Talking about magic rules.

[phindar]

Well, we're at something of an impasse as I've only played 2nd and 3rd ed SR. I've only glanced at SR4 and have no idea what changes they've made to the magic system (or anything else). I came to SR in the early 90's, after years playing AD&D, and the magic system was a revelation. SR was so much more cinematic than D&D. Even now, when my group recounts past exploits in D&D combats, its really about crits and fumbles, or an unusual spell. When we talk about great SR games, we describe them like movie scenes.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

Man, it's that 'movie scene' feeling I'm trying for. The rest of the system has it.

OK, let's have a close study...

For starters, we'll miss physical adepts out of this. My system's super martial arts / gun-fu rules are fine as they stand. So we're left with shamans and hermetics.

The two of those are basically the same thing. One is wearing a bow tie, the other is buddy-buddy with a spirit.

Now. Effects are...
COMBAT SPELLS
Acid Stream
Punch
Death Touch
Flamethrower
Lightning Bolt
Shatter
Knockout

DETECTION SPELLS
Analyze Device
Analyse Truth
Clairaudience
Clairvouyance
Combat Sense
Detect (insert name of thingy)
Mindlink
Mind Probe

HEALTH SPELLS
Antidote
Cure Disease
Decrease Attribute
Detox
Heal
Hibernate
Increase Attribute/Reflexes
Oxygenate
Prophylaxis
Resist Pain
Stabilise

ILLUSION SPELLS
Confusion/Mass Conf/Chaos/Chaotic World
Entertainment
Invisibility
Mask
Phantasm
Hush
Stealth

MANIPULATION SPELLS
Armour
Control Actions/Emotions/Thoughts
Fling
Ice Sheet
Ignite
Influence
Levitate
Light
Magic Fingers
Mana Barrier
Petrify
Phys. Barrier
Poltergeist
Shadow
Shapechange
Turn to Goo (WTF?!?!)

They're run like, 'roll to hit, roll damage, roll to see if the strain knocks you out'.

All well and good, but where's the really interesting ? Stuff like 'teleport to Immaterial plane' or 'transform Gelitanous Cube to Jell-O' or 'Screaming Hellfire'? And hold on, none of these things can blow a car into a cloud of shrapnel.

 

[GlassJaw]

No offense, but the more you type, the less credible you sound.

My system's super martial arts / gun-fu rules

With firearms and melee combat, I've got it dead on.

The only version of Shadowrun I've read is 4th.

That said, the problem is the magic rules don't do anything special....For a non-conventional (as in, not D&D-style memorise/cast/it vanishes from your noggin/re-memorize/repeat) system, it's extremely conventional.

none of these things can blow a car into a cloud of shrapnel.

So put up or shut up. Post your rules and let's get a good look before you start tearing apart what is arguably the best magic and gunplay ruleset - Shadowrun, which, from what I've seen, you haven't played and don't really understand.

 

[Azgulor]

Myself, my brother and our gaming group have been, over the last twelve or so years, gradually developing a rule system.

Currently, our combat rules are 90% fixed, but have one serious hole; magic. The system for ranged combat runs like a dream, and the melee combat is getting towards a good solid footing, as is car-chase and Netrunner-type operations. But, aside from a few false starts, magic is a yawning hole in the rules.

We cannot stand old-school D&D style 'spell list' magic, especially where you get to cast spell A once a day, and once you cast it, it miraculously vanishes from your memory, and you gotta read it out your spellbook again, and blah blah blah. Likewise, Shadowrun-style magic is not versatile enough, and Mage: the Acension style is the one we've never been able to work out how to actually use in play.

What we need is something fast-playing and versatile, but with a clear-cut 'you can do thing A, but not thing B'. Our rule system is designed to get in the way of actual roleplaying as little as possible, and any rule mechanic that collapses when everyone involved has had a few beers gets ditched or streamlined; we call this the Fosters Test.

Suggestions, anyone?

True Sorcery
Elements of Magic
Conan's sorcery system

Azgulor

 

[Umbran]

Stuff like 'teleport to Immaterial plane'

Well, that's because Shadowrun has an immaterial plane that's reached by means other than spells. Almost every spellcaster has access, but it isnt' a place you can teleport physical objects.

or 'transform Gelitanous Cube to Jell-O' or 'Screaming Hellfire'? And hold on, none of these things can blow a car into a cloud of shrapnel.

SR magic isn't big on transformation of physical objects, true, but as for the other - the damaging manipulations like Fireball and Lightning bolt are in the 3e SR rules, and they'll do what you're looking for pretty darned well.

There's a big problem, though, with really cinematic magic - in the movies, you've got writers and directors controlling the actions and drama. In a game,though, that's with the players. Typically, spellcasters with really hefty power are problematic. Either they can do their big stuff too often, and nobody else is effective by comparison, or they can't do it often enough, so that they themselves are ineffective most of the time.

The common solution, of course, is to tone down the magic slightly, so the mage can do more stuff more often, without worrying about him overshadowing everyone else.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

No offense, but the more you type, the less credible you sound.

