DarkMatter d20?
- Thread starter EarthsShadow
- Start date
EarthsShadow
First Post
Maybe the reason is to be different. Who knows? Maybe the reason is that always playing a game with AC is boring and redundant. Who knows? Maybe the reason is to add something else to the market, something that makes more sense and with the world and system of this particular game, it works better. Who knows?
All I see is that someone, it doesn't matter who it is...someone offers something different than the standard and people gotta ask why? only because its different. Personally, I have never liked AC because to me its stupid. The only reason why we play with it is because its standard, normal, and a lot of people know it. I play Dungeons and Dragons, I like the game. I am a gamer. I like to also see something different than the standard.
Plus, to me, it just makes more sense. And about writing a completely different book. If I had the backing, the resources, the manpower, the artistic talents, the money, whatever it would take, then you bet I would write up a brand new book that is really awesome and fun to play. But I don't have the luxury of that where many of you on these boards do. I don't even have the resources to start my own web page the way things are going in my life. Oh well.
Do you all want same and boring or something different and fun? That is what I am trying to provide.
I understand your comments, I thank you for them and for the reasons as to your postings they make sense and I appreciate the questions because it also helps me think about the reasons for why I am doing things with the game. So, thank you for your questions and comments.
All I see is that someone, it doesn't matter who it is...someone offers something different than the standard and people gotta ask why? only because its different. Personally, I have never liked AC because to me its stupid. The only reason why we play with it is because its standard, normal, and a lot of people know it. I play Dungeons and Dragons, I like the game. I am a gamer. I like to also see something different than the standard.
Plus, to me, it just makes more sense. And about writing a completely different book. If I had the backing, the resources, the manpower, the artistic talents, the money, whatever it would take, then you bet I would write up a brand new book that is really awesome and fun to play. But I don't have the luxury of that where many of you on these boards do. I don't even have the resources to start my own web page the way things are going in my life. Oh well.
Do you all want same and boring or something different and fun? That is what I am trying to provide.
I understand your comments, I thank you for them and for the reasons as to your postings they make sense and I appreciate the questions because it also helps me think about the reasons for why I am doing things with the game. So, thank you for your questions and comments.
EarthsShadow
First Post
`
I don't think Alternity is bad, I like the game. No one else where I live, and I live in a pretty good sized city, wants to play anything else except d20. It doesn't matter what d20 it is, but that's all people around here want to play. So, I feel that as Darkmatter is one of my favorite games and it can easily be d20, but it doesn't have to be the same, why not convert it over?
I know plenty of peopple who like Darkmatter, and want to play it but they do not want to learn a new system. So, its either wait and see and realize that it might not ever get played, or do something about it and make it d20, and yet unique.
I don't think Alternity is bad, I like the game. No one else where I live, and I live in a pretty good sized city, wants to play anything else except d20. It doesn't matter what d20 it is, but that's all people around here want to play. So, I feel that as Darkmatter is one of my favorite games and it can easily be d20, but it doesn't have to be the same, why not convert it over?
I know plenty of peopple who like Darkmatter, and want to play it but they do not want to learn a new system. So, its either wait and see and realize that it might not ever get played, or do something about it and make it d20, and yet unique.
Re: `
That's my reason for running d20, to garner more players because the lazy ones out number the go-getters. My buying habits for d20 show this in that I try to buy products that show me dozen ways not to use the Vancian DND magic rules.
And hey, it's your homemade game, so do what you want. Pooch "compatablity" your not trying publish it. Though, you can't be lazy later and decide that you want to use other stuff from other publishers since you have to tweak everything to fit your modified game.
EarthsShadow said:
That's my reason for running d20, to garner more players because the lazy ones out number the go-getters. My buying habits for d20 show this in that I try to buy products that show me dozen ways not to use the Vancian DND magic rules.
And hey, it's your homemade game, so do what you want. Pooch "compatablity" your not trying publish it. Though, you can't be lazy later and decide that you want to use other stuff from other publishers since you have to tweak everything to fit your modified game.
