RandomUsernamehmimo71
Explorer
For comparison, and hopefully improvement of both our systems, I'm including my working notes here.
I don't have Magic to a point I'm Happy with it yet, but it works on the same sort of system as the rest of it. Skills. I'll include it later if you're interested.
I'm working on creating a system that I can use in my personal games, and if anyone else is interested in, I'd be happy to share
The design goals are as follows
* Be familiar to D20 players (my audiance)
* Allow for a Grim & Gritty style of combat
* Be openended and have no required classes- Allow everyone access to everything
* Allow for a Fast and Quick gameplay
I'm a fan of the D6 system, and I think that in many contexts it's a great way of doing a fast and loose game. But I think we can work with the design a little bit, to make things more D20 esque, and come away with something worthwhile.
Now, this first thing is the Core mechanic. I think we can safely adopt the Code D20 idea of-
Roll 1d20.
Add Stat modifier
Add Skill modifier
Hit Target DC
to allow for a very familiar feeling game. That's easy enough to do, and it provides us a great base to work with. We know what we're doing, we know the way it scales with DC, and people are familiar with it.
Great.
Next up, Skills.
What I want to do with this system is to make Everything a skill, Ala D6. By that, I mean that Attacking, Defending, and Saving throws are skills as well. This doesn't pose as many problems as I initially thought.
Now, the problem with "Everything is a skill" is that you need to worry about balance. Some skills quickly become two powerful.
For instance, a "Base Attack Bonus" skill, would never fly. It would Instantly be the highest skill for too many people.
But Seperate skills for each Weapon Group.. /That/'s do-able.
Now with Defense, we can keep that as a single skill, but we want to avoid having people uber-specialized.
D20 does that by forcing people to take a number of skills at once, aka, a level. Additionally, they have Skill caps.
I don't think that's a great soltution.. I'm more influenced by the way D6 deals with the problem. Progressivly increasing the costs, to discourage, but still allow, people to do so.
D6 does this by increasing the cost by 1 for each die.... The obvious parralel in D20 would be to increase by 1 per rank.. But that increases too quickly.
What we Can do though, is every 3. In some ways, that works out to average with the SW system anyway.. The average on a Die is 3.5.. This is an increase at about the same time.
So what that means, is that initial ranks are cheaper, later ranks are more expensive. People are encouraged to spread out
Ranks 1-3 cost 1
Ranks 4-6 cost 2
Ranks 7-9 cost 3
Ranks 10-12 cost 4
Ranks 13-15 cost 5
Ranks 16-18 cost 6
Ranks 19-21 cost 7
Perfect. Now, all we need are the actuall skills. Here, however, we have the question of whether or not to allow specialization. D6 allows it, but the question is, can you keep it balanced?
This is part of the Equation that I'm not sure about yet. It would seem, initially, like a good prospect. Giving a subskill allows us to get greater beniefit in one area, at the expense of generality. But when I talked it over with some of my friends, they seemed to think that putting skill points in a subskill would be "Wasted" skill points. The reason for that is as follows-
If a skill gives 3:1 sub-skill points for each skill for instance, we have "used skill points non-optimumly.
Let's look at an example skill below. While a skill could, in theory, have any number of subskills, Let's give this one 4.
SkillNAME
____Sub1
____Sub2
____Sub3
____Sub4
If you spend 1 skillpoint to increase Sub1-3, you've wasted it. It could have gone just as easily to increase SkillNAME, and then Sub4 wouldn't be left out.
If you put all the ranks into Sub1, then again, You could have put that skillpoint into SkillName, and gotten an increase to Everything, eventually.
Their contention is that it would almost always be better to just increase SkillNAME, rather than specializing.
And that's fair. But how do we solve that problem?
The thought that I have right now is to say that ranks in Subskills start the rank count over again. What I mean by that is- Let's say you have 10 ranks in SkillNAME. Taking rank 11 would cost you 4 skillpoints. However, if you instead put those 4 ranks into subskills, you could either increase one skill 4 times, or increase 4 skills once.
You would "Come out even", by my estimation of their math.
