Hundredfold

[AllPurposeNerd]

So I wrote most of an RPG system, fairly robust crunch but almost no fluff. I haven't really messed with it in over a year, and I'd like to finish it and make something of it, but I just don't have the energy anymore. I've pretty much lost all interest in tabletop games. So I figured the next best thing to do is just tell the internet about it and see what happens.

http://hundredfold.wikia.com/

It's basically all the things I liked about D&D without just being Pathfinder. If you check it out, you like it, you wanna use it, go nuts. If you don't like it, you think it's stupid, you can't be bothered, then whatever. Go forth and kill.

I'll hang around to answer questions. First preemptive question: It's called Hundredfold because it was going to use percentile dice for everything. I literally just divided everything by ten and used d10s (which is why scores increment by 0.1).

 

[AllPurposeNerd]

I posted this over at RPGnet and they accused me of being a spam bot, so I guess I have to talk about this thing a little bit so people will actually click on it.

One of the things I took away from D20 was the way that ability scores and skills are kind of different levels of the same thing. Your stats confer a relatively small bonus to a large number of tasks. Meanwhile skill ranks confer a relatively large bonus to a much smaller set of tasks. I took that basic analogy and made a three tiered system. Top tier is just three attributes: Physical, Mental, and Spiritual. Within each of those are various general skills (Combat, Perception, Zen) that advance a little bit faster but apply in fewer situations. Within each of those are a few specific skills (Melee, Guard, Vision, Hearing, Kung Fu, Qi Gong) that advance very fast, but only apply in a handful of situations.

I also liked 4e's universal level bonus, so that's in there too, but it's very small.

 

[Foxwarrior]

Why do you refer to a meter as a "unit"? That seems confusing for no reason. The thing where DMs can change the scale doesn't really make sense as a justification, because there's no particular need for humans to suddenly be 10 feet tall or whatever.

It would also be nice to have some links to the various rules on the front page, I only noticed the Area, Distance, and Movement page because it was linked in the Latest Activity section. It's possible that you could use your insider knowledge to come up with a reading order that's better than the random crawl I can do on my own.

The character sheet doesn't seem to have any space to write down what my Attributes and General Skills actually are. Why doesn't it use a tree format?

Why not just two Multiclass Abilities, instead of potentially one for every adjustment you can think of? That is: Multiclass A Little (1 Upgrade) - change the General Skill for a Specific Skill to another one within the same Attribute; and Multiclass A Lot (2 upgrades) - change the General Skill for a Specific Skill to another one in a different Attribute.

The experience system seems a little bit fiddly. I expect it would probably involve the DM saying "You get 1 XP for that" a hundred times every level, but there's a danger that the player would say "Do I get any XP for that?" far more often. You don't actually need to have an XP system ("The DM says when you level up" works just fine), but if you do, it's an opportunity to encourage players to do some particular type of thing. What sort of adventures are players supposed to undertake, when left to their own devices?

I may have misread things, but it looks like a typical attack is likely to deal only about 3 damage, where people generally have 30 or more vitality. 10 rounds is a lot of rounds for a fight. In order to deal much more damage than 3, you'd have to be fighting an opponent who you could not miss. It also means that if you're fighting a roughly equal foe, you can remain quite confident that you'll be safe standing in front of them while they swing at you if you have 10 vitality.

Dividing your time into 5 actions is kind of nice, but it does get in danger of the Full Attack Action problem: people with lots of attacks (or in your case, attacks that take 2 or fewer actions to use) are strongly encouraged to stand really near the enemy and flail away, not do crazy acrobatic moves and bounce around the battlefield. I might recommend having a separate pool of movement actions, or an ability that gives you free movement when you attack, something like that.

Sorry for being so aggressive, but tearing into things improves my reading experience.

 

[AllPurposeNerd]

First off, don't apologize. You have, in one post, put more effort into this thing than all of my actual friends did in three years.

Why do you refer to a meter as a "unit"?

I did that to facilitate more direct conversions from other games. D&D's unit is 5 feet. HERO systems used to be 2 meters. I agree now that it's an unnecessary degree of freedom, it's just a big edit because that mechanic is referenced on like two dozen pages.

It would also be nice to have some links to the various rules on the front page...

