelling I very much want players to be able to play what they like. Players are never truly (at least not in my games) at the mercy of the dice. They are always protected from random deaths.

few things I'd like say is that make certain that there's no "one archetype to rule them all" or "one build per archetype", since if there's a one style of play that's clearly superior to the others it will kill any narrative or role-play since everyone will play that way.

The idea with the archetypes is to provide some rules back up for the kind of role the character is supposed to be playing in the story. Indeed the archetypes are not classes but more roles within the group (which strongly encourages groups to make characters together). And yes I can clearly see this not working for everyone/every group. Archetypes provide- in addition to the trait bonuses- feats that allow the character to act out that role. For example a Warrior might have access to something like 'Shrug it off- once per story heal a wound/2 injuries/4 scratches' which wouldn't be a literal healing but would be the warrior- by virtue of being the fighter in the group- sucking it up and getting on with it- ideally as part of some heroic moment. An Outsider/Rogue archetype might have 'It's a good thing I prepared this earlier...' where the player can retroactively set up a plausible contingency (such as secret bays in which to smuggle cargo, or hide from Stormtroopers). A Seer archetype might have 'Extensively Read... allowing them to, once per story, get handed a small bit of lore or background on something arcane or mysterious. These are designed to allow characters to do the things we'd see on screen we don't necessarily have explanations for but don't shatter SoD.

So there shouldn't really be a 'superior' archetype unless the GM is heavily predicating the story to one type of situation. Ideally each archetype should excel in their own area and the GM should be providing those opportunities. Now this does, to an extent apply some pressure to players to spread themselves out among the various archetypes but it's not essential- the fact your Seer got 2 free mental traits doesn't mean that you can't put a larger than usual amount in physical if you really want to, you just have to also have a decent chance at fulfilling your role in the group (a role you'd choose anyway).

Edit: Didn't mean to hit submit.

[bilateralrope]

Aren't you already at the mercy of the dice on a role-playing game? If your technician ventures out and is killed because of some unlucky dices rolls ten minutes in, that would be as much a waste of time would it not? lol

At least the player still got to play the character they wanted to play, even if it got cut short. Though a character dieing from a failed roll 10 minutes in makes me wonder why the GM is throwing such deadly threats at them so early.

Lets say you are GM and the players are doing character creation as a group. What do you think should be done when a player wants to play a character that isn't possible due to what he rolled during character generation ?

If you say he should reroll until he gets what he wants, how is that fair on him or the other players who have to wait around because of bad rolls ?

If you want to start the game immediately with the other players, while he keeps re-rolling, how is that fair on him ?

If you tell him to suck it up and play with that character, how is that fair when the other players have had rolls that fit their characters ?

By making certain traits random, you can alleviate that to an extent. If for example there is a "genius" trait with bonuses to spell casting and intelligence, then everyone is going to want to have that for their mage.

It sounds like you saying that since only 1 in 20 mages have this 'genius' trait in your setting, then only 1 in 20 player character mages should have it. Which means you are completely missing the point of PCs. They are not the average individual of whatever class they are playing. They are the exceptional individuals that stand out for one reason or another.

[TheHammer]

Aren't you already at the mercy of the dice on a role-playing game? If your technician ventures out and is killed because of some unlucky dices rolls ten minutes in, that would be as much a waste of time would it not? lol

At least the player still got to play the character they wanted to play, even if it got cut short. Though a character dieing from a failed roll 10 minutes in makes me wonder why the GM is throwing such deadly threats at them so early.

Tongue in cheek hypothetical. But if you play honestly, and a player rolls poorly death should be possible regardless of threat level. Unless the GM steps in and uses some sort of Deus-ex-machina to save you. Obviously, if you want to play more than the 10 minutes, the player would have to do something, perhaps rolling a new character that can be introduced to the party a short while later.

Lets say you are GM and the players are doing character creation as a group. What do you think should be done when a player wants to play a character that isn't possible due to what he rolled during character generation ?

I'd tell him to quite being such a baby and get the hell out of my basement!

