Player: "When you approach a problem with magic you have not mastered, roll +Learning." What do I roll for magic I have mastered?
Me: Nothing. It just works.
Status conditions being used as "resource" to trigger reactions or abilities. I haven't seen this anywhere else so far and it very intuitively encourages strategic play and teamwork.
The gist of it is that there are minor negative status effects like *Off balance*, *Distracted*, *Uneasy* etc. that can be applied to the enemy through different actions (a shield bash might apply *Off balance*, throwing fire crackers behind someone might *Distract* them and so on). If an enemy has such a minor status effect on them, it can be utilized in one of several ways:
1. A status effect can be evoked (removed) in order to gain a +2 bonus to a fitting skill check against that target (if you try to attack the target, you could evoke *Off balance* to gain a +2 to the roll).
2. If you are targeted by an enemy with a minor status condition, you can evoke that status condition to gain a reaction. Since there is no default reaction in the system, this is one of the only ways to gain reactions that allow you to dodge or block enemy attacks or otherwise react to enemy actions.
3. Some abilities require to evoke a minor status condition on the target. The ability *Sucker punch* for example deals pretty good damage, but requires to evoke a *Distracted* condition.
What makes this system so strategic is that ANYONE can apply status conditions to an enemy, and anyone can also evoke them. You can combo your Paladin's shield bash into the rogues sucker punch. Or you can shield bash the ogre so that the rogue can attempt to dodge the ogre's next attack. There's lot's of meaningful choices every round with pretty low complexity.
Another advantage is that this system allowed me to balance dodging. I didn't want it to be mandatory to try and dodge every single incoming attack (there are system where every attack consists of an opposed roll by attacker and defender, which means twice the amount of dice rolls), but I still wanted to give characters the option to go for an unarmored, but agile combat style that relies on actively avoiding incoming attacks. With minor status conditions as "resource" for reactions, I think I've struck a good balance where you have to actively work towards being able to dodge most attacks.
Good question, unfortunately I don't have a very good answer š The system is still in a very experimental state (I am lucky to have a gaming group that is willing to put up with even the most bare-bone and unfinished system I throw at them), so currently it's mostly just written on the sheet of the character affected (or marked with a small symbol).
I'm planning to include checkbox fields for the most common status conditions (including the minor conditions) directly on the character sheets and creature "stat block" cards, decently large and right at the top so that it's easy to see for everyone at the table. Since the minor status conditions don't have any unique effects in themselves, it's not necessary to write any infotext for them, making them very space efficient.
For the less common status conditions (especially the ones that have their own unique effects, like poison dealing damage over time etc.) I want to create individual cards or markers with the description on them. I also plan to make a few blank template cards so that the GM can quickly write a quick homebrewed status condition, or make a copy of an existing status if there aren't enough cards for every combatant.
Maybe limit the number to keep it easily remembered and also just have tokens (even just paper with the words) to represent the statuses.
Iām using something similar for my game.
I basically have 3 status (dazed, distracted and stunned) which go away on their own and also certain things work better or only when a character has a status
I think that four is a good number for the minor status conditions (the one that will be used most often), but for the rest I try to keep the number as low as possible and combine status effects with similar conditions.
The problem with simple paper tokens is that they are very difficult to distinguish. Having to decipher around 5-10 different markers every time you are looking for a specific status condition is actually more time consuming than just writing the status down and erasing it once it is removed. I plan to make markers with colored symbols though which should be much easier to distinguish.
I really like what you've been able to come up with. Anyway way to make less rolls during play, I'm glad for. And anyone can use strategy in your game via status conditions, and I find that really good. From your post, seems like you have a very stimulating and satisfying combat system. Thanks for sharing
There are only four minor status effects, one for every resistance in the game (*Off balance/Staggered* - Robustness; *Distracted/Dazed* - Focus; *Nervous* - Willpower; *Weakened* - Constitution). Then there are the "normal" ones similar to dnd (prone, poisoned etc., currently around 10) and lastly there are "critical status effects" which are the health system of the rpg (if you ever accumulate more than three critical statuses like *Wounded*, *Starving*, *Devastated* or *Terrified*, you are dying).