This is a confusing aspect of the Wikia interface. There's actually a three-tab drop down menu at the top of the page. If you hover "Wiki Content" you'll get more useful sub menus, or if you just click on it, you'll get this page.

The character sheet doesn't seem to have any space to write down what my Attributes and General Skills actually are. Why doesn't it use a tree format?

That was another one of those freedom vs. simplicity choices. It's partially because not everybody's going to have the same set of skills, partially because the skill list wasn't finalized. Even now I'd like to add skills for computer use and mech combat and stuff.

The best solution I can think of is to post a few examples of filled in sheets, which I can have for you later on tonight.

Why not just two Multiclass Abilities, instead of potentially one for every adjustment you can think of?

I was concerned that some transitions wouldn't really make sense. Imagine moving Endurance to Perception, now you can run farther while wearing contacts. Plus I like the names from a thematic standpoint. "Multiclass: Guard to Religion" doesn't have the same impact as "Paladin I," y'know?

The experience system seems a little bit fiddly.

I had designs on doing a 'best practices' article for GMs. The simplest way I could think of is to just keep tallies next to your turn order list, then at the end of the event just call out, "Grug gets 5, Thistle gets 5, and Bob gets 0 because he's dead again," or whatever. But the experience system is, I concede, an ass pull. It needs a little more information.

What sort of adventures are players supposed to undertake, when left to their own devices?

That's kind of a huge philosophical question, isn't it? I think it's a little unanswerable without the context of a particular setting. But one of the things I liked about D&D 3e that I tried to bring through here was the 'reality simulator' aspect of the mechanics where you can do just about anything and the mechanics remain consistent with each other and faithful to real world physics (as much as possible that is). So the intended answer to your question is, 'whatever they can come up with.'

...it looks like a typical attack is likely to deal only about 3 damage, where people generally have 30 or more vitality.

Here's where things get complex: Hundredfold is meant to be very freeform. Your character can specialize in literally anything. The flipside is that not everybody is going to specialize in combat. Some will focus on boosting their vitality, some will specialize in their defenses, some will max out one attack skill. Two highly-focused warriors can indeed slug it out for a long time without making much progress, especially if they're low level (less than 20).

That's another important difference; levels don't mean very much. It's not like D&D where you can TPK by going just one challenge rating too high.

10 rounds is a lot of rounds for a fight.

Arguably, but the rounds are only 3.6 seconds. Ten rounds would still be well under a minute.

But a hypothetical situation in which you might deal more damage is when you have a leader who specializes in Tactics skills quietly observing the target for a while so he can tell his assassin buddy with Skill Mastery (Ranged) and Sneak Attack exactly where to strike.

[sblock=Math Time]Key thing about the skill system is that specific skills will always beat general skills because they advance faster. You gain a 0.1 boost per level, plus a 0.2 boost per Attribute upgrade, plus a 0.3 boost per General Skill upgrade, plus a 0.4 boost per specific skill upgrade, 0.1+0.2+0.3+0.4 = 1.0 meaning that the highest skill score possible is 1.0 per level, and that's only for a specific skill. Meanwhile general skills don't benefit from the specific boost. 0.1+0.2+0.3 = 0.6 per level.

Now look at Find Weakness. Assessment is a specific skill, Combat and Tactics are both general skills. It means that a 10th-level character with maxed out assessment will get a +2 on a 10th-level maxed out combatant if he just takes 5. If he just stares for three rounds, he's virtually guaranteed a 10, so that's a +7.

Now the assassin. He has Sneak Attack, so he's got the boost and the action reduction. If we assume he's also 10th level with a maxed out Ranged skill, then he has a 6.0 Combat, +7 from the leader, +5 from the ability, he's rolling +18 versus a Challenge of 20 for a 10th level target, and an average bonus of +3 on the attack. It's complicated, but I meant for this to be a more complex approach to combat than just walk up and smash.

Now, he also has Skill Mastery (ranged), so his average is actually 7.15. With all the bonuses, his attack will deal an average of 5 damage. If he rolls a 10 on both the exploitation and the attack, that's 13 damage.

...actually that's still sort of disappointing. Hmm.