In all seriousness, If someone really had a hard-on to play a certain character type I'd let them re-roll (within reason) until they got a character that would fit. It would still have appropriate random and uniqueness to it rather than simply being a collection of traits to "build the best" whatever.

Kojiro says he's not going this route, but if *I* were designing a game, I'd make an emphasis that random character traits was *part of* the game and part of what made it different from other games in the genre. The idea that you might play a class that you otherwise wouldn't have would broaden the experience. Using your imagination and role playing a character properly would be rewarded.

Truth be told, I'd probably scrap the idea of hard pre-requisites for certain classes. If you want to play a brawny dim-witted mage then have at it. Perhaps you're banking on finding some magical items or some non standard way of playing that makes it work. I might not even have "classes" per say, rather I'd go with a skill system - similar to how Ultima Online was originally. You didn't start out as "mage", "fighter", or whatever, rather you picked your own skills and in essence created your own "class". Or Perhaps a skill branch system, where you could get more and more powerful skills down a certain branch, or you could go back and use a skill choice on another branch - essentially you could become a jack of all trades, or master of one depending on how you want to play.

If you say he should re-roll until he gets what he wants, how is that fair on him or the other players who have to wait around because of bad rolls ?

I'd limit, or start imposing penalties on rolls. If he's being that much of a baby about it I'd probably just assign him adequate traits to let him play the class he wants - And subsequently not invite him back - but I doubt it would come to that point. As for the rest, for those who would actually accept their fate I'd probably reward them with extra starting experience, or magical item or whatever.

If you want to start the game immediately with the other players, while he keeps re-rolling, how is that fair on him ?

Rolling for traits might actually be quicker than allowing players to sift through the various traits and select them. As noted above, you just set limits on how many re-rolls you give before you start introducing penalties and that problem will solve itself.

If you tell him to suck it up and play with that character, how is that fair when the other players have had rolls that fit their characters ?

I'd tell him to suck it up this time, and try to play the character right. There are many computer-based RPG games where you don't get to completely customize the main character, or what skills they have at the start. They are still fun to play. Besides, just because he didn't get to play his "handsome elf rogue" this time doesn't mean he can't do it the next.

By making certain traits random, you can alleviate that to an extent. If for example there is a "genius" trait with bonuses to spell casting and intelligence, then everyone is going to want to have that for their mage.

It sounds like you saying that since only 1 in 20 mages have this 'genius' trait in your setting, then only 1 in 20 player character mages should have it. Which means you are completely missing the point of PCs. They are not the average individual of whatever class they are playing. They are the exceptional individuals that stand out for one reason or another.

If rolling for positive and negative traits, the PCs are always going to be exceptional to one extent or another. But that doesn't mean those positive or negative traits need always be the same for each class. Ultimately, its going to be the player skills (which they can select and gain/develop through experience) that are going to make them truly exceptional.

Again, the game I have in mind might not appeal to you. Its all a matter of taste.

[bilateralrope]

Lets say you are GM and the players are doing character creation as a group. What do you think should be done when a player wants to play a character that isn't possible due to what he rolled during character generation ?

I'd tell him to quite being such a baby and get the hell out of my basement!

In all seriousness,

In all seriousness, lets compare the different answers you gave to my single question:

I'd tell him to quite being such a baby and get the hell out of my basement!

If someone really had a hard-on to play a certain character type I'd let them re-roll (within reason) until they got a character that would fit.

I'd limit, or start imposing penalties on rolls

f he's being that much of a baby about it I'd probably just assign him adequate traits to let him play the class he wants - And subsequently not invite him back -

I'd tell him to suck it up this time, and try to play the character right.

So many different answers to the same question. Which one would you do ?

I also notice that your first 'joke' answer is the same as your last answer. Did you think about any of your answers ?

As for the rest, for those who would actually accept their fate I'd probably reward them with extra starting experience, or magical item or whatever.

So you would reward other players for one players bad luck. Putting the players who started ahead due to lucky rolls even further ahead.

