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Is it a correct assumption that once you decide to bank the SP (e.g., to buy a level in something), it’s no longer available to spend on skill advancement or perks? What’s “DB style leveling”? Let me restate to confirm my understanding. I used the forum search to try and fill in some gaps...

I was assuming skill points would accrue over time and then be spent. If you spend them as you generate them, then my concern is not really an issue. Is there anything that costs enough skill points that you would have to bank them to spend later?

Characters are assumed to be adventurers with skills appropriate to adventuring. A skill is a method you can use to achieve an outcome you want. Characters also have proficiencies (for interacting with weapons and armor) and specialities (for additional customization and capabilities). For...

The way experience works is players set two individual goals at the start of the session and a group goal at the end. Group goals are intended to take several to complete. At the end of the session, a player gets 3 EXP for completing an individual goal (but no more than that even if they...

I’m not a fan of BRP’s skill system. I like a little more focus and also prefer to use EXP as part of a positive feedback loop to drive play (assuming you also mean that usage = skill progression like in TES and BRP games). Thanks for the suggestion, but having checks become certain is a...

I didn’t want to have separate HP pools to track, so I rolled all my together. I don’t know that having them separate would have helped in my case (since the values were based on level times the armor’s “armor HP” multiplier, and the problem was confusion happened when deriving and maintaining...

The math problems have been a constant source of pain. I want something that “feels” like D&D (e.g., roll+modifiers versus a target number), but I also want something with a non-uniform distribution of results. I like how the triangular distribution 2dX centers results on the average, making...

The modifier was the killer. The ettins were only rolling at +4, but that puts the average at 11. A lucky roll ended up would feel impossible to them. If Cortext+ is not using them, then I doubt it would have that problem. I thought opposed tests in Torchbearer were also okay. (I didn’t like the...

My group was a 3e then Pathfinder group for a long time. There was a certain expectation that NPCs would work more or less like PCs, so having an NPC be different was surprising in not a good way. They got over it, but there would be occasional snark about it. Potential consequences in my...

It looks like Cortex+ rolls opposing dice pools. I was doing 2d6+mods vs. 2d6+mods. I was also having the attacker set the target for the defender, which is the flow my players disliked. I could have tried adjusting the flow, but it didn’t seem worth the effort when my players weren’t all that...

I’m reminded of a reaction I got when I ran Lost Mines of Phandelver for my group back around 5e’s release. There’s a fight in town with some ruffians. They attack twice with a dagger. One of my players was like: is this guy a lot higher level than us? No. He’s just designed that way. I don’t...

Yeah. I checked schedule before posting, so I didn’t miss that, but those benefits for paying seem like they would be non-trivial for small campaigns. I guess it depends on who approached whom first. I could be completely wrong.

I liked this because you rolled with it and kept your poker face. I once played in a Mage: the Awakening game where we were supposed to investigate these monster attacks. My first question when we arrived in the area was whether there were any golf courses nearby. My reasoning was since this was...

Goodman Games has a link to the event on their site. My cynical take is it’s a way for BackerKit to boost its crowdfunding platform. You don’t have to pay except for the third day, which comes with a number of incentives to launch your next campaign on their platform.

Encumbrance is on page 15 of Book I - Men & Magic. It’s coin-based just like D&D and AD&D 1e. The presentation could use more clarity, but that’s true of a lot of OD&D. In OD&D, the weight of a man is given as 1750 coins, but the weight of a halfling is not. It’s up to the referee to interpret...

I’ve had a few in my homebrew system. * * * In a thread here on armor as damage reduction, I described a system of handling DR as part of your HP. This was based on the observation that mitigation is a form of effective HP. It doesn’t give you actual HP, but it extends your time-to-live by an...

I for one loved the sniper GEP gun in Deus Ex. If there are no survivors, does an explosion make a sound?

That makes me wonder. What happens if I have a contingency to cast mage’s disjunction on the anti-magic field when I enter one. Does it go off before or after the GM has a conniption?

Having picked it up thanks to this discussion, I think it’s fine. There are some blind spots when it comes to tabletop RPGs, but there’s still also some useful stuff. I look at it as complementary to other tabletop RPG design theory and ideas.

Technical books tend to be expensive (even as eBooks). If you have access to the O’Reilly library, Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design appears to be included. Adams has another book, Fundamentals of Game Design, that is cited as the source of the genres used in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game...