Blacksad
Explorer
Re: `
I knew that you liked alternity.
What I do not undestand is trying to reuse all of the alternity rules in d20, if your player do not want to play alternity, I think its unlikely that they'll want to play alternity disguised as a d20 games: things like applying all the modifier on the attacker might turn away potential player.
Improvement or addition on the game for a more realistic feel, like armor absorbing damge, different kind of hit point, varying degree of success, or career, will certainly have a lots of appeal to many player.
But change on the way to roll (by giving away the modifier to your player reveal information on their adversary, if you keep the modifier for yourself you'll have to do all the math), change on the advancement (using the standard Xp table with 300*level being the average Xp by encounter,you can have character that have a steady increse in level from 1 to 20 in a year, if you give 4 to 8 points by adventures with incremental cost for skill, you'll have character that progress less and less, I'm pretty sure that it's a campaign killer), putting combat ability as skill (basically you take the risk of having a courtier and a barbarian in the same group, except that here the courtier has no defense and no combat skill, that the spotlight focus on one character for skill roll isn't a problem, those are resolved pretty quickly, but a combat take an amount of time, and waiting without anything to do is quickly boring, that apply to any long chain of skill roll like piloting, if all of your player are interested in it there is no problem, but if several aren't or can't use some of there skill during it, like the computer geek increasing all pilot and detector rolls, you're going into troubles), all of that is equivalent to a Turn d20 player by a level 12 cleric with the Evil DM domain and a 16 charisma.
Kind of like wanting to play Vampire with GURPS player, and trying a conversion of the Storyteller system into GURPS instead of just trying to represent the character concept within GURPS.
If you like alternity, and player dislike alternity, despite having all of them wanting to play only d20, you might try another system quick and easy to learn that will have appeal to both groups: like BESM, this kind of system can be learned and played in one session (as opposed to system like GURPS, Alternity, or D&D), so if you play marathon session, you can try to squeeze a game of BESM into a d20 one, with reason likes: "your souls are imprisoned into the comatose spirit of an anime fan, here are your character in another game system, you have to get out of his spirit by [your choice, like: killing the cancer/disease/nightmare in his mind, finding a secret item that reveal how to get him out of his comatose state in the real world, etc..].
Also, I have a hard time believing that d20 player will play anything d20, no matter what it is, I think about the fist super-hero game which got a score of 1 by most ENworld reviewers, that's why I believe tat a few house rules that stand on 2 or 4 pages are way better than a small new game, that would require a lot of work to look as a coherent game.
[edit] and you can see that there is indeed some people who don't like to go to far away from d20, due to laziness, or other reasons: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20747 [/edit]
This has no correlation, but in case you haven't thought about it, though one skill point equal one rank in D&D, the xp table has an incremental increase, which is somewhat similar to having an incremental cost for skills and a fixed amount of Xp. Trying to change those kind of things won't appeal to persons who only wants to play d20, and IMO the D&D method is beter in this case: in alternity it is easier to learn new skill than to improve your important skills, the doctor learns more easily electricity than specializing in his own field, and a talented youngster (high stat) will be better than himself after years of practice. But that's just my opinion.
Also, perhaps you are not aware of it, but in the beginning, DarkMatter was the home Cthulhu (with chaosium system) campaign of Monte Cook that he meshed with all conspiracy theory into a whole thing. Considering that Monte Cook is one of the author of Call of Cthulhu d20, if you just want the feel of Dark Matter, you can't go wrong with this book.
EarthsShadow said:
I knew that you liked alternity.
What I do not undestand is trying to reuse all of the alternity rules in d20, if your player do not want to play alternity, I think its unlikely that they'll want to play alternity disguised as a d20 games: things like applying all the modifier on the attacker might turn away potential player.
Improvement or addition on the game for a more realistic feel, like armor absorbing damge, different kind of hit point, varying degree of success, or career, will certainly have a lots of appeal to many player.