If someone really had a hard-on to play a certain character type I'd let them re-roll (within reason) until they got a character that would fit. It would still have appropriate random and uniqueness to it rather than simply being a collection of traits to "build the best" whatever.

How is randomness appropriate ?
How is randomness a good mechanic ?

If you want to play a brawny dim-witted mage then have at it.

Why bring this example up ?
I'm not talking about players wanting to play unusual characters. I'm talking about players being forced to play unusual characters by the random elements you are so fond of.

Do you want players to roleplay or rollplay ?

Because roleplay requires players to be able to get into the mindset of the characters. Which is going to be a problem when the dice say no and you tell them to suck it up. I know from experience that I can not roleplay a dimwitted character. Force me to play one and I know you will not be getting any roleplay out of me for that game.

But rollplay, that I can do because it doesn't require me to think about how my character thinks. It just requires me to understand the game mechanics.

There are many computer-based RPG games where you don't get to completely customize the main character, or what skills they have at the start. They are still fun to play. Besides, just because he didn't get to play his "handsome elf rogue" this time doesn't mean he can't do it the next.

How long do you think it will be until the next time ?

For me, it's typically a year before my next character. Which is likely to be a different setting. So if I don't get to play a character idea now, it's going to be years before I'm likely to get another chance at it.

Can you name any computer games with random stats and characters you're expected to keep for even 6 months ?
If not, then this comparison does not fit.

[TheHammer]

So many different answers to the same question. Which one would you do ?

I also notice that your first 'joke' answer is the same as your last answer. Did you think about any of your answers ?

You asked me variations of the same question, so I gave you various possible answers any of which might apply at a given time. It really depends on the personality of the person you're dealing with.

So you would reward other players for one players bad luck. Putting the players who started ahead due to lucky rolls even further ahead.

I'd reward other players for playing the hand they were dealt and not insisting on re-rolling to get their ideal character stats. Some of them might have been lucky, some of them might simply enjoy the idea of a challenge.

How is randomness appropriate ?
How is randomness a good mechanic ?

Firstly, its not total randomness. Traits are merely a building block on which a character would be built. Again, if I were designing this, following the initial trait assignment, I'd have a pool of stat points that could be assigned to balance a character out. This pool could be used to "purchase" additional good trait rolls (if there was something in particular a player was hoping for), or more points could be acquired by "selling" bad trait rolls. Beyond that, the actual skills and how those skills advance would be in the hands of the player.

Secondly, randomness in some form or fashion is a game mechanic in most games in existence. Its a good mechanic because just like real life, the element of chance plays a big factor. Sometimes people get lucky - for better or worse. If your game incorporates any dice at all in incorporates randomness. Why get so worked up about adding some of that aspect to character creation?

Why bring this example up ?
I'm not talking about players wanting to play unusual characters. I'm talking about players being forced to play unusual characters by the random elements you are so fond of.

Do you want players to roleplay or rollplay ?

Because roleplay requires players to be able to get into the mindset of the characters. Which is going to be a problem when the dice say no and you tell them to suck it up. I know from experience that I can not roleplay a dimwitted character. Force me to play one and I know you will not be getting any roleplay out of me for that game.

But rollplay, that I can do because it doesn't require me to think about how my character thinks. It just requires me to understand the game mechanics.

You speak as though the two things are mutually exclusive. As I mentioned above, unless your game doesn't have dice, rollplay will always be a factor regardless of your roleplay or backstory. You say you "cannot roleplay a dimwitted character". I doubt you lack the imagination to do so, merely the inclination. Which would precisely be the point of what I'm proposing - to push people outside their comfort zones. Good GMs generally reward good role play. If someone were properly playing a dimwitted character, (think more Forest Gump than rain man) then that would be something that could be made rather fun if you opened your mind to the possibilities.

How long do you think it will be until the next time ?

For me, it's typically a year before my next character. Which is likely to be a different setting. So if I don't get to play a character idea now, it's going to be years before I'm likely to get another chance at it.

Can you name any computer games with random stats and characters you're expected to keep for even 6 months ?
If not, then this comparison does not fit.