So Subskills become not only worthwhile, but a Good proposition after 10 ranks. By the time you have 20 ranks in a skill, putting the ranks into a subskill instead is a Very viable choice, but not an overwhelmingly good one.
This is the part the of the system I'm the least sure of, but I think that in practice it would end up working well.
After doing this, we still have a crucial question. How much damage can we take before we die?
Now, in D&D, it's an easy question. You can take your Hitpoints in damage, and then you're dying.
I think we can be a little more spread out. We introduce a Stamina skill.
When a character takes damage, they have to roll stamina with a DC of the amount of damage they've taken since they were last healed.
Instead of counting down Hitpoints, we can count UP damage.
An example of how this would work is as follows-
Dancin the thug is heading down the street, looking for some action. He's in a bad part of town, and he knows it. There could be a bastard behind every garbage can, and with his luck, probably cops, just waiting for him to screw it all up.
What a way to start the day.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something, a flash of light.. And he's hit.
He takes a bullet, for 5 points of damge. He records that on his sheet under "Damage taken", and makes a DC 5 stamina check.
He easily passes it.
He tries to hide, to dodge, to get away, but it's not working. He takes another bullet to the side.. A well placed hit, that does a whole 8 points of damage.
He makes a DC 13 Stamina check, and passes, but it's a close one.
He shoots the guy who did this to him, and does 7 points of damage with his heavy revolver. The guy who's hit rolls a one, adds up his 5 ranks in stamina.. And it isn't enough. He dies with a single shot.
Out here is hit again, this time for 6 points of damage, bringing his total to 19. He rolls again, but just can't quite make the DC.. Slowly, he staggers for a few seconds, before slipping into unconsciousness.
It creates an interesting dynamic where a character might be able to live through 6 shots of a pistol.. Or might die after he bleeds too much from one.
That to me seems very realistic, and yet still fun.
The nice thing is, if you want a more cinematic game, with less chance of dying on one hit, that's easy to do.
Require multiple failed Stamina checks.
For instance, in our new example, Dancin could be given 3 wound boxes.
[ ] Light (-2 to all skills)
[ ] Medium (-6 to all skills)
[ ] Heavy (-8 to all skills)
Each time he fails a Stamina check, the player crosses off a box. Dancin takes his first bad hit, and he becomes lightly wounded. He knows that his damage DC is still high, so he's likely to fail more checks, so he better get out of there ASAP. He turns, dodging, and starting jump back into his car, and he's hit again, for only 1 hitpoints.
Unfortunately, since he's been hit so much already, his DC is 20. He doesn't make it successfully.
He crosses off the second damage box, and dives into the car, hastily escaping while Heavily wounded.
It makes the game more cinematic, if that's the feel you're going for.
That brings us to to the skills themselves. I've tried to keep them fairly similiar to classic D20 skills, and while that might be a knock against the system, it keeps my players from getting lost.
The other thing is that it's trivial to swap out Skills. You can easily add or change your own.
I've reduced the classic D&D abilities, from 6 to 5, by combining Strength and Con, into a stat called Body. The Reason for this is because there weren't enough skills to make both viable options in an entirely Skill-based game.
I looked into breaking apart Dexterity into Dex and Agility, so it was less of a powerful stat, but I think that by creating a single Body stat, they become fairly well balanced.
You can use Classical D&D progression (1-18) if you want to feel familiar, but I find it elegant to simply break it to be a bonus-like number.
A character could have a stat from 1-5, which is added to the approriate skill checks.
These numbers can be chosen at the beginning of the game, with a system similiar to D20 point buy.
30 points to choose from, costs are as below.
1 1
2 3
3 6
4 10
5 15
I'm not wed to any of these numbers, but I think the idea of an increasingly costly scale is importaint, for the same reason it is in Skills.