But change on the way to roll (by giving away the modifier to your player reveal information on their adversary, if you keep the modifier for yourself you'll have to do all the math), change on the advancement (using the standard Xp table with 300*level being the average Xp by encounter,you can have character that have a steady increse in level from 1 to 20 in a year, if you give 4 to 8 points by adventures with incremental cost for skill, you'll have character that progress less and less, I'm pretty sure that it's a campaign killer), putting combat ability as skill (basically you take the risk of having a courtier and a barbarian in the same group, except that here the courtier has no defense and no combat skill, that the spotlight focus on one character for skill roll isn't a problem, those are resolved pretty quickly, but a combat take an amount of time, and waiting without anything to do is quickly boring, that apply to any long chain of skill roll like piloting, if all of your player are interested in it there is no problem, but if several aren't or can't use some of there skill during it, like the computer geek increasing all pilot and detector rolls, you're going into troubles), all of that is equivalent to a Turn d20 player by a level 12 cleric with the Evil DM domain and a 16 charisma.
Kind of like wanting to play Vampire with GURPS player, and trying a conversion of the Storyteller system into GURPS instead of just trying to represent the character concept within GURPS.
If you like alternity, and player dislike alternity, despite having all of them wanting to play only d20, you might try another system quick and easy to learn that will have appeal to both groups: like BESM, this kind of system can be learned and played in one session (as opposed to system like GURPS, Alternity, or D&D), so if you play marathon session, you can try to squeeze a game of BESM into a d20 one, with reason likes: "your souls are imprisoned into the comatose spirit of an anime fan, here are your character in another game system, you have to get out of his spirit by [your choice, like: killing the cancer/disease/nightmare in his mind, finding a secret item that reveal how to get him out of his comatose state in the real world, etc..].
Also, I have a hard time believing that d20 player will play anything d20, no matter what it is, I think about the fist super-hero game which got a score of 1 by most ENworld reviewers, that's why I believe tat a few house rules that stand on 2 or 4 pages are way better than a small new game, that would require a lot of work to look as a coherent game.
[edit] and you can see that there is indeed some people who don't like to go to far away from d20, due to laziness, or other reasons: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20747 [/edit]
This has no correlation, but in case you haven't thought about it, though one skill point equal one rank in D&D, the xp table has an incremental increase, which is somewhat similar to having an incremental cost for skills and a fixed amount of Xp. Trying to change those kind of things won't appeal to persons who only wants to play d20, and IMO the D&D method is beter in this case: in alternity it is easier to learn new skill than to improve your important skills, the doctor learns more easily electricity than specializing in his own field, and a talented youngster (high stat) will be better than himself after years of practice. But that's just my opinion.
Also, perhaps you are not aware of it, but in the beginning, DarkMatter was the home Cthulhu (with chaosium system) campaign of Monte Cook that he meshed with all conspiracy theory into a whole thing. Considering that Monte Cook is one of the author of Call of Cthulhu d20, if you just want the feel of Dark Matter, you can't go wrong with this book.
Last edited:
EarthsShadow
First Post
I did not really know that about the origins of DM...and I don't own CoC, but I will soon. I started this, and I am going to do my best to finish this becauze then, I can say that I continued with it and didn't stop it. Besides, it will be fun, and different.
EarthsShadow
First Post
game mechanics...
Well, here is what I have come up with game mechanics for the d20 system, and to show that there is another way to use the system than standard...
Character creation will use a priority system: basically, you prioritize your character's initial traits in three categories -
Raw Talent, Educational Background, and Wealth.
Raw Talent will provide initial Ability Points to put into your abilities, Educational Background will provide initial character points to spend on skills and Wealth will provide your starting money.