Bear in mind though, 10th level is still pretty low. When you get into the mid 30s, the disparity between attack scores and vitality becomes more apparent.[/sblock]

There's also an abiltiy called Zweihander which is one of the first abilities I wrote that I can't find on the wiki at all. When wielding a two-handed weapon, you can attack for 4 actions with a -2, but deal double damage (2 vitality per 1 success). It directly opposes Two-Weapon Fighting where you can make two attacks in 4 actions (although I realize now that Zweihanding is strictly superior because it's only one attack roll. Maybe that's why I omitted it).

Dividing your time into 5 actions is kind of nice, but it does get in danger of the Full Attack Action problem: people with lots of attacks (or in your case, attacks that take 2 or fewer actions to use) are strongly encouraged to stand really near the enemy and flail away, not do crazy acrobatic moves and bounce around the battlefield.

I think the slow lumbering hulk is a valid play style, but I was planning to add tasks that reward skipping around a little like Fancy Footwork.

 

[Foxwarrior]

You have, in one post, put more effort into this thing than all of my actual friends did in three years.

How did you manage to keep your enthusiasm for the project going for so long if your friends didn't support you?

That was another one of those freedom vs. simplicity choices. It's partially because not everybody's going to have the same set of skills, partially because the skill list wasn't finalized. Even now I'd like to add skills for computer use and mech combat and stuff.

The best solution I can think of is to post a few examples of filled in sheets, which I can have for you later on tonight.

What about using a tree setup, but with a few blanks at each level for putting in moved or custom skills?

Imagine moving Endurance to Perception, now you can run farther while wearing contacts.

Well, Perception doesn't seem to exist any more, but maybe you renamed it Awareness, in which case contact lenses probably should only add to your specific Vision skill. Being able to strive on despite your wounds with a feeling of crystal clarity is a thing I may have heard described before, so it's totally perfectly reasonable.

That's kind of a huge philosophical question, isn't it? I think it's a little unanswerable without the context of a particular setting. But one of the things I liked about D&D 3e that I tried to bring through here was the 'reality simulator' aspect of the mechanics where you can do just about anything and the mechanics remain consistent with each other and faithful to real world physics (as much as possible that is). So the intended answer to your question is, 'whatever they can come up with.'

I've found that people don't just want a reality simulator, they want an in-character genre simulator, where the genre is not detached from reality. It's good to be able to really think like a character in the game world, and being attached to reality makes that easier, but we're also trying to play a game that provides entertainment. All games also require a significant level of abstraction (even computer games can't completely faithfully represent protein folding in real time); you can't actually make a reality simulator, you have to abstract away quite a lot of the things that are in reality, you can only choose what and how to abstract to keep the parts that are important for the game and the things people are supposed to do in it.

Arguably, but the rounds are only 3.6 seconds. Ten rounds would still be well under a minute.

A minute game time, sure, but there's some real time overhead involved in playing through a round, asking each player what they want to do. As a general rule, if you can make players accomplish twice as much in a turn without denying their opponents enough of an opportunity to react, you definitely should.

Math Time

And that's not even 13 damage per round, that's 13 damage with maximum luck, setup time, and two characters against one.

I think the slow lumbering hulk is a valid play style, but I was planning to add tasks that reward skipping around a little like Fancy Footwork.

Is the slow lumbering hulk the sort of person who takes multiple attacks per round?

 

[GMMichael]

One of the things I took away from D20 was the way that ability scores and skills are kind of different levels of the same thing. Your stats confer a relatively small bonus to a large number of tasks. Meanwhile skill ranks confer a relatively large bonus to a much smaller set of tasks. I took that basic analogy and made a three tiered system.

I also liked 4e's universal level bonus, so that's in there too, but it's very small.

I read this first part and said, "oh good, he's recognized the redundancy and is going to eliminate it." And then you added another level. Which might be a good thing, but I won't know until I can dedicate enough time to reading over the system.

The universal level bonus seems like it would add a fourth tier, or a third level of redundancy. Look at D&D 5 for comparison - your abilities add one tier of skill bonuses, your level (in the form of proficiency bonus) adds a tier of narrow bonuses, and no skills go unmodified because abilities cover all actions.

Look at my homebrew for another: three attributes add broad skill bonuses, 20 skills add narrow bonuses, and hero points add free-floating bonuses. But the math/character sheet doesn't get messy because you get one attribute point each level, and one skill point at each level.

What Hundredfold needs to do is ensure that characters at all levels have bonuses that properly reflect the characters' likelihood of success in some or all activities. So, for example, a 1st level character can't craft epic suits of armor, and a 20th level character doesn't have trouble making its save versus polymorph.