None taken. Been working on this sucker since '95, and for every rule that's made it we've ditched ten.

Stat system is:

Stat Lines 1 – Creatures.
There are two kinds of creature stat line.
The first is the character stat line, which looks something like this:
ACT TOU AGI STR BRA PUNCH DODGE KT KI LUCK
2 5 3 4 4 1d6+2 1 9 9 1
These stats are:
ACT –Actions; how quickly they can do stuff.
TOU – Toughness; how easy they are to hurt.
AGI – Agility; how good at scrambling, ducking, jumping and such they are.
STR – Strength; how much they can pick up or lob.
BRA – Brains; how good they are at using their grey-matter.
PUNCH – How much damage they cause when they thump someone.
DODGE – How good they are at avoiding being hit.
KT – Kilothaums; how much magic there is in their aura.
KI – How much ki there is in their aura.
LUCK – How lucky they are.
The example stat line is that you’d find on a basic human.
Actions 2 means they can do two things in each 1-second combat turn.
Tougness 5 means they can be hit for 5 damage before it’ll start doing anything.
Agility 3 means they’re clumsy bipedal things that lumber around.
Strength 4 means they can cart around 40 kilos of stuff or lob 20 kilos.
Brains 4 means they’re on the thick end of average intelligence.
Punch 1d6+2 means they do 1 six-sided dice plus 2 damage when they hit something.
Dodge 1 means that they are not very good at dodging.
Kilothaums 9 means they have enough magical energy in their auras to materialise nine large rats.
Ki 9 means they might be able to use a very basic ki manoeuvre with the right training.
And Luck 1 means they can get away with one outrageous thing per gaming session.

The second is the mob stat line, which looks something like this:
ACT TOU AGI STR BRA AIM SK DRI TEC PUNCH DODGE DAMAGE KT
2 5 3 4 4 5 5 5 3 1d6+2 1 35 9
As you can see, several stats are shared between the two.
Why does a mob have so many more stats? Because mobs are a bunch of baddies who are probably going to get blown up, and it isn’t worth coming up with a list of skills for something that’ll go splat within a few minutes of popping up.
The stats are:
ACT –Actions; how quickly they can do stuff.
TOU – Toughness; how easy they are to hurt.
AGI – Agility; how good at scrambling, ducking, jumping and such they are.
STR – Strength; how much they can pick up or lob.
BRA – Brains; how good they are at using their grey-matter.
AIM – Aim; how good a shot they are with ranged weapons
SK – ****kicking; how good they are at beating things up.
DRI – Drive; how good they are at driving vehicles.
TEC – Tech; how good they are at fixing stuff.
PUNCH – How much damage they cause when they thump someone.
DODGE – How good they are at avoiding being hit.
DAMAGE – How much they can get shot up before dying.
KT – Kilothaums; how much magic there is in their aura.
The example stat line is that you’d find on your average human street scum.
Actions, toughness, agility, strength, brains, punch, dodge and kilothaums do much the same things as with the character stats; they are the exact same stats, just laid out in a slightly different place.
Aim 5 means they can successfully hit a stationary target with a ranged weapon on a d10 roll of 6 or more.
****kicking 5 mean they can successfully punch someone who isn’t doing much about it on a d10 roll of 6 or more.
Drive 5 means they might be able to get their driving license.
Tech 3 means that they might be able to change a light bulb.
And Damage 35 means that after 35 damage has got past their toughness they abruptly don’t live any more.
All the extra mob-specific stats are things characters use something else for, usually skills. For example, who cares if Greaser the bike thug is a better shot with a sub-machine gun than a rifle when he’s only got a handgun and he only exists to get blown to small blobs by the heroes?

The next kind of stat line is that found attached to a gun.
It looks like this:
WEAPON DAM TYPE CLIP RATE MAX BONUS AMMO
AK47 1D10+4 ar 32 semi/cyclic 20 160m - 7.62Sov
The stats are:
WEAPON – What it is.
DAM – Damage; how much damage it does when one of its bullets hits something.
TYPE – What weapon proficiency characters use to fire it.
CLIP – How many bullets you can have in it at one go.
RATE – How fast it can fire.
MAX – The maximum range it can be used to shoot things at, in metres.
BONUS – The To Hit bonus (if any) you get from using it.
AMMO – The kind of bullets that fit in it.
Weapon AK47 means it’s a Kalashnikov AK47.
Damage 1d10+4 means a normal bullet from it will do 1d10 plus 4 damage.
Type ar means you use the autorifle skill to fire it.
Clip 32 means its magazine holds 32 bullets.
Rate semi/cyclic 20 means that it can fire 20 bullets in a turn, either one at a time or just holding the trigger down and letting it bang away.
Max 160m means you can shoot things from 160 metres away.
Bonus - means that you don’t get a to hit bonus with this thing.
And Ammo 7.62Sov means it uses 7.62mm Soviet ammunition.