Once you are done categorizing you pick your class, and then your class will modify the three categories accordingly.
you spend 9 points among three categories: Raw Talent, Educational Level, and Wealth. You are limited to a maximum of 5 points in a single category, and you must put at least 1 point into each category. The categories use the following charts, and once this is figured then the points you put into the categories are then modified by the class you take:
Raw Talent - provides starting ability points
1 28
2 30
3 32
4 34
5 36
*6 38
*7 40
Educational Level - provides starting character points
1 30
2 35
3 40
4 45
5 50
*6 55
*7 60
Wealth - provides starting funds
1 3d8 x 100
2 5d8 x 100
3 6d8 x 100
4 7d8 x 100
5 8d8 x 100
*6 10d8 x 100
*denotes a result that can only be attained if your class modifier takes you up to this result.
Class Modifiers to above categories:
Combat Spec: +2 points to Raw Talent
Free Agent: +1 Point to Educational Level, +1 Point to Raw Talent
Tech Op: +2 points to educational Level
Diplomat: +1 Point to Educational Level, +1 Point to Wealth
Mindwalker: +1 point to Raw Talent, +1 Point to Educational Level
Raw Talent points are spent on Ability Scores as normal, they start at 8 and go up from there if your used to the chart in the DMG.
With your character points, you spend them on skills. Highest rank is 3 at first level. Skills increase incrementally, not just one point per rank. Now, to get a specialty skill to rank 3, it costs 3 character points to increase it to rank 3. 6 points for rank 6, and so on.
If its a class skill, then the cost is 1 point less.
Skills are Broad skills and specialty skills. Broad skills cost 6 CP (5 if class skill), and specialty skills cost 2 to get rank 1, -1 if a class skill.
Spend money accordingly.
Health:
There is Stun, Wound, and Mortal. Stun and Wound are equal to CON x 1.5, Mortal = CON. All weapons have three different damage categories instead of critical multipliers. The three different categories simulates if you successfully do a Ordinary hit, Good hit, or Amazing hit.
Combat can go one of two ways, and playtesting would resolve it.
Either set the DC to 10 for Ordinary, 25 for Good and 40 for Amazing, and then set all situational modifiers and defensive modifiers against the attack roll. Or, have the DC based on the defense of the defender (as normal) and then figure out the Ordinary, Good, and Amazing results for each seperate possible DC.
If you get hit by a Ordinary result, then you take Ordinary damage based on the weapon, and so on...
For each Wound you take, you also lose 1 Stun...for each Mortal you take, you lose 2 Wound and 2 Stun.
Armor is Damage Reduction, does not modify defense at all. Lose your Mortal points, your dead.
When gaining levels:
Each level you gain in a class, you get a number of Character or Achievement Points. The amount you get is based on the following factors:
Educational Level
Level Attained.
Int or Wis modifier - I believe that some people learn one way and some learn another way.
Educational Level
1/2
2/3
3/4
4/5
5/6
6/7
7/8
*number before slash is original points put into Educational level modified by class, number after slash is the number of character points you get each time you gain a level.
Class Level
This is the level you just attained.
2-3/1
4-6/2
7-9/3
10-12/4
13-15/5
16-18/6
19-20/7
*number before slash is level, number after slash is number of character points you get each time you gain a level.
Then add in either your INT modifier or your WIS modifier.
Remember that skills in this system, if your used to Alternity, don't increase on a 1 - 1 ratio. Skills are increased by paying incrementally for the next rank a number of points equal to that rank. So, to go from rank 3 to rank 4 costs 4 CP.
These points can be all spent at once, or saved over the course of time.
----------
So, if your willing to accept this notion, this is a versatile system and provides a lot of choices available to the player. Of course its not perfect, nothing is, and I am still working on some of the numbers, but this could really work and I am asking for help to figure some of the numbers out and different options.
Also, during character creation, I want to implement a system of flaws for the character to give the character more character points to spend.
Well, here is what I have come up with game mechanics for the d20 system, and to show that there is another way to use the system than standard...
Character creation will use a priority system: basically, you prioritize your character's initial traits in three categories -
Raw Talent, Educational Background, and Wealth.
Raw Talent will provide initial Ability Points to put into your abilities, Educational Background will provide initial character points to spend on skills and Wealth will provide your starting money.