How long it will be until "next time" probably depends on how much fun everyone had with it and their availability. Again, perhaps this concept doesn't appeal to you and that's perfectly fine. There are plenty of D&D clones out there that let you pick exactly the type of character you want to play. This would be more for people looking for a new challenge rather than the same old same old.

[Gunhead]

Well that's where the specialised traits come in- if you want to have traits that are overly specialised- like say 'steady hands' which is obviously not as good as simply being 'coordinated' in most situations, hence it will grant a larger bonus when it is. To an extent you're right, and the objection has been raised within my player group that it may simple be better to have as generic traits as possible which means you may as well simply have Vampire like dots for strength, dex etc. The other idea is that less 'common' traits would be purchased on a 2 for 1 basis. In short, less useful traits will either provide bigger bonuses or cost less.

I think the best solution is to have fairly generic stats and then you give the player the option to buy a specific trait that grants one extra dice when doing some specific task(s). I.e Character has a strength of 2 but has the trait strong armed giving him +1 to strength when wielding a weapon or arm wrestling for example. This way if a character can have a specific thing he can do above his normal capability without having to spend too much on it allowing more diversity in character creation.

From the playtesting we've done we've found that unopposed rolls are- due to the way skills are added, working very well. Even with at TN of 8 and no attribute bonuses a skilled character (3 skill level) will still succeed with a single 5 or more on 2 dice.

Well no, you can get a penalty of greater than -1 dice through situations (indeed you can also get bonus dice) and there is a willpower (to use Vampire again) like boosting mechanic and unspent skill points can be used to 'pop' natural tens. While I agree that someone reduced to 1 die vs someone with 3 dice is in trouble I don't see it as a bad thing. The lesser warrior will get hit- as they likely should.

Danger Will Robinson! Do not adjust difficulty by giving or taking away dice in the pool and having different target numbers. Doing this makes gauging the total difficulty of the attempt practically impossible without a chart. Basically you either adjust the target number or you adjust the number of dice rolled. That way you can maintain some idea how hard X is to do.

Well the system is applicable for more than just physical conflicts. Indeed in some ways it's meant to offset the purely dice rolling aspect present in combat that doesn't crop up (at least in my games) where social situations are involved. But you can add as many traits as are applicable to the roll.Yes, there's a chance the GM will not agree something is applicable but that's no different to the GM saying 'and you get a -1 penalty for such and such'. There will be times where 'agile' won't help you- say the confines are so tight there's no room to move. Likewise being 'brawny' isn't going to help you worth a damn against a swarm of flesh eating little critters. But yes, you can stack multiple traits if you want but you only have so many- 8-9 and you've got to add social and mental traits too. Well you don't have to, but if you want to engineer a pure combat wombat... eh.

I kinda covered this in the first part, but it seems you're going towards a system where multiple successes give you more powerful results. Ok, then this is what you should focus on. I think Dying Sun has some ideas that might work for you, I'll post more when I have more time (again). In a nutshell, it has this pretty spiffy escalation mechanic that I think could work out for you if you're interested in having some good rules for social conflict too.

I'll admit I'm not a fan of admit the dice to the pool. It's simply the logical way to add damage to roll without adding another roll. Another suggestion was to add dice to the pool that counted only in the event of winning the contested roll. It should be noted that while I don't mind adding another step/roll from my groups perspective less rolls is better but I would like to have as broad an appeal as possible.

To use your above example, are you suggesting that any attack have a chance at causing a wound- that is the game mechanic term- or are you speaking of generally hurting the opponent? The initial roll describes the quality of the hit and 2 successes would preclude a wound. Are you suggesting that on hit, the player would get a TN of (arbitrarily made up here) say 4 to scratc, 6 to injure or 8 to wound and rolls a number of dice equal to successes against that TN (modified appropriately)? Am I understanding you right?

