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<blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8763108" data-attributes="member: 70468"><p>I see. That’s interesting. I would be inclined to do it the other way (the defender sets the difficulty, and the attacker is trying to overcome the defender). I guess that’s my experience with different games speaking! It’s why that approach seems a bit confusing but probably makes sense to the game’s primary audience (since they have different experiences that I have had with different games and their resolution systems).</p><p></p><p></p><p>Ah, okay. That makes sense. You <em>could</em> attempt those things, but you’d be really bad at doing them, so you probably wouldn’t. I wasn’t sure whether you meant e.g., Ranger checks were just not possible; but it seems like the answer is yes, but you are just making a roll with no modifiers.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I’m curious what the state of the art would be in Japan as far as TRPGs go, but that might be a topic for a different discussion.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I’m going to separate this into a couple of spoiler sections since I expect the answer will be a bit lengthy/rambly. I’ll start with the history then into the specifics. I should note I’m currently on a break between sessions, so I’m going down a bit of an experimental path with things (i.e., it’s not been tested). The goal is to remain compatible with Moldvay Basic, particularly with monsters and adventures (e.g., so I can just swap out the combat matrix for mine).</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="History"]My homebrew system got its start while I was running Worlds Without Number. I personally would have rather run Old-School Essentials, but my players liked the character customization. My first pass was just a mashup of those two systems with OSE classes layered on top of WWN’s own classes and skill system and foci. That didn’t last because I wanted everything to be OGL-friendly, and trying to retroclone WWN wasn’t in scope.</p><p></p><p>In my first version, I used a modified WWN skill list and 2d6 to adjudicate skills using PbtA-style degrees of success. This skill list has continuously be refined down to a smaller and more focused list. The goal I was trying to solve was providing mechanical support for different actions in a consistent framework while also allowing open-ended OSR-style adjudication. I didn’t want to see characters be prevented from trying something that should make sense for being an adventurer. This resulted in my first attempt at specialties.</p><p></p><p>The way they worked initially is your class would say something like, “If you <strong>Exert</strong> to <strong>Move Silently</strong>, roll 3d6 instead of 2d6”. It was meant to capture the different class skills from Moldvay Basic without denying other characters the ability to try things. It turns out, this distinction was too subtle for my players, and they found it confusing. They would think they could roll 3d6 all the time for that skill.</p><p></p><p>That was in May or so. At this year’s Origins, I got to play <em>Konosuba TRPG</em>. One of the things it does is have a list of “skills” with ranks. That was it! Instead of having those specialities attached to skills, they were additional skill-like things you could do that were unique to your class. So while everyone would have the standard skill list, you would have class-specific skills that I called specialties. Now the thief would just have a <strong>Move Silently</strong> speciality.</p><p></p><p>It was at that point, I realized I could also replace foci (which I had taken to calling feats) with combat specialities. That puts almost everything into the same basic advancement framework. If you have Power Attack +2, you can do that as an action (at −2 to the attack for +4 damage). You get specialities from your ancestry, background, and class. I don’t provide a way to take them as bundles, but otherwise “skill packages” sounds very similar.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Speciality Mechanics"]As noted above, you gain specialities from your ancestry, background, and class. These are out of a general pool. They are meant to be thematically appropriate for each, so a barbarian has specialities related to outdoors stuff, a thief has ones for skulking about and the like, and a magician has ones for doing magic stuff. One difference is you get some and pick the rest from a list of thematic ones. If you don’t care about crafting, you don’t have to take those specialities on your magician. Ancestries and classes also have a thematic feature. Thiefs get backstab. Barbarians can’t use magic. Mao never land prone when they fall. Og ri have a high stress tolerance, giving them 50% more stress. Stuff like that.</p><p></p><p>After character creation, you gain or increase specialities as you level up. There are three types of specialities: combat, non-combat, and magical. Expert classes gain a bonus non-combat, warrior classes gain an extra combat, and mage classes gain an extra magical speciality. A few differences I see (based on what’s been described) is I don’t weigh the different types of specialities differently. You pick the same number regardless and pick from all as you see fit past character creation. If you want to make a sword mage, you can pick fighter and take the appropriate speciality to cast spells. In fact, spells are just specialties. They have ranks, and they work similar to other specialities, but they cost mp.</p><p></p><p>The thing that is in flux right now is the dice mechanic. There was a dice thread here a while back that made me realize that 2d6+mods versus a static difficulty range (for PbtA-style effects) was broken for my modifier range. I changed it to 3d6 (still d20 in combat), but it turned out to be trivially broken. The thief has +5 and gets a complete success on average, which makes things a bit boring when complications from partial success are part of the core engine of play. I’m currently exploring a return to 2d6 with checks and opposed rolls.