David Johansen
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- May 4, 2017
- Messages
- 5,986
- Reaction score
- 12,187
The Boring Why? Part
Once again I find myself gnawing at the bone of a d100 system. Yes, I've written a few and one of them is 300 pages. The problem is that I shouted, "Damn the math and full speed ahead," when I designed Galaxies In Shadow and while I'd argue that it's simpler than many eighties designs, I've found people mostly don't like it. The Arcane Confabulation has too many D&D and Rolemaster legacies for my tastes and the skill system is a bit dull. I've been thinking about snakes and ladders effects in game design, like critical hits and fumbles and in my games they're pretty limited. Simply Deadly Fantasy is interesting but at first level, skills are very low and attributes don't have a huge impact. Some people love that kind of thing but I'm not so sold on the class level approach either. Blood Red Future is a stripped down WFRP and while there are parts I like, that part rubs me the wrong way. I think I can do better. I guess I want something that I could sell and would not feel trapped under once people paid me money for it.
The Interesting Mechanical Part
I'm going with ten Characteristics rated from 1-100. Agility, Dexterity, Empathy, Endurance, Knowledge, Perception, Reflexes, Strength, Willpower. The characteristics start at 40 +1d10 and the player distributes 50 points as desired. A bit indulgent I know but there's just stuff I don't want to use a trait for. I'm not fond of trait bloat. When you consider each discrete trait as a rule, most modern, exception based designs are painfully complex though the complexity revolves around memory and look-ups rather than clean and elegant math.
The skill list is quite long. As far as I'm concerned, that's a feature not a bug. If the campaign becomes about artists hanging around in cafes the system should be equipped to handle it. Skills start with a default rating of 10 and each skill has an aptitude characteristic that gives it a bonus equal to the characteristic -50. Cultural skills get a better rating, the base culture gives +50 to the character's native language and +30 to drive wheeled vehicles, punch, grapple, throw, and deception.
Career packages allocate additional skills. At a cost in aging.
Experience is awarded in points added to skills as they are used. This is tied directly to time and involves no dice rolling.
Galaxies In Shadow's skill system generally proved to be too convoluted for people in practice and involved a lot of fiddling around with points. I want to be able to paint with a broader brush while retaining the usefulness of the percentile granularity and create a bit of character history without having character creation take a full session.
Success Rolls are simple d100 under skill or characteristic rating. There is a +50 under normal circumstances bonus which requires access to reference materials, adequate equipment, materials, and time. For every 50 points the roll is under the rating an additional degree of success is gained. Yeah, this is pretty chunky but I don't want to make the numbers too fiddly. Resistance is handled with a +50 - the opposition's rating. Contests are a best 2 out of 3 with both parties making resisted rolls. I'm not really a fan of automatic success and failure ranges. Sometimes things are just impossible.
Actions in combat are taken in order of Reflexes ratings. Movement per round is equal to speed in kilometers per hour, making the round 3.6 seconds. Melee attacks are resisted rolls. Ranged attacks are -10 at 3 - 10 meters, -20 at 10 - 30 meters, -30 at 30 - 100 meters, -40 at 100 - 300 meters, -50 at 300 - 1000 meters and so on. Size modifiers correspond to ranges so that the cancel out at a given range. Weapons have a to hit modifier, a maximum range and a damage in d10s + 1dn. Damage is applied to armour and then the target's Endurance or structure.
There's nothing really ground breaking here, there's not really supposed to be. I've been rolling the concept around in my head for a while and what I like about it is the way it fits together cleanly and still achieves various things I want. I'll be cutting and pasting the best bits from many of my designs to the core. I'll confess a certain regret for one characteristic per skill but I'm really attached to one point per point and no big charts.
Once again I find myself gnawing at the bone of a d100 system. Yes, I've written a few and one of them is 300 pages. The problem is that I shouted, "Damn the math and full speed ahead," when I designed Galaxies In Shadow and while I'd argue that it's simpler than many eighties designs, I've found people mostly don't like it. The Arcane Confabulation has too many D&D and Rolemaster legacies for my tastes and the skill system is a bit dull. I've been thinking about snakes and ladders effects in game design, like critical hits and fumbles and in my games they're pretty limited. Simply Deadly Fantasy is interesting but at first level, skills are very low and attributes don't have a huge impact. Some people love that kind of thing but I'm not so sold on the class level approach either. Blood Red Future is a stripped down WFRP and while there are parts I like, that part rubs me the wrong way. I think I can do better. I guess I want something that I could sell and would not feel trapped under once people paid me money for it.
The Interesting Mechanical Part
I'm going with ten Characteristics rated from 1-100. Agility, Dexterity, Empathy, Endurance, Knowledge, Perception, Reflexes, Strength, Willpower. The characteristics start at 40 +1d10 and the player distributes 50 points as desired. A bit indulgent I know but there's just stuff I don't want to use a trait for. I'm not fond of trait bloat. When you consider each discrete trait as a rule, most modern, exception based designs are painfully complex though the complexity revolves around memory and look-ups rather than clean and elegant math.
The skill list is quite long. As far as I'm concerned, that's a feature not a bug. If the campaign becomes about artists hanging around in cafes the system should be equipped to handle it. Skills start with a default rating of 10 and each skill has an aptitude characteristic that gives it a bonus equal to the characteristic -50. Cultural skills get a better rating, the base culture gives +50 to the character's native language and +30 to drive wheeled vehicles, punch, grapple, throw, and deception.
Career packages allocate additional skills. At a cost in aging.
Experience is awarded in points added to skills as they are used. This is tied directly to time and involves no dice rolling.
Galaxies In Shadow's skill system generally proved to be too convoluted for people in practice and involved a lot of fiddling around with points. I want to be able to paint with a broader brush while retaining the usefulness of the percentile granularity and create a bit of character history without having character creation take a full session.
Success Rolls are simple d100 under skill or characteristic rating. There is a +50 under normal circumstances bonus which requires access to reference materials, adequate equipment, materials, and time. For every 50 points the roll is under the rating an additional degree of success is gained. Yeah, this is pretty chunky but I don't want to make the numbers too fiddly. Resistance is handled with a +50 - the opposition's rating. Contests are a best 2 out of 3 with both parties making resisted rolls. I'm not really a fan of automatic success and failure ranges. Sometimes things are just impossible.
Actions in combat are taken in order of Reflexes ratings. Movement per round is equal to speed in kilometers per hour, making the round 3.6 seconds. Melee attacks are resisted rolls. Ranged attacks are -10 at 3 - 10 meters, -20 at 10 - 30 meters, -30 at 30 - 100 meters, -40 at 100 - 300 meters, -50 at 300 - 1000 meters and so on. Size modifiers correspond to ranges so that the cancel out at a given range. Weapons have a to hit modifier, a maximum range and a damage in d10s + 1dn. Damage is applied to armour and then the target's Endurance or structure.
There's nothing really ground breaking here, there's not really supposed to be. I've been rolling the concept around in my head for a while and what I like about it is the way it fits together cleanly and still achieves various things I want. I'll be cutting and pasting the best bits from many of my designs to the core. I'll confess a certain regret for one characteristic per skill but I'm really attached to one point per point and no big charts.