You sort of got it. I was referring to what you earlier said that successes allows you dictate how the battle is played out. So basically what I mean is: Player scores 3 successes against an opponent, he uses one to push the opponent back so he has less room to maneuver (his next attack will have one less dice etc.), he uses one to give him a better position (he "saves" one success for the next round he can either use to negate one success by the opponent or give himself an extra one if he is again the winner) and uses one to give the opponent an actual wound and then rolls his damage against the opponents toughness + armor etc.

More again when I have time

-Gunhead

[Kojiro]

First up let me just say thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it a great deal.

I think the best solution is to have fairly generic stats and then you give the player the option to buy a specific trait that grants one extra dice when doing some specific task(s). I.e Character has a strength of 2 but has the trait strong armed giving him +1 to strength when wielding a weapon or arm wrestling for example. This way if a character can have a specific thing he can do above his normal capability without having to spend too much on it allowing more diversity in character creation.

Well that's kinda the point of the '2 base stat' for everything people start with, with appropriate traits added. The question becomes a) how many 'bonuses' (because each represents an above average stat) and how focused should they be?

Danger Will Robinson! Do not adjust difficulty by giving or taking away dice in the pool and having different target numbers. Doing this makes gauging the total difficulty of the attempt practically impossible without a chart. Basically you either adjust the target number or you adjust the number of dice rolled. That way you can maintain some idea how hard X is to do.

The TN is pretty much set to 8 for most things but I'm not ruling out modifying it. Anything less than 8 is probably sufficiently easy to not warrant a roll but I do like the idea of things above 8 (even above 10) that will require some degree of skill to accomplish that raw talent- no matter how much- simply will never, ever achieve. I do not plan to modify the TN on a casual basis though- it'd definitely be an exception.

To be fair my player group is terrible with numbers and difficulties, which may influence me somewhat. They simply trust I'm giving them a 'fair chance' when I am usually manipulating things to pass/fail to make the game flow better or be more exciting.

I kinda covered this in the first part, but it seems you're going towards a system where multiple successes give you more powerful results. Ok, then this is what you should focus on. I think Dying Sun has some ideas that might work for you, I'll post more when I have more time (again). In a nutshell, it has this pretty spiffy escalation mechanic that I think could work out for you if you're interested in having some good rules for social conflict too.

This is exactly it. For exactly a character may be able to take 7 scratches, 4 injuries and only 1 or 2 wounds, and the difference between then is a single success each. This is in line with the idea that the difference between a superficial blade strike and a serious wound is a matter of inches at most. This is also why weapons don't tend to have their own damage rating- properly applied (enough successes) any real weapon is lethal (to that extent I'm not even opposed to character kills directly). The contested roll is only there to determine who came out ahead of that round and how much from a narrative perspective.

You sort of got it. I was referring to what you earlier said that successes allows you dictate how the battle is played out. So basically what I mean is: Player scores 3 successes against an opponent, he uses one to push the opponent back so he has less room to maneuver (his next attack will have one less dice etc.), he uses one to give him a better position (he "saves" one success for the next round he can either use to negate one success by the opponent or give himself an extra one if he is again the winner) and uses one to give the opponent an actual wound and then rolls his damage against the opponents toughness + armor etc.

You can sort of do this. You could spend 1 success to push back (appropriate penalty applied), one to better position himself (bonus die to him) and assign the last to a 'scratch' type damage. A roll then kicks in for armour, if applicable, potentially mitigating the scratch. There is some dissonance here since the scratch can be so varied in application. Leather armour might just save you from that sweep of the dagger (or mitigate it to purely superficial levels) but it won't do a thing for a pommel to the face, either of which fit for a scratch with a push back. Imagine the two characters clash, swords meet but the stronger one pushes his opponents sword aside. Close as they are a proper strike is impossible but smashing the hilt into his opponents temple sends him sprawling (-1 to his next round), gives him a chance to move his attack angle so his opponents back is to a wall (+1 dice to his attack) and of course delivers the appropriate injury (a scratch from the blow). Under such circumstance armour wouldn't seem applicable and would have to be rolled after the roll but before the narrative resolution. This isn't impossible by any stretch but it does still have an additional roll in there. I'd love to somehow package armour into the initial roll too but I fear that'd be too abstract for most people.