There’s another sort of weapon stat line to watch out for; the sort attached to a melee weapon. It looks like this:
WEAPON DAM TYPE NOTES
Longsword Punch+4 sword -
These stats are:
WEAPON – What it is.
DAM – Damage; how much damage it does when you hit something with it.
TYPE – What weapon proficiency characters use to hit things with it.
NOTES – Anything oddball about it.
Weapon Longsword means its (surprise surprise) a longsword.
Damage Punch +4 means you use your punch damage and add 4.
Type sword means you use the sword skill to hit things with it.
And the lack of any notes means it isn’t two-handed or something flaky like nunchuks.

The system is D10-based. The following applies to pretty much any attack you can think of;
1: Roll to hit. This is based on the appropriate skill. Higher the better. Roll 1d10. You've got To Hit penalties in anything but ideal situations. Skill of 1 = base of 10 to hit, skill of 2 = base of 9 to hit, etcetera.
2: Assuming you've hit, roll a location. These are:
1D10 LOCATION
10 Head (Any damaging hit will knock you flat. Full damage = unconscious. Each point over full = 1 brain damage, IE permanent -1 Brains, minimum brains 1. 2x damage = head blown off.)
8-9 Chest (4x damage here will make you very, very dead)
6-7 Stomach (Half damage will seriously mess your character up here)
5 Groin (Any damaging hit here will take you an action per Damage point to
recover from. 4x damage = sterilized.)
4 Left arm ( Any damage = -2 to hit with this arm. Full damage or above = no longer able to use this limb, 4x limb damage = amputation and you need cyberware. This applies to any limb.)
3 Right arm
2 Left leg
1 Right leg
Note that brain damage is an optional rule, and that regen will heal brain damage.
3: Apply damage. Armour reduces damage by it's Armour Rating. Your character's Toughness reduces damage by the Toughness stat.

That's the very basics. Most combat works like that - for example, netrunner-type action uses a different set of skills and damage locations. Non-combat situations we roleplay. There are assorted specialities for each skill for example:

Gunfighter: Handgun speciality.
You may use a gun in each hand without losing accuracy, just as if you were ambidextrous. However, unlike with Ambidextrous, you may fire them at different targets in the same action.

The character generation system also has an advantage/disadvantage system. Advantages cost you points, disadvantages give you points and may only be taken at generation. We usually limit players to 10 disadvantage points.

My rules folder is 18.9 meg in .doc format, OK?

EDIT to remove some less-than-kosher language that crept in due to copy-paste from a file on my computer.

 

[GlassJaw]

My rules folder is 18.9 meg in .doc format, OK?

Well I don't know, you tell me.

The only thing of note I see from that is this:

1: Roll to hit. This is based on the appropriate skill. Higher the better. Roll 1d10. You've got To Hit penalties in anything but ideal situations. Skill of 1 = base of 10 to hit, skill of 2 =
base of 9 to hit, etcetera.

From this I would gather that to resolve any situation: combat, magic, nunchuk skills, computer hacking skills, etc, your success/fail rate is going to be a multiple of 10%. If you have a rating of 4, you have a 40% change to succeed, is that basically it?

That's not a very sensitive scale at all. Heck, even d20's scale is in multiples of 5%.

Color me disinterested.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Doghead Thirteen,

"----kicking 5" might be better more or less like that (something to fill in for the word you've used there). I'm referring to that line in 'Mob Stats'.

I believe that otherwise, you will be going against the forum rules here. Not my direct concern, but I thought I'd just let you know. And if I'm mistaken, then no worries anyway.

 

[Larcen]

Wow, lots of pent up aggression tied into those rules. Plus I am not sure 18.9 megs of rules is a good thing. But differnt strokes for different folks. Have at it and go nuts...

BTW, have you seen the 4x5 magic system?

http://wiki.greywulf.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Macropedia/FourByFiveMagic

Even if you want something more complex maybe they can be used as a springboard.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

From this I would gather that to resolve any situation: combat, magic, nunchuk skills, computer hacking skills, etc, your success/fail rate is going to be a multiple of 10%. If you have a rating of 4, you have a 40% change to succeed, is that basically it?

That's not a very sensitive scale at all.

That's the whole idea.

We've got a lot of stacking modifiers; the direct skill - percentage is usually adjusted in one direction or the other. The reasoning behind usage of a single d10 to resolve most rolls is A) it keeps the number of dice down and B) it keeps at-a-glance percentages. We're contemplating moving over to d100, but we're not sure if that level of granularity is exactly necessary.

It's a base 10 rule system as a way to keep everything fast and simple. After a short time you start at-a-glancing your successes and fails.

The SK thing started off as a joke some years ago. I copy-pasted from my core rules file forgetting that a certain sweary word was in there, and am about to go edit the post.

Pent-up aggression? Quite possibly. I get pretty frustrated from time to time; my life's not exactly a cakewalk, and roleplaying is one of my stress-releif methods.

A good chunk of the 18.9 is background material. We're building a setting and system at the same time.

Thanks, Larcen. Another system to check out. I'll probably end up taking concepts from left and right, jury-rigging them together, then ditching half of it and changing bits until it all works. That's how us lot develop the game; the combat rules started life back in .95 as bits of Warhammer with scraps of Rifts welded on. They've come a long way since then.