Ashkhar Ben
Explorer
Hello again folks!
After a ton of feedback at various fora around the web, I figured I'd come back to EN world, where it all started. I've pasted the Kickstarter pitch (copy only, no pictures yet) for your review. I appreciate any and all criticism.
Also, if you think the system or setting itself sounds dumb, highlight that. However, I'm unlikely to change anything this late in the game, as the book is 99% written. What I will change is the way it is presented in this KS pitch, in which case your feedback is appreciated.
Okay, here we go:
Forge of Valor is a tabletop roleplaying game that focuses on characters navigating a world ravaged by warring factions and a fracturing landscape. These characters are deeply customizable, combat is brutal, and the game revolves around characters' goals, relationships, and sense of duty.
The system creates games with a tough, heroic tone. Characters are strong, but they aren’t paragons of power. They can die from poison or a hidden dagger at any level. Heroes are forged under constant pressure, and sacrifice themselves for their friends, family, and honor.
Characters fight for powerful factions or create their own. Seek justice and deliver judgment as an Iravar Arbiter, protect civilization from the horrors of the wilderness as a B’Nakar Warden, or operate as a freelance mercenary, spy, or assassin as part of the Syndicate.
Tempted by vices, steeled by virtues, and compelled by loyalty, you forge your own legend. In a fragmented civilization of tangled alliances and secret guilds, will you fight with valor?
Ashkhar is vibrant and tumultuous, with abyssal rifts and soaring plateaus rising and falling through its history. A whole continent may hide for centuries behind imposing terrain, isolated from the outside world, only to be exposed as the land shifts without warning. Enterprising nations and factions fight for dominance on this constantly changing frontier. It’s a time of exploration, conquest, and technological advancement.
Ashkhar is populated by six sentient species with many diverse cultures, deep religions, and powerful factions. The species are the perceptive Anduin, the passionate Grohlkin, the pragmatic Inohkshi, the massive Koht, the resilient Krolog, and the industrious Humans (or Onduril, as they call themselves).
All life on Ashkhar is bound to an energy field called vohk. Vohk is the source of food’s sustenance, it defines the soul, and it gives people the power to Control the world around them. It can be harnessed and influenced, but never subjugated. Vohk provides strength to the body, mind, and spirit, and those most gifted in its use can bend reality.
Forge of Valor includes rich descriptions of Ashkhar’s major regions, cultures, ideologies, and notable organizations. Much of the setting is presented as a series of hooks and seeds, giving plenty of opportunity for your group to explore and fill in the details.
Each Skill covers a broad area of expertise, like Coordination, Knowledge, or Awareness. Skills are comprised of three Specialties, which more narrowly define a subset of that Skill. Training in a Skill applies to each of its three Specialties, while training in a Specialty only applies to that Specialty.
For example, an athletic warrior trained in the Might Skill will be good at the Melee Combat, Strength, and Speed Specialties. As the warrior focused on combat and engaged in battles, the Melee Combat Specialty would start to pull ahead of Speed and Strength.
You’ll play characters that are broadly competent and focused in their chosen specializations. A guileful assassin capable of blending in with the crowd? No problem. A pragmatic tactician that uses deduction to cut apart foes? Sure. An inspiring leader that can swing a halberd and launch enemies with telekinesis? Absolutely.
Defining Your Character
Characters in Forge of Valor have a core Trait, one or more Vices, and one or more Virtues to define how they view and interact with the world. Short and Long term Motivations operate as a character’s personal goals and connections. Characters earn benefits when pursuing their Motivations and acting on their Traits, Vices, and Virtues.
You’ll form relationships with multiple Factions, which provide missions, resources, allies, and enemies. During character creation, players define a positive, negative, neutral, or complicated relationship with at least one Faction.
Factions
Players can create their own Faction with goals, motivations, abilities, and resources. Factions and characters directly affect one another; characters successfully completing a mission might boost their Faction’s resources or connections, while a Faction-scale conflict might embroil the characters in an unexpected battle.
Characters often have to choose between their personal motivations, resisting their Vices, or sacrificing their Virtues in order to uphold their duty to their Faction. GMs are given hooks, seeds, and guidelines on how to create compelling and challenging Faction-character relationships.
Control
With enough willpower, characters can exert their Control on the world and subtly bend reality. Controllers weave energy, sculpt matter, or manipulate the minds of others. The system limits a controller’s potency, and rewards characters for applying the Laws of Control as creatively and efficiently as possible.
There are three schools of Control that a character can focus on: Energy, Matter, and Mental. Bend light, influence gravity, alter magnetism, and even enervate an enemy by siphoning its stamina with Control Energy. Shred an enemy's body, turn stone to mud, purify metal, or seal wounds with Control Matter. Create illusions, speak telepathically, strip memories, and block or augment the senses with Control Mental.