</p><p></p><p>The other thing that seems different is I let the players decide their approach, and that sets the attribute used with the check. This is particular important when helping. I have something I call “subjects” which are things your character knows. I was originally doing an OSR-style “you know what your background and experience implies it does”, but that was too broad, so I had my players write down three things, accidentally reinventing wises from Burning Wheel. Anyway, you can use your subject as your approach in a skill check. A few sessions ago, the cleric wanted to help out in camp, so she used her experience in the army and working mess to help the cook with her check (allowing her to use Intelligence and help when she had no actual cooking speciality to contribute).</p><p></p><p>My current work is seeing if I can pull basically everything else into the speciality system. Right now, I have combat skills (Brawl, Shoot, Strike), base attack bonus, and saving throw progressions. I actually ended up at similar saving throw categories to what Sword World has (Mundane and Magical plus Death), which I was leaning towards making defenses you would roll to resist a spell. I already have casting rolls, but it just applies a modifier to the roll. In the revision, it would be a contested roll. The big thing to solve is how to handle proficiencies since I don’t want to punish players for being able to use multiple weapons (especially the fighter, who I want to use <em>anything</em> as a weapon). There are also some other things I’d like to do like mitigation-based armor and elemental affinities. The latter in particular though are definitely inspired by JRPGs. I mean, there’s going to be a dancer class and there is a cat people ancestry. Of course JRPGs and anime are an influence. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="😅" title="Grinning face with sweat :sweat_smile:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f605.png" data-shortname=":sweat_smile:" /></p><p></p><p>So to summarize, the direction I’d like to go is 2d6+attribute+rank for all rolls (where for checks the attribute is determined by the PC’s approach). Many tests would be against a static difficulty (based on the quality of the target) with degrees of success defined by the margin. When there is opposition, you’d make an opposed roll against their resistance roll (with ties going to the attacker, probably). Degrees of success are still a thing, but they could have different meanings For attacks, the margin would contribute a bonus to your damage. I am thinking something similar for spells except the margin would add extra dice. (I know <em>Goblin Slayer TRPG</em> does something like that based on your casting roll, but it’s against a static difficulty to cast the spell. I don’t know what Sword World does for magic.)</p><p></p><p>I’d also like to use d6s pervasively if possible because it makes scaling effects up and down nicer than having to explain what it means to “increase” a die size (especially once you get past platonic solids into Zocchi dice). So a light weapon would do 0d6 (meaning roll twice and take the lowest), a 1-handed weapon would do 1d6, and a 2-handed would do 2d6. I have no idea how the math works on that (especially including the margin of success as bonus damage). I need to work on that and do some testing.[/SPOILER]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kenada, post: 8763108, member: 70468"] I see. That’s interesting. I would be inclined to do it the other way (the defender sets the difficulty, and the attacker is trying to overcome the defender). I guess that’s my experience with different games speaking! It’s why that approach seems a bit confusing but probably makes sense to the game’s primary audience (since they have different experiences that I have had with different games and their resolution systems). Ah, okay. That makes sense. You [I]could[/I] attempt those things, but you’d be really bad at doing them, so you probably wouldn’t. I wasn’t sure whether you meant e.g., Ranger checks were just not possible; but it seems like the answer is yes, but you are just making a roll with no modifiers. I’m curious what the state of the art would be in Japan as far as TRPGs go, but that might be a topic for a different discussion. I’m going to separate this into a couple of spoiler sections since I expect the answer will be a bit lengthy/rambly. I’ll start with the history then into the specifics. I should note I’m currently on a break between sessions, so I’m going down a bit of an experimental path with things (i.e., it’s not been tested). The goal is to remain compatible with Moldvay Basic, particularly with monsters and adventures (e.g., so I can just swap out the combat matrix for mine). [SPOILER="History"]My homebrew system got its start while I was running Worlds Without Number. I personally would have rather run Old-School Essentials, but my players liked the character customization. My first pass was just a mashup of those two systems with OSE classes layered on top of WWN’s own classes and skill system and foci. That didn’t last because I wanted everything to be OGL-friendly, and trying to retroclone WWN wasn’t in scope. In my first version, I used a modified WWN skill list and 2d6 to adjudicate skills using PbtA-style degrees of success. This skill list has continuously be refined down to a smaller and more focused list. The goal I was trying to solve was providing mechanical support for different actions in a consistent framework while also allowing open-ended OSR-style adjudication. I didn’t want to see characters be prevented from trying something that should make sense for being an adventurer. This resulted in my first attempt at specialties. The way they worked initially is your class would say something like, “If you [B]Exert[/B] to [B]Move Silently[/B], roll 3d6 instead of 2d6”. It was meant to capture the different class skills from Moldvay Basic without denying other characters the ability to try things. It turns out, this distinction was too subtle for my players, and they found it confusing. They would think they could roll 3d6 all the time