 

[AllPurposeNerd]

How did you manage to keep your enthusiasm...

I didn't. I haven't really touched it in like a year.

I did change Perception to Awareness a while ago. There's a lot of things that I just changed the names of so it wasn't so obvious which game I was stealing from. That's why they're called 'special abilities' and not feats.

I've found that people don't just want a reality simulator, they want an in-character genre simulator, where the genre is not detached from reality.

You still have to get the core mechanics down first. I could be making a Gilmore Girls RPG that's entirely Social-based, I still need to know what happens if Luke falls off the roof.

A minute game time, sure, but there's some real time overhead involved in playing through a round, asking each player what they want to do.

I did once organize a playtest of an early version of the combat rules, and everybody agreed that rounds rolled by pretty fast, despite the apparent complexity of actions and tasks. These were all players familiar with D&D 3e, 3.5, and 4e, plus a smattering of 2e, Pathfinder, GURPS, and a few others.

I read this first part and said, "oh good, he's recognized the redundancy and is going to eliminate it." And then you added another level.

It's not redundancy, it's a resource choice. You have 1 upgrade, you can either get a 0.2 on a bunch of skills, an 0.3 on a few skills, or an 0.4 on one skill. It's about focused dedicated practice versus generalized training.

Look at D&D 5...

I think I'm good, thanks. It's not that I haven't heard good things, it's just that I don't have the energy.

Here's that example sheet I promised: JPG

 

[Foxwarrior]

You still have to get the core mechanics down first. I could be making a Gilmore Girls RPG that's entirely Social-based, I still need to know what happens if Luke falls off the roof.

That's actually a pretty good example. For a Gilmore Girls social RPG (I'll guess wildly based on a position of no actual knowledge about the show), there are a couple of results that are interesting and appropriate: Luke is stunned for a bit, people laugh at him, and then he walks it off (but rumors about his klutziness spread); or Luke breaks a limb, is sent to the hospital for a while, and people send him get-well cards (and there's some sort of rumor competition based on the style and price of the get-well cards sent). For a Die Hard RPG, there are a different set of results that are interesting and appropriate: Luke is slain or knocked unconscious, and never seen in the movie again; Luke injures one of his limbs, and limps for the rest of the movie; or Luke is stunned for a bit, his enemies look around for him but miss him just barely, and then he walks it off. Both of them have results grounded in reality, but the types of realistic consequences that are appropriate in-genre are different.

I did once organize a playtest of an early version of the combat rules, and everybody agreed that rounds rolled by pretty fast, despite the apparent complexity of actions and tasks. These were all players familiar with D&D 3e, 3.5, and 4e, plus a smattering of 2e, Pathfinder, GURPS, and a few others.

I'll bet that to some extent that's just because you haven't put in a full plethora of actions and tasks yet, although it's still possible that the 10 rounds in your game would remain faster than 5 rounds in 3.5 if/when you do.

It's not redundancy, it's a resource choice. You have 1 upgrade, you can either get a 0.2 on a bunch of skills, an 0.3 on a few skills, or an 0.4 on one skill. It's about focused dedicated practice versus generalized training.

Oh, speaking of which, bonuses that are too small to actually have any effect are merely tolerable to do the accounting for. I'd recommend making each level somewhat "larger" and having you buy Attribute, General Skill, and Specific Skill bonuses in 1 point increments; possibly have scaling caps on things so you can only get +1 to any given Specific Skill every 3 levels or whatnot.

 

[AllPurposeNerd]

Oh, speaking of which, bonuses that are too small to actually have any effect are merely tolerable to do the accounting for.

The risk there becomes the speed at which the bonuses outstrip the die roll and you're just comparing scores. Whole points would be way too large. I toyed with .1, .3, .5, .7, but then the level bonus is too small to be worth doing. .2, .3, .4, .5 might work, if you don't mind the max score being 1.4 x Level. But all of this is kind of invalidated by the fact that if you want bigger numbers, you can just play at higher levels. There is no max level.

Also compare to D&D where half the time you get an ability point it doesn't do anything.

 

[Foxwarrior]

Also compare to D&D where half the time you get an ability point it doesn't do anything.

Yeah, I've heard a fair number of people observe that there's very little point to that.