Thanks again for the input!

[LaCroix]

You can sort of do this. You could spend 1 success to push back (appropriate penalty applied), one to better position himself (bonus die to him) and assign the last to a 'scratch' type damage. A roll then kicks in for armour, if applicable, potentially mitigating the scratch. There is some dissonance here since the scratch can be so varied in application. Leather armour might just save you from that sweep of the dagger (or mitigate it to purely superficial levels) but it won't do a thing for a pommel to the face, either of which fit for a scratch with a push back. Imagine the two characters clash, swords meet but the stronger one pushes his opponents sword aside. Close as they are a proper strike is impossible but smashing the hilt into his opponents temple sends him sprawling (-1 to his next round), gives him a chance to move his attack angle so his opponents back is to a wall (+1 dice to his attack) and of course delivers the appropriate injury (a scratch from the blow). Under such circumstance armour wouldn't seem applicable and would have to be rolled after the roll but before the narrative resolution. This isn't impossible by any stretch but it does still have an additional roll in there. I'd love to somehow package armour into the initial roll too but I fear that'd be too abstract for most people.

I like where you are going with that, but if you are doing such a highly detailed (in story terms) fighting system, wouldn't it be better to have armor incorporated in the attack/defense roll, and not deal with it after you already determined that you have hit your target?

For example - if both are wearing normal clothes, the dice rolls would be unmodified, but if one person was wearing a leather armor, he would recieve 2 dice on defending rolls against daggers and knives, showing his ability to ignore some of the attacks, but only one dice against swords, and none against axes or maces.
A full plate armor would add a lot of dices to all kinds of weapon defense, but at the same time, he loses, like, 1 or 2 attack dice against his unarmed opponent, due to being clumsy in comparison.

You could make fighters lose attack and defense dice after every X rounds - (Mostly depending on armor type, even an unarmored guy will tire sometime - you could also get traits to make you last longer - basic fitness (Constitution or whatever you call the stat) would also factor in here) of fighting, incorporating the fact that fighters in armor tire more quickly. This would give a lightly armored fighter a chance to overwhelm a 'tin man', if he manages to draw the fight out, evading and maybe saving dice for the final, crippling strike - when the other guy is puffing&wheezing and almost leaning onto his sword.

This would get rid of that idea that armor simply reduces damage, and turn it into a fighting tool to gain a benefit - being able to shrug off some kinds of attacks in order to inflict damage on your attacks.

[Kojiro]

I like where you are going with that, but if you are doing such a highly detailed (in story terms) fighting system, wouldn't it be better to have armor incorporated in the attack/defense roll, and not deal with it after you already determined that you have hit your target?

Ideally the system won't be overly detailed. Each success is basically determining the players right to influence the narrative, winning a little storytelling power basically. My hope is that- especially for players more focused on the story- it'll come very easily.

That said I'm actually all for incorporating armour into the single roll in some way, I'm just struggling with exactly how. So far the best I've got is a simple success mitigation idea based on generic standards of protection (light armour is 1, medium 2, heavy 3 etc) where you wear a penalty to your pool to automatically negate that amount from your opponent. It does mean heavy armour is extremely hard to brute force through (unless you hit really, really hard) and spending a few rounds tiring him out, pushing him around or forcing him into that overhead strike (or just waiting for that right time to strike) that exposes the arm pit area become more valid. But automatically negating something they have to roll for is likely too powerful. Perhaps something like you can spend a success of your own to negate one of theirs (as normal) plus an additional one, up to the rating of the armour would work?

Naturally some weapons would have a sort of armour negation ability, where they simply lower the rating of the armour by X. To make up for this bonus they'd have a tie penalty- probably the same as their negation where if you both get the same successes and it goes to unspent skill points for the tie you have an X penalty.