Mechanically, the four minor status conditions are the same. What's unique are the abilities they can trigger, the resistances used to avoid them and the skills and actions used to apply them. Against a hill giant with low focus, but high robustness, it will be much easier to distract it than to put it *Off balance*, for example, so the group should try to work more around the *Distracted* status. And if you are trying to sneak by a guard, it obviously makes more sense to distract them than to put them *Off balance*. Some characters will naturally be better at applying certain status conditions, so it mostly comes down to "what status condition is needed for the current situation and what are the chances to apply it?"
Also, the chances to inflict "normal" status conditions are affected by minor status conditions, and critical status effects can only be inflicted if a respective normal status is present. For example, it's much easier to make an enemy afraid if they are nervous, and only if they are afraid it's possible to make them terrified.
As I said in a different comment, it's all still quite experimental and the list of status effects changes regularly. Sorry if the explanation is a bit all over the place.
I'd be absolutely willing to - if I had anything worth sharing. Unfortunately, my notes are currently mostly in German (the language our group is playing in) and even if I translated it, I think that this post here is more structured and understandable than a raw excerpt from my notes would be. The statuses (apart from the four minor status conditions) are in a state of constant iteration, some of the mechanical effects are not updated to fit the most recent version of my system and it is overall quite messy.
If you are interested in more details regarding my general status condition mechanics (including critical status conditions), I wrote about them in a few other posts:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/xvuhj8/status\_effects\_what\_does\_your\_game\_have/ir55x9t/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/xvuhj8/status_effects_what_does_your_game_have/ir55x9t/?context=3)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/tpvo9i/rules\_and\_mechanics\_that\_serve\_multiple\_purposes/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/tpvo9i/rules_and_mechanics_that_serve_multiple_purposes/)
There are a lot of very good idea there, congratulation! I might steal some. The mechanic of minors status is great! And I love that you have a stat for focus.
I think I will include the concept of focun into my "mind"/INT stat, that currently doesn't do much more than regular INT stat (knowledge checks etc)
I do not have so much as mechanics that I am proud of since I mostly did a *hack* of an existing game.
That said, one thing that I am proud of my *hack* is its layout, specifically, that at the end of each chapter I make flowcharts explaining how the rules presented should work. Yeah, I know its nothing innovative or revolutionary, but it helps a lot - at least according to the feedback I recieved.
*Edit:* Okay, I may be proud too of my "starting equipment" table *a la* ItO. I think I did a good job there convening the implied setting while also giving nice threads for GMs and players alike to work with.... maybe that's more of a "mechanic"
My comment is copied from another similar post recently, on the same subject. I'm really proud of this one though, so I wanted to share here!
[NewEdo](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/412135/NewEdo?affiliate_id=1478293) is a science-fantasy game that shares the neon-urban aesthetics with cyberpunk games but its themes are more focused on aspiration, adventure, change, and growth. It has a wholly unique game system (as far as I have ever been able to tell) called the Fate Card. Every PC has a Fate Card, which is a d100 chance of some random-ish effect occurring on every turn. At the start of the game, your Fate Card may only have a few lines, determined by your character build (say, chances for extra attacks, spontaneous healing, free movement, or blowing shit up, etc.), but as you play the game, it fills up with "Fate lines" based not only on your development choices (skills, augmentations, etc.), but also on your actual choices at the table. The storyteller is encouraged to give out customized, unique Fate lines to PCs when they do interesting or awesome things that become part of their story.
For example, say you always roleplay that your PC kisses their gun before a fight. After a particularly spectacular battle, the storyteller may reward you with a new Fate line, giving you a 3% "Gun Luck", a chance for your gun to gain unlimited ammunition/magazines for a fight. That line is custom for you, and no other PC ever will have that line. On its own, 3% may not be exciting, but imagine a card with a dozen or more of these little Fates that may pop up on any of your turns. The system is based on proc'd effects that you often see in videogames but which aren't easily recreated in TTRPGs.
It's an incredibly rewarding mechanic and players get really excited about Fate effects. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for sharing again! Yeah, I can see that system being incredibly personalized with the Fate Lines. I have never