Once you are done categorizing you pick your class, and then your class will modify the three categories accordingly.
you spend 9 points among three categories: Raw Talent, Educational Level, and Wealth. You are limited to a maximum of 5 points in a single category, and you must put at least 1 point into each category. The categories use the following charts, and once this is figured then the points you put into the categories are then modified by the class you take:
Raw Talent - provides starting ability points
1 28
2 30
3 32
4 34
5 36
*6 38
*7 40
Educational Level - provides starting character points
1 30
2 35
3 40
4 45
5 50
*6 55
*7 60
Wealth - provides starting funds
1 3d8 x 100
2 5d8 x 100
3 6d8 x 100
4 7d8 x 100
5 8d8 x 100
*6 10d8 x 100
*denotes a result that can only be attained if your class modifier takes you up to this result.
Class Modifiers to above categories:
Combat Spec: +2 points to Raw Talent
Free Agent: +1 Point to Educational Level, +1 Point to Raw Talent
Tech Op: +2 points to educational Level
Diplomat: +1 Point to Educational Level, +1 Point to Wealth
Mindwalker: +1 point to Raw Talent, +1 Point to Educational Level
Raw Talent points are spent on Ability Scores as normal, they start at 8 and go up from there if your used to the chart in the DMG.
With your character points, you spend them on skills. Highest rank is 3 at first level. Skills increase incrementally, not just one point per rank. Now, to get a specialty skill to rank 3, it costs 3 character points to increase it to rank 3. 6 points for rank 6, and so on.
If its a class skill, then the cost is 1 point less.
Skills are Broad skills and specialty skills. Broad skills cost 6 CP (5 if class skill), and specialty skills cost 2 to get rank 1, -1 if a class skill.
Spend money accordingly.
Health:
There is Stun, Wound, and Mortal. Stun and Wound are equal to CON x 1.5, Mortal = CON. All weapons have three different damage categories instead of critical multipliers. The three different categories simulates if you successfully do a Ordinary hit, Good hit, or Amazing hit.
Combat can go one of two ways, and playtesting would resolve it.
Either set the DC to 10 for Ordinary, 25 for Good and 40 for Amazing, and then set all situational modifiers and defensive modifiers against the attack roll. Or, have the DC based on the defense of the defender (as normal) and then figure out the Ordinary, Good, and Amazing results for each seperate possible DC.
If you get hit by a Ordinary result, then you take Ordinary damage based on the weapon, and so on...
For each Wound you take, you also lose 1 Stun...for each Mortal you take, you lose 2 Wound and 2 Stun.
Armor is Damage Reduction, does not modify defense at all. Lose your Mortal points, your dead.
When gaining levels:
Each level you gain in a class, you get a number of Character or Achievement Points. The amount you get is based on the following factors:
Educational Level
Level Attained.
Int or Wis modifier - I believe that some people learn one way and some learn another way.
Educational Level
1/2
2/3
3/4
4/5
5/6
6/7
7/8
*number before slash is original points put into Educational level modified by class, number after slash is the number of character points you get each time you gain a level.
Class Level
This is the level you just attained.
2-3/1
4-6/2
7-9/3
10-12/4
13-15/5
16-18/6
19-20/7
*number before slash is level, number after slash is number of character points you get each time you gain a level.
Then add in either your INT modifier or your WIS modifier.
Remember that skills in this system, if your used to Alternity, don't increase on a 1 - 1 ratio. Skills are increased by paying incrementally for the next rank a number of points equal to that rank. So, to go from rank 3 to rank 4 costs 4 CP.
These points can be all spent at once, or saved over the course of time.
----------
So, if your willing to accept this notion, this is a versatile system and provides a lot of choices available to the player. Of course its not perfect, nothing is, and I am still working on some of the numbers, but this could really work and I am asking for help to figure some of the numbers out and different options.
Also, during character creation, I want to implement a system of flaws for the character to give the character more character points to spend.
Blacksad
Explorer
Re: game mechanics...