Additional Character Abilities
Characters gain additional abilities called Assets and Techniques.
Assets provide bonuses or automatic successes when attempting certain tasks, and are broken down into Combat and Noncombat Assets.
For example, if a character is particularly skilled at making multiple attacks, he might take the Combo Attack Asset, allowing him to attack twice with less penalty than normal.
And if a character is exceptionally good at following tracks, she might take the Tracker Noncombat Asset, which allows her to successfully track her quarry up to a certain difficulty without ever having to roll.
A Technique is a set of combat maneuvers, styles, stances, or weapon proficiencies. One Technique is selected at character creation, with the opportunity of improving it over time or learning new Techniques as the character advances. Each Technique is triggered under different circumstances or when using a particular weapon.
For example, Toogan Harbeck has taken the Stealth Technique. Because of his Technique, any time that he moves with stealth or fights unaware enemies he gets to pick from a handful of benefits, such as improving his roll, making his attacks more deadly, lessening a penalty, or applying an Impact.
Technique Impacts deliver an extra effect to your friends or foes: knock your enemy prone, heal your ally, combine multiple actions together, or minimize the amount of energy spent to unleash Control. There’s plenty of sample Impacts in the book, as well as rules for how to make your own.
Check out a detailed example of Techniques: <link, no link actually provided>
Character Advancement
Characters improve through failing tasks and completing goals. When a character attempts an action that isn’t trivially easy, the player has to roll. If the roll fails, the Specialty for that roll earns an Experience Point (XP). Earn enough XP for that Specialty, and it improves. Improve enough Specialties, and your character Levels Up. When Leveling Up, characters can improve their Skills, acquire new Assets, and upgrade their Techniques.
Game Master Tools
Forge of Valor has been designed to make it easy for the GM to react to the unforeseen actions of the player characters. Obstacles, combat, game concepts, adventure seeds, improvisation advice, and a variety of other tools and rules are given in the book. The system gives GMs inspiration and easy-to-use rules, without cluttering up game time. Enemies use a quick, modular system making it easy to build battles on the fly.
After a ton of feedback at various fora around the web, I figured I'd come back to EN world, where it all started. I've pasted the Kickstarter pitch (copy only, no pictures yet) for your review. I appreciate any and all criticism.
Also, if you think the system or setting itself sounds dumb, highlight that. However, I'm unlikely to change anything this late in the game, as the book is 99% written. What I will change is the way it is presented in this KS pitch, in which case your feedback is appreciated.
Okay, here we go:
Forge of Valor RPG
Survive in a shattering world, rise through the ranks of a powerful faction, and forge your legend in this intense, character-driven RPG.Forge of Valor is a tabletop roleplaying game that focuses on characters navigating a world ravaged by warring factions and a fracturing landscape. These characters are deeply customizable, combat is brutal, and the game revolves around characters' goals, relationships, and sense of duty.
The system creates games with a tough, heroic tone. Characters are strong, but they aren’t paragons of power. They can die from poison or a hidden dagger at any level. Heroes are forged under constant pressure, and sacrifice themselves for their friends, family, and honor.
Characters fight for powerful factions or create their own. Seek justice and deliver judgment as an Iravar Arbiter, protect civilization from the horrors of the wilderness as a B’Nakar Warden, or operate as a freelance mercenary, spy, or assassin as part of the Syndicate.
Tempted by vices, steeled by virtues, and compelled by loyalty, you forge your own legend. In a fragmented civilization of tangled alliances and secret guilds, will you fight with valor?
Setting
Forge of Valor is set in Ashkhar, a low-to-middle fantasy world inspired by fables and mythic cultures through history. Magic is common but taxing, the gods are silent, and most conflict in the world stems from the daily struggle of its inhabitants; driven by the interplay of intelligent species, their cultures, and the dangers of living in a savage landscape.Ashkhar is vibrant and tumultuous, with abyssal rifts and soaring plateaus rising and falling through its history. A whole continent may hide for centuries behind imposing terrain, isolated from the outside world, only to be exposed as the land shifts without warning. Enterprising nations and factions fight for dominance on this constantly changing frontier. It’s a time of exploration, conquest, and technological advancement.
All life on Ashkhar is bound to an energy field called vohk. Vohk is the source of food’s sustenance, it defines the soul, and it gives people the power to Control the world around them. It can be harnessed and influenced, but never subjugated. Vohk provides strength to the body, mind, and spirit, and those most gifted in its use can bend reality.
Forge of Valor includes rich descriptions of Ashkhar’s major regions, cultures, ideologies, and notable organizations. Much of the setting is presented as a series of hooks and seeds, giving plenty of opportunity for your group to explore and fill in the details.