For example - if both are wearing normal clothes, the dice rolls would be unmodified, but if one person was wearing a leather armor, he would recieve 2 dice on defending rolls against daggers and knives, showing his ability to ignore some of the attacks, but only one dice against swords, and none against axes or maces.
A full plate armor would add a lot of dices to all kinds of weapon defense, but at the same time, he loses, like, 1 or 2 attack dice against his unarmed opponent, due to being clumsy in comparison.

I do want to avoid an exhaustive list of arms and armour. My group has been playing together for almost 20 years now and most of them (in fact I'll say all but me) couldn't tell you the stats on a WoD pistol. I'll be honest, this system is mostly for my own group. The more stats and numbers I throw at them the more their eyes will glaze over, though I fully admit to myself seeing the practicality in what you're saying. Perhaps it's worth doing and scaling it back for my group.

Since this is a fantasy (sorta) setting too there are also non humans which creates more bookkeeping. It's round 4, how tired is the human? More tired than the dwarf? Less than the orc? What about natural armour (there is a race of lizard men types who are naturally wearing a leather armour equivalent- in fact they're hunted for it).

On that topic, how do people like handling different races that are seemingly superior to humans (which the bulk of players should be)?

Incidentally there is also a psychological wound track, similar to the physical one but a little simpler. Your character can be broken that way too but the mechanics of how are far from solidified.

[LaCroix]

I see we basically agree in terms of armor incorporation. I'd go for maximum complexity, first, when trying a new game - you can always scale down if it turns out to be too complicated. Most people have no problems making stuff easier, even if they don't really have a problem with it, but some people resist adding rules on principle, even if they aren't making things much harder...


I'm envisioning that you have a exhaustion capacity (or short - "fitness") - just like you have carrying capacity - this could be (for example)

Code: Select all

Multiplier x Stamnia 

rounds.
Set the base multiplier according to your round times and preferrences - a normal man should be able to fight for his life for about 1 minute before he will start to feel exertion, for example. Maybe test it yourself with your friends, just for fun, trying to set a baseline when you feel the first problems occur.

This would be modified with their current layout for the fight at hand - divide fitness by

Code: Select all

(Clothes bulkiness + weapon modifier)

A heavy weapon like a huge bad-ass axe/sword will cause you to tire faster than a dagger, so give them numbers to your liking. 1 for a knife/dagger, and go on from that.
Clothes would be Bulkiness 1 (lest we divide by zero ), while a full plate could be up to 10 times as bad - I saw a show about well trained people trying to fight in armor who were completely exhausted after a minute or so. Armor only covering parts of the body would provide less defense but also give much less bulkiness compared with total enclosure (heat/sweat is the main factor in armor exhaustion). Fighting in only a loincloth, on the other hand, could be a <0 multiplier, because of no encumbrance/heat buildup.

You could use that to make people keep armor down to a realistic minimum - none of those "I wear full plate and carry a huge fucking sword of giant decapitation with me, even when I wade through a swamp" fighters like in D&D. It could also lead to people in cuirass, and Rapier. Or Barbarians - take a huge-ass axe and wear just a loincloth, and still keep up with the dagger-wielding thiefling in a leather vest

I think having various races is one of the best thing in most RPGs, because it allows aou to build crazy characters. It also leads to racial archetypes, which I dislike (fuck the 08/15 elvish wizard powergamers - roleplaying an orc wizard is fun), but a nice group of gamers can handle those excesses. And certainly, a different race should have different attribute ranges (at least physical - an 10 ft ogre with 'only' average human strenght would be whimpy and very unlikely)

Ideally, this difference in rate of tiring between races should be handled by either higher attributes in Stamnia for those races, or as a perk/feat telling you they can fight (1.5/2/3/whatever) times as long before they get exhausted.
Better Stamnia obviously increases your fighting time. Having a perk like "Elvish Stamnia ( Multiplier+1 )" or "Orkish drive to kill puny humans (Multiplier +2 if in superior numbers)" would be another way to do make this work for races, just as "Dwarves always wear armor (Bulkiness -1)".

Natural armor would be a permanent number of bonus dices on defense for those races, respectively. Massive strenght disparity should also be reflected in attributes.