You should edit your first post and the thread title, then ask the mods to move this thread toward th house rules forum.
Unless you prefer to discuss with a single person, that firmly belive that most attempt to build a classless system are doomed to be failed
Why not 6 points, and beggining the list at 0?
That way, you don't have minimum point to put in a category.
to ease your pain here, consider the following
1 O:stun G:stun*2 A:stun*3
2 O:stun G:stun*2 A:wound
3 O:stun G:wound A:wound
4 O:stun G:wound A:mortal
5 O:wound G:wound*2 A:wound*3
6 O:wound G:wound*2 A:mortal
7 O:wound G:mortal A:mortal*1.5
8 O:mortal G:mortal*1.5 A:mortal*2
simple normal weapon use their standard damage and chart 1, 2, 3
simple firearm use 6, 7
martial normal 5, 6, 7
martial firearm 6, 7, 8
Then you could buy the ultramodern firearm book by green ronin, and you just have to assign a number to each weapon
personally I would use the following: damge reduction=half armor rating, defense penality=skill penality+max dex modifier.
I think that you should get rid of that, otherwise all the best sniper in your world will come from Harvard, a bonus to knoweldge skill instead perhaps?
N.B. that is if you want to make combat ability as skills.
if you have figured a skill point cost for feats, you might want to look into swashbuckling adventures, there is a system of flaw feat, that allow you to take a bous hubris feat.
for feat cost, the first feat cost 4 point, the second 5, etc... to prevent high level character from only buing feat.
Also, it doesn't solve the problem of total inability of character who doesn't spent skill point in combat, in alternity even with an average stat and a point, you had something like 10/5/2 not very far from a gun expert with 18/9/4 i.e. the character was able to hit when the gun expert would do a good hit, and in standard d20 even the wizard got a +10 bonus when the fighter get a +20 bonus.
You should edit your first post and the thread title, then ask the mods to move this thread toward th house rules forum.
Unless you prefer to discuss with a single person, that firmly belive that most attempt to build a classless system are doomed to be failed
EarthsShadow said:
Why not 6 points, and beggining the list at 0?
That way, you don't have minimum point to put in a category.
to ease your pain here, consider the following
1 O:stun G:stun*2 A:stun*3
2 O:stun G:stun*2 A:wound
3 O:stun G:wound A:wound
4 O:stun G:wound A:mortal
5 O:wound G:wound*2 A:wound*3
6 O:wound G:wound*2 A:mortal
7 O:wound G:mortal A:mortal*1.5
8 O:mortal G:mortal*1.5 A:mortal*2
simple normal weapon use their standard damage and chart 1, 2, 3
simple firearm use 6, 7
martial normal 5, 6, 7
martial firearm 6, 7, 8
Then you could buy the ultramodern firearm book by green ronin, and you just have to assign a number to each weapon
personally I would use the following: damge reduction=half armor rating, defense penality=skill penality+max dex modifier.
I think that you should get rid of that, otherwise all the best sniper in your world will come from Harvard, a bonus to knoweldge skill instead perhaps?
N.B. that is if you want to make combat ability as skills.
if you have figured a skill point cost for feats, you might want to look into swashbuckling adventures, there is a system of flaw feat, that allow you to take a bous hubris feat.
for feat cost, the first feat cost 4 point, the second 5, etc... to prevent high level character from only buing feat.
Also, it doesn't solve the problem of total inability of character who doesn't spent skill point in combat, in alternity even with an average stat and a point, you had something like 10/5/2 not very far from a gun expert with 18/9/4 i.e. the character was able to hit when the gun expert would do a good hit, and in standard d20 even the wizard got a +10 bonus when the fighter get a +20 bonus.
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Knightfall
World of Kulan DM
Erik Mona said something in one of the Dungeon/Polyhedron threads about Dark Matter being on the schedule to become a d20 mini-game.
{EDIT}
Found it - not officially on the schedule but he's working on it.
{EDIT}
Found it - not officially on the schedule but he's working on it.
Erik Mona said:
Last edited:
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