System
Forge of Valor uses 3d6 plus modifiers to determine an attempted task's success. The amount the roll beats the task’s difficulty is the action’s degree of success. Every roll is modified by the character’s Attributes, Skills, and Specialties. Characters train in Skills, and over time focus in Specialties. Each Skill covers a broad area of expertise, like Coordination, Knowledge, or Awareness. Skills are comprised of three Specialties, which more narrowly define a subset of that Skill. Training in a Skill applies to each of its three Specialties, while training in a Specialty only applies to that Specialty.
For example, an athletic warrior trained in the Might Skill will be good at the Melee Combat, Strength, and Speed Specialties. As the warrior focused on combat and engaged in battles, the Melee Combat Specialty would start to pull ahead of Speed and Strength.
You’ll play characters that are broadly competent and focused in their chosen specializations. A guileful assassin capable of blending in with the crowd? No problem. A pragmatic tactician that uses deduction to cut apart foes? Sure. An inspiring leader that can swing a halberd and launch enemies with telekinesis? Absolutely.
Defining Your Character
Characters in Forge of Valor have a core Trait, one or more Vices, and one or more Virtues to define how they view and interact with the world. Short and Long term Motivations operate as a character’s personal goals and connections. Characters earn benefits when pursuing their Motivations and acting on their Traits, Vices, and Virtues.
You’ll form relationships with multiple Factions, which provide missions, resources, allies, and enemies. During character creation, players define a positive, negative, neutral, or complicated relationship with at least one Faction.
Factions
Players can create their own Faction with goals, motivations, abilities, and resources. Factions and characters directly affect one another; characters successfully completing a mission might boost their Faction’s resources or connections, while a Faction-scale conflict might embroil the characters in an unexpected battle.
Characters often have to choose between their personal motivations, resisting their Vices, or sacrificing their Virtues in order to uphold their duty to their Faction. GMs are given hooks, seeds, and guidelines on how to create compelling and challenging Faction-character relationships.
Control
With enough willpower, characters can exert their Control on the world and subtly bend reality. Controllers weave energy, sculpt matter, or manipulate the minds of others. The system limits a controller’s potency, and rewards characters for applying the Laws of Control as creatively and efficiently as possible.
There are three schools of Control that a character can focus on: Energy, Matter, and Mental. Bend light, influence gravity, alter magnetism, and even enervate an enemy by siphoning its stamina with Control Energy. Shred an enemy's body, turn stone to mud, purify metal, or seal wounds with Control Matter. Create illusions, speak telepathically, strip memories, and block or augment the senses with Control Mental.
Additional Character Abilities
Characters gain additional abilities called Assets and Techniques.
Assets provide bonuses or automatic successes when attempting certain tasks, and are broken down into Combat and Noncombat Assets.
For example, if a character is particularly skilled at making multiple attacks, he might take the Combo Attack Asset, allowing him to attack twice with less penalty than normal.
And if a character is exceptionally good at following tracks, she might take the Tracker Noncombat Asset, which allows her to successfully track her quarry up to a certain difficulty without ever having to roll.
A Technique is a set of combat maneuvers, styles, stances, or weapon proficiencies. One Technique is selected at character creation, with the opportunity of improving it over time or learning new Techniques as the character advances. Each Technique is triggered under different circumstances or when using a particular weapon.
For example, Toogan Harbeck has taken the Stealth Technique. Because of his Technique, any time that he moves with stealth or fights unaware enemies he gets to pick from a handful of benefits, such as improving his roll, making his attacks more deadly, lessening a penalty, or applying an Impact.
Technique Impacts deliver an extra effect to your friends or foes: knock your enemy prone, heal your ally, combine multiple actions together, or minimize the amount of energy spent to unleash Control. There’s plenty of sample Impacts in the book, as well as rules for how to make your own.
Check out a detailed example of Techniques: <link, no link actually provided>
Character Advancement
Characters improve through failing tasks and completing goals. When a character attempts an action that isn’t trivially easy, the player has to roll. If the roll fails, the Specialty for that roll earns an Experience Point (XP). Earn enough XP for that Specialty, and it improves. Improve enough Specialties, and your character Levels Up. When Leveling Up, characters can improve their Skills, acquire new Assets, and upgrade their Techniques.
Game Master Tools
Forge of Valor has been designed to make it easy for the GM to react to the unforeseen actions of the player characters. Obstacles, combat, game concepts, adventure seeds, improvisation advice, and a variety of other tools and rules are given in the book. The system gives GMs inspiration and easy-to-use rules, without cluttering up game time. Enemies use a quick, modular system making it easy to build battles on the fly.
