"Simply20" Musings

[GMMichael]

Morrus, what you've described sounds very similar to my game. So I can say with confidence: your idea is starting off on solid footing! Some thoughts:

(also thought needs to go into the scaling -- like this a 10th level character will be at +20 in the thing they're best at)

Why not just scale by level - a 10th level character can't exceed +10 skill points?

If everybody gets "spells," while the mage gets 1 HP and the warrior gets 4, then the mage won't be a very popular class.

The opposed-roll thing works great.

Classes-defined-by-skill works great, as long as your skill list makes sense. For example, you don't want a 10th-level rogue who's an ace at Pick Pockets but can't Distract someone to save her life (since they're related skills). Also, a 20th level mage might wonder why his Wealth is still garbage.

I hope I'm not preaching to the choir

I like where you are going with this, but whenever I see systems that try to cover a wide range of skills and class, I find myself wishing there would be a system that from the base rule would let players create their own skills and their own classes. I've played around with this but never came up with a good way to have such a system that remained balanced and was at the same time simple--or at least not overly complicated.

I faced that problem, and came up with this: establish a baseline set of skills. Each player-created skill needs to either branch off one of the baseline skills, or be comparable in scope (subject to GM approval). Also, since skills will likely interact with the rest of your rule set, you want to establish which skills do that and how that relationship works. E.g. if you have a hit points system, pay attention to which skills affect hit points.

 

[JeffB]

You'll have noticed there are no special abilities of any kind yet. My thinking is that everybody basically has "spells" but the spells might not be magic, they might be maneuvers or tricks or stuff. Let's call them "exploits" for now (since that's a term I use in one of my own games).

You get one exploit at each level. Each class has a list of ascending exploits, either a linear path or a tree. Magic-wise, you'd choose a theme (fire, nature, enchantment, necromancy, whatever) and they would be paths/trees. The further down a path you go, the more powerful the exploit. Probably the hardest part of the game would be coming up with all the exploits.

I like the idea.

This is how the original Thief Class worked- It looked something like- hide at first level. pick locks at second. remove traps at third, etc. They were abilities like spells, with no % chance mechanic. The most powerful abilities being reserved for higher levels. Gary took the idea of the class from a game group in CA ( eventually designers of the Manual of Aurania-circa 1976) who told him about their "burglar/thief". Gary re-wrote it as we are familiar with and then published a draft form in a zine- then officially in GH (Sup1). I'd love to see that original Thief from the CA group.

 

[Morrus]

Gary took the idea of the class from a game group in CA ( eventually designers of the Manual of Aurania-circa 1976) who told him about their "burglar/thief". Gary re-wrote it as we are familiar with and then published a draft form in a zine- then officially in GH (Sup1). I'd love to see that original Thief from the CA group.

Indeed. There was an article about that very subject right here just this week!

TSR - Jack Vance's Forgotten Contributions to D&D

Renowned and influential fantasy author Jack Vance passed away at the age of 96 on May 26, 2013, but his books were highly influential on several aspects of Dungeons & Dragons in more ways than just spellcasting. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Co-creator of D&D, Gary Gygax, explained Vance's...

www.enworld.org

 

[GreyLord]

Similar in approach to 5e then (though everything is a 'proficiency' bonus rather than a skill bonus) but not with as small a bonus as the +2 to +6 bounded accuracy limitation they have?

You could build off the 5e chasis (though it would require a modification of using ability scores, and perhaps widening the range or number of skills characters or classes could choose from...or simply do away with classes and have people choose skills) under the current OGL/SRD.

Not that this is what you are after, but it has a resemblance I think of what you are already looking at. A slight modification and it resembles what you posted pretty closely I think.

 

[Morrus]

Similar in approach to 5e then (though everything is a 'proficiency' bonus rather than a skill bonus) but not with as small a bonus as the +2 to +6 bounded accuracy limitation they have?

Well, more similar to 3.x.

 

[JeffB]

Indeed. There was an article about that very subject right here just this week!

TSR - Jack Vance's Forgotten Contributions to D&D

Renowned and influential fantasy author Jack Vance passed away at the age of 96 on May 26, 2013, but his books were highly influential on several aspects of Dungeons & Dragons in more ways than just spellcasting. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Co-creator of D&D, Gary Gygax, explained Vance's...

www.enworld.org

Sorry. I usually just skim over that contributor's articles. Didn't see that bit.

The Manual should see a Kickstarter in 2020 according to the author's posting at the OD&D proboards.