Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="[OMENRPG]Ben" data-source="post: 5638949" data-attributes="member: 6677983">Forgive me [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] for the slow response, I didn't see you had asked me a direct question. I will do my best to explain how the tactics vs complexity scale works in OMEN. At the baseline, a character picks a species which has several advantages and disadvantages, some of which apply a tactical advantage (for instance, one race is especially skilled at long-range combat, and therefore suffer less for shooting at longer ranges.)After that, the baseline attributes within OMEN are selected with a point-buy system. There are only four attributes, and a low amount of points to buy into them. The amount bought is the direct modifier onto a roll. This allows a character to become more or less optimized in combat, but because of the way attributes work in OMEN, every skill is modified by TWO separate modifiers, which actually encourages spreading out more than having a single super high attribute.This immediately does two things: removes some of the complexity in attribute buying from other systems (many point-buy systems as well as the six attributes of d20) and still allows for tactical decisions of which attributes to get to certain numbers to allow for synergy between them. You can simply spread out the points as you want your character to have, or be a highly focused individual. After the attributes have been bought, the selection of various Skills are selected. There are eight Skills, and similarly to attributes, are bought in with a small amount of points. The points apply a direct modifier on to activities that fall into that skill.Once a skill has been purchased, it unlocks three Specialties. Specialties are more specific actions within a Skill, for example, for the Influence skill, there is Charm, Intimidate, and Convince. Each one can be invested into separately, or simply left alone, even if the Skill has been purchased.This creates a waterfall of increasing specialization. If a character wants to buy a very small amount of skills and is highly focused, he is literally opting in to different options or specializations in-game. This does not preclude a character who doesn't purchase into the same skills, but the character's capability in that action is more than likely less than that of the focused character.The combination of all of the Attributes, Skills, and Specialties with further options (including Assets and Powers) can add a good dose of tactical complexity. But, a character who wishes to move tactically (can roll for that) followed by assessing his opponent's weak points (can roll for that) followed by "focusing" on his attack (not a roll, but considered an action) and then making an attack with a Power (which there are only a handful of different powers) the character has made a great deal of tactical decisions.Similarly, a different character can simply "Aid" his ally, and then "Attack" his enemy. Done in about 5 seconds. This second character is still very useful, and could potentially even have more effect on the combat than the first one, even though his tactical decisions were minimal. Similarly in any form of what OMEN calls an "Obstacle," which would be any encounter that the characters must make decisions/actions/rolls to overcome, the player's cleverness and choices and abilities are used in synergy with the character's in order to accomplish a task. For example, the GM will set the difficulty of accomplishing an action, and if the player describes certain logical elements of completing the action, the difficulty gets progressively lower. This encourages logical decision making; but if the player doesn't want to think, and has a highly skilled and focused character, he can just say "I climb the wall" or "I disarm the explosives" and roll. If he rolls high enough, he succeeds. The amount of involvement therefore is elegant and easy to manipulate from the GM's standpoint due to the relatively flat math in OMEN. So, in summary: characters can be built simply or with optimization; combat has enough tactical choices for the tactical gamer while remaining simple enough for the indifferent gamer; and all other forms of obstacles can be resolved with as much in-character RP or gamist rolling as the group/GM/player desires. I hope this answered your question thoroughly enough. As a related note, the official OMEN RPG preview will be released very soon, more than likely in the next upcoming weeks.</blockquote>

Verification