Athletics
____Jump
____Swim
____Climb
____Run
____Balance
____Sport (pick one)
____Tumble
Animal Handling
____Ride
____Train
____Calm
____Care
Craft/Repair (Pick One)
____Armor
____Ale
____Swords
____Sculpting
____Sewing
____....
Deception
____Disguise
____Innuendo
____Bluff
____Forgery
____Throw Voice/Ventriloquism
Finesse
____Escape Artist
____Pick Pockets
____Juggling
____Slight of Hand
Investigation
____Interrogate
____Forensics
____Research
____Puzzle/Riddle
____Decipher Script
____Cryptography
____Detect Lie
____Appraise
Knowledge (Pick One)
____Engineering
____Ettique
____Occult
____Law (pick region or race)
____Local (Pick One)
____....
Linguistics (Pick One)
____Orc
____Goblin
____Kobold
____Spanish
____Japanese
____....
Medicine
____Herbalism
____Surgery
____Field Medicine
____Veterinary Medicine
____Revive (Unconscious, CPR...)
Perception
____Listen
____Search
____Spot
____Track
____Sniff
Perform
____Sing
____Oratory
____Instrument (type)
____Dance
Persuasion
____Intimidate
____Haggle
____Seduce
____Inspire
____Diplomacy (Charm)
____Sense Motive
Stealth
____Hide
____Move Silently
____Camouflage
Survival
____Use Rope
____Firebuilding
____Shelter
____Foraging (Identify safe food/water?)
____Hunting
____Fishing
____Navigation / Direction Sense
____Weather Sense
Tinkering
____Engineering
____Create/Disable Trap
____Create/Open Lock
____Repair/Disable Device
____Quick Fix ("Jerryrigging")
Vocation (Pick One)
____Barber
____Sailor
____Merchant
Reflex
____Evade (Dodge Spells)
____Deflect (Dodge attacks)
____Initiative
Fortitude
____Concentration
____Endurance
____Stamina (Resist Damage)
Will Power
____Mental Defense
____Sanity (Make horror checks)
____Concentration
Unarmed Combat
____Brawling
____Indiscriminate Grappling
____Martial Art (choose)
Knives
____Dagger
____Dirk/Shank
____Saex/Bowie Knife
____Letter opener
Slashing Swords
____Oriental sword (Katana, Wakazashi, ninjato...)
____European sword (long, broad, gladius)
____Sarecen sword (scimitar, sabre, cutlass, khopesh)
Great Swords
____European great sword (claymore, bastard sword)
____Oriental great sword (nodaichi...)
Piercing Swords
____Rapier
____Epee/Foil
____Main-gauche
____Sai
____Fencing
Crushing Weapons
____Mace (morning star, flanged mace, sap)
____Staff (quarter, bo, short staff, three-part-staff)
____Hammer (smith's hammer, warhammer)
____Sticks (nightstick, escrima)
Hatchets & Axes
____Hand Axe (hatchet...)
____Single-Bladed Axe (woodsman's axe, executioners' axe)
____Double-Bladed Axe (war axe)
____Throwing Axe
Spears
____Spear (Pike)
____Spear, Throwing (Javelin)
____Forks (War Fork, Pitchfork, Salad Fork)
Whips & Chains
____Bullwhips (Horse whip)
____Multi-tailed whip (Cat of 9 Tails)
____Flail (chain whip, ball & chain, nunchaku)
Polearms
____Poleaxe (glaive, naginata, halberd...)
____Polehammer (lucerne hammer...)
____Dismounter (Mancatcher, lajatang)
____Lance
____Scythe/Sickle
Darts
____Dart
____Shuriken / Throwing Knife
____Chinese Star
____Needle
Bows
____Long bow
____Recurve bow
____Compound bow
Pistols
____Hand crossbow
____Rope gun
____Revolver (Magnum)
____Blaster Pistol
____Semi-Automatic (9MM)
____Full Automatic (Uzi)
____Tazer Gun
Rifles
____Heavy crossbow
____Repeating crossbow
____Blaster rifle
____Rifle
____Musket
____Automatic (M16, AK-47)
____Arquebus
Artillery
____Grenade Launcher/RPG
____Canister Gun (Tear gas, etc.)
____Rocket launcher (bazooka, Stinger, Nikita)
Explosives
____Plastique (C4, Semtex)
____Mines (Land mines, claymores)
____Gunpowder bomb
____Mining explosives (Dynamite)
Siege Weaponry
____Trebuchet
____Ballista
____Catapult
I don't have Magic to a point I'm Happy with it yet, but it works on the same sort of system as the rest of it. Skills. I'll include it later if you're interested.
I'm working on creating a system that I can use in my personal games, and if anyone else is interested in, I'd be happy to share
The design goals are as follows
* Be familiar to D20 players (my audiance)
* Allow for a Grim & Gritty style of combat
* Be openended and have no required classes- Allow everyone access to everything
* Allow for a Fast and Quick gameplay
I'm a fan of the D6 system, and I think that in many contexts it's a great way of doing a fast and loose game. But I think we can work with the design a little bit, to make things more D20 esque, and come away with something worthwhile.
Now, this first thing is the Core mechanic. I think we can safely adopt the Code D20 idea of-
Roll 1d20.
Add Stat modifier
Add Skill modifier
Hit Target DC
to allow for a very familiar feeling game. That's easy enough to do, and it provides us a great base to work with. We know what we're doing, we know the way it scales with DC, and people are familiar with it.
Great.
Next up, Skills.
What I want to do with this system is to make Everything a skill, Ala D6. By that, I mean that Attacking, Defending, and Saving throws are skills as well. This doesn't pose as many problems as I initially thought.
Now, the problem with "Everything is a skill" is that you need to worry about balance. Some skills quickly become two powerful.
For instance, a "Base Attack Bonus" skill, would never fly. It would Instantly be the highest skill for too many people.
But Seperate skills for each Weapon Group.. /That/'s do-able.
Now with Defense, we can keep that as a single skill, but we want to avoid having people uber-specialized.
D20 does that by forcing people to take a number of skills at once, aka, a level. Additionally, they have Skill caps.
I don't think that's a great soltution.. I'm more influenced by the way D6 deals with the problem. Progressivly increasing the costs, to discourage, but still allow, people to do so.
D6 does this by increasing the cost by 1 for each die.... The obvious parralel in D20 would be to increase by 1 per rank.. But that increases too quickly.
What we Can do though, is every 3. In some ways, that works out to average with the SW system anyway.. The average on a Die is 3.5.. This is an increase at about the same time.
So what that means, is that initial ranks are cheaper, later ranks are more expensive. People are encouraged to spread out
Ranks 1-3 cost 1
Ranks 4-6 cost 2
Ranks 7-9 cost 3
Ranks 10-12 cost 4
Ranks 13-15 cost 5
Ranks 16-18 cost 6
Ranks 19-21 cost 7
Perfect. Now, all we need are the actuall skills. Here, however, we have the question of whether or not to allow specialization. D6 allows it, but the question is, can you keep it balanced?
This is part of the Equation that I'm not sure about yet. It would seem, initially, like a good prospect. Giving a subskill allows us to get greater beniefit in one area, at the expense of generality. But when I talked it over with some of my friends, they seemed to think that putting skill points in a subskill would be "Wasted" skill points. The reason for that is as follows-
If a skill gives 3:1 sub-skill points for each skill for instance, we have "used skill points non-optimumly.
Let's look at an example skill below. While a skill could, in theory, have any number of subskills, Let's give this one 4.
SkillNAME
____Sub1
____Sub2
____Sub3
____Sub4
If you spend 1 skillpoint to increase Sub1-3, you've wasted it. It could have gone just as easily to increase SkillNAME, and then Sub4 wouldn't be left out.
If you put all the ranks into Sub1, then again, You could have put that skillpoint into SkillName, and gotten an increase to Everything, eventually.
Their contention is that it would almost always be better to just increase SkillNAME, rather than specializing.
And that's fair. But how do we solve that problem?
The thought that I have right now is to say that ranks in Subskills start the rank count over again. What I mean by that is- Let's say you have 10 ranks in SkillNAME. Taking rank 11 would cost you 4 skillpoints. However, if you instead put those 4 ranks into subskills, you could either increase one skill 4 times, or increase 4 skills once.
You would "Come out even", by my estimation of their math.
So Subskills become not only worthwhile, but a Good proposition after 10 ranks. By the time you have 20 ranks in a skill, putting the ranks into a subskill instead is a Very viable choice, but not an overwhelmingly good one.
This is the part the of the system I'm the least sure of, but I think that in practice it would end up working well.
After doing this, we still have a crucial question. How much damage can we take before we die?
Now, in D&D, it's an easy question. You can take your Hitpoints in damage, and then you're dying.
I think we can be a little more spread out. We introduce a Stamina skill.
When a character takes damage, they have to roll stamina with a DC of the amount of damage they've taken since they were last healed.
Instead of counting down Hitpoints, we can count UP damage.
An example of how this would work is as follows-
Dancin the thug is heading down the street, looking for some action. He's in a bad part of town, and he knows it. There could be a bastard behind every garbage can, and with his luck, probably cops, just waiting for him to screw it all up.
What a way to start the day.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something, a flash of light.. And he's hit.
He takes a bullet, for 5 points of damge. He records that on his sheet under "Damage taken", and makes a DC 5 stamina check.
He easily passes it.
He tries to hide, to dodge, to get away, but it's not working. He takes another bullet to the side.. A well placed hit, that does a whole 8 points of damage.
He makes a DC 13 Stamina check, and passes, but it's a close one.
He shoots the guy who did this to him, and does 7 points of damage with his heavy revolver. The guy who's hit rolls a one, adds up his 5 ranks in stamina.. And it isn't enough. He dies with a single shot.
Out here is hit again, this time for 6 points of damage, bringing his total to 19. He rolls again, but just can't quite make the DC.. Slowly, he staggers for a few seconds, before slipping into unconsciousness.
It creates an interesting dynamic where a character might be able to live through 6 shots of a pistol.. Or might die after he bleeds too much from one.
That to me seems very realistic, and yet still fun.
The nice thing is, if you want a more cinematic game, with less chance of dying on one hit, that's easy to do.
Require multiple failed Stamina checks.
For instance, in our new example, Dancin could be given 3 wound boxes.
[ ] Light (-2 to all skills)
[ ] Medium (-6 to all skills)
[ ] Heavy (-8 to all skills)
Each time he fails a Stamina check, the player crosses off a box. Dancin takes his first bad hit, and he becomes lightly wounded. He knows that his damage DC is still high, so he's likely to fail more checks, so he better get out of there ASAP. He turns, dodging, and starting jump back into his car, and he's hit again, for only 1 hitpoints.
Unfortunately, since he's been hit so much already, his DC is 20. He doesn't make it successfully.
He crosses off the second damage box, and dives into the car, hastily escaping while Heavily wounded.
It makes the game more cinematic, if that's the feel you're going for.
That brings us to to the skills themselves. I've tried to keep them fairly similiar to classic D20 skills, and while that might be a knock against the system, it keeps my players from getting lost.
The other thing is that it's trivial to swap out Skills. You can easily add or change your own.
I've reduced the classic D&D abilities, from 6 to 5, by combining Strength and Con, into a stat called Body. The Reason for this is because there weren't enough skills to make both viable options in an entirely Skill-based game.
I looked into breaking apart Dexterity into Dex and Agility, so it was less of a powerful stat, but I think that by creating a single Body stat, they become fairly well balanced.
You can use Classical D&D progression (1-18) if you want to feel familiar, but I find it elegant to simply break it to be a bonus-like number.
A character could have a stat from 1-5, which is added to the approriate skill checks.
These numbers can be chosen at the beginning of the game, with a system similiar to D20 point buy.
30 points to choose from, costs are as below.
1 1
2 3
3 6
4 10
5 15
I'm not wed to any of these numbers, but I think the idea of an increasingly costly scale is importaint, for the same reason it is in Skills.
Athletics
____Jump
____Swim
____Climb
____Run
____Balance
____Sport (pick one)
____Tumble
Animal Handling
____Ride
____Train
____Calm
____Care
Craft/Repair (Pick One)
____Armor
____Ale
____Swords
____Sculpting
____Sewing
____....
Deception
____Disguise
____Innuendo
____Bluff
____Forgery
____Throw Voice/Ventriloquism
Finesse
____Escape Artist
____Pick Pockets
____Juggling
____Slight of Hand
Investigation
____Interrogate
____Forensics
____Research
____Puzzle/Riddle
____Decipher Script
____Cryptography
____Detect Lie
____Appraise
Knowledge (Pick One)
____Engineering
____Ettique
____Occult
____Law (pick region or race)
____Local (Pick One)
____....
Linguistics (Pick One)
____Orc
____Goblin
____Kobold
____Spanish
____Japanese
____....
Medicine
____Herbalism
____Surgery
____Field Medicine
____Veterinary Medicine
____Revive (Unconscious, CPR...)
Perception
____Listen
____Search
____Spot
____Track
____Sniff
Perform
____Sing
____Oratory
____Instrument (type)
____Dance
Persuasion
____Intimidate
____Haggle
____Seduce
____Inspire
____Diplomacy (Charm)
____Sense Motive
Stealth
____Hide
____Move Silently
____Camouflage
Survival
____Use Rope
____Firebuilding
____Shelter
____Foraging (Identify safe food/water?)
____Hunting
____Fishing
____Navigation / Direction Sense
____Weather Sense
Tinkering
____Engineering
____Create/Disable Trap
____Create/Open Lock
____Repair/Disable Device
____Quick Fix ("Jerryrigging")
Vocation (Pick One)
____Barber
____Sailor
____Merchant
Reflex
____Evade (Dodge Spells)
____Deflect (Dodge attacks)
____Initiative
Fortitude
____Concentration
____Endurance
____Stamina (Resist Damage)
Will Power
____Mental Defense
____Sanity (Make horror checks)
____Concentration
Unarmed Combat
____Brawling
____Indiscriminate Grappling
____Martial Art (choose)
Knives
____Dagger
____Dirk/Shank
____Saex/Bowie Knife
____Letter opener
Slashing Swords
____Oriental sword (Katana, Wakazashi, ninjato...)
____European sword (long, broad, gladius)
____Sarecen sword (scimitar, sabre, cutlass, khopesh)
Great Swords
____European great sword (claymore, bastard sword)
____Oriental great sword (nodaichi...)
Piercing Swords
____Rapier
____Epee/Foil
____Main-gauche
____Sai
____Fencing
Crushing Weapons
____Mace (morning star, flanged mace, sap)
____Staff (quarter, bo, short staff, three-part-staff)
____Hammer (smith's hammer, warhammer)
____Sticks (nightstick, escrima)
Hatchets & Axes
____Hand Axe (hatchet...)
____Single-Bladed Axe (woodsman's axe, executioners' axe)
____Double-Bladed Axe (war axe)
____Throwing Axe
Spears
____Spear (Pike)
____Spear, Throwing (Javelin)
____Forks (War Fork, Pitchfork, Salad Fork)
Whips & Chains
____Bullwhips (Horse whip)
____Multi-tailed whip (Cat of 9 Tails)
____Flail (chain whip, ball & chain, nunchaku)
Polearms
____Poleaxe (glaive, naginata, halberd...)
____Polehammer (lucerne hammer...)
____Dismounter (Mancatcher, lajatang)
____Lance
____Scythe/Sickle
Darts
____Dart
____Shuriken / Throwing Knife
____Chinese Star
____Needle
Bows
____Long bow
____Recurve bow
____Compound bow
Pistols
____Hand crossbow
____Rope gun
____Revolver (Magnum)
____Blaster Pistol
____Semi-Automatic (9MM)
____Full Automatic (Uzi)
____Tazer Gun
Rifles
____Heavy crossbow
____Repeating crossbow
____Blaster rifle
____Rifle
____Musket
____Automatic (M16, AK-47)
____Arquebus
Artillery
____Grenade Launcher/RPG
____Canister Gun (Tear gas, etc.)
____Rocket launcher (bazooka, Stinger, Nikita)
Explosives
____Plastique (C4, Semtex)
____Mines (Land mines, claymores)
____Gunpowder bomb
____Mining explosives (Dynamite)
Siege Weaponry
____Trebuchet
____Ballista
____Catapult