for that skill. That was in May or so. At this year’s Origins, I got to play [I]Konosuba TRPG[/I]. One of the things it does is have a list of “skills” with ranks. That was it! Instead of having those specialities attached to skills, they were additional skill-like things you could do that were unique to your class. So while everyone would have the standard skill list, you would have class-specific skills that I called specialties. Now the thief would just have a [B]Move Silently[/B] speciality. It was at that point, I realized I could also replace foci (which I had taken to calling feats) with combat specialities. That puts almost everything into the same basic advancement framework. If you have Power Attack +2, you can do that as an action (at −2 to the attack for +4 damage). You get specialities from your ancestry, background, and class. I don’t provide a way to take them as bundles, but otherwise “skill packages” sounds very similar. [/SPOILER] [SPOILER="Speciality Mechanics"]As noted above, you gain specialities from your ancestry, background, and class. These are out of a general pool. They are meant to be thematically appropriate for each, so a barbarian has specialities related to outdoors stuff, a thief has ones for skulking about and the like, and a magician has ones for doing magic stuff. One difference is you get some and pick the rest from a list of thematic ones. If you don’t care about crafting, you don’t have to take those specialities on your magician. Ancestries and classes also have a thematic feature. Thiefs get backstab. Barbarians can’t use magic. Mao never land prone when they fall. Og ri have a high stress tolerance, giving them 50% more stress. Stuff like that. After character creation, you gain or increase specialities as you level up. There are three types of specialities: combat, non-combat, and magical. Expert classes gain a bonus non-combat, warrior classes gain an extra combat, and mage classes gain an extra magical speciality. A few differences I see (based on what’s been described) is I don’t weigh the different types of specialities differently. You pick the same number regardless and pick from all as you see fit past character creation. If you want to make a sword mage, you can pick fighter and take the appropriate speciality to cast spells. In fact, spells are just specialties. They have ranks, and they work similar to other specialities, but they cost mp. The thing that is in flux right now is the dice mechanic. There was a dice thread here a while back that made me realize that 2d6+mods versus a static difficulty range (for PbtA-style effects) was broken for my modifier range. I changed it to 3d6 (still d20 in combat), but it turned out to be trivially broken. The thief has +5 and gets a complete success on average, which makes things a bit boring when complications from partial success are part of the core engine of play. I’m currently exploring a return to 2d6 with checks and opposed rolls. The other thing that seems different is I let the players decide their approach, and that sets the attribute used with the check. This is particular important when helping. I have something I call “subjects” which are things your character knows. I was originally doing an OSR-style “you know what your background and experience implies it does”, but that was too broad, so I had my players write down three things, accidentally reinventing wises from Burning Wheel. Anyway, you can use your subject as your approach in a skill check. A few sessions ago, the cleric wanted to help out in camp, so she used her experience in the army and working mess to help the cook with her check (allowing her to use Intelligence and help when she had no actual cooking speciality to contribute). My current work is seeing if I can pull basically everything else into the speciality system. Right now, I have combat skills (Brawl, Shoot, Strike), base attack bonus, and saving throw progressions. I actually ended up at similar saving throw categories to what Sword World has (Mundane and Magical plus Death), which I was leaning towards making defenses you would roll to resist a spell. I already have casting rolls, but it just applies a modifier to the roll. In the revision, it would be a contested roll. The big thing to solve is how to handle proficiencies since I don’t want to punish players for being able to use multiple weapons (especially the fighter, who I want to use [I]anything[/I] as a weapon). There are also some other things I’d like to do like mitigation-based armor and elemental affinities. The latter in particular though are definitely inspired by JRPGs. I mean, there’s going to be a dancer class and there is a cat people ancestry. Of course JRPGs and anime are an influence. 😅 So to summarize, the direction I’d like to go is 2d6+attribute+rank for all rolls (where for checks the attribute is determined by the PC’s approach). Many tests would be against a static difficulty (based on the quality of the target) with degrees of success defined by the margin. When there is opposition, you’d make an opposed roll against their resistance roll (with ties going to the attacker, probably). Degrees of success are still a thing, but they could have different meanings For attacks, the margin would contribute a bonus to your damage. I am thinking something similar for spells except the margin would add extra dice. (I know [I]Goblin Slayer TRPG[/I] does something like that based on your casting roll, but it’s against a static difficulty to cast the spell. I don’t know what Sword World does for magic.) I’d also like to use d6s pervasively if possible because it makes scaling effects up and down nicer than having to explain what it means to “increase” a die size (especially once you get past platonic solids into Zocchi dice). So a light weapon would do 0d6 (meaning roll twice and take the lowest), a 1-handed weapon would do 1d6, and a 2-handed would do 2d6. I have no idea how the math works on that (especially including the margin of success as bonus damage). I need to work on that and do some testing.[/SPOILER] [/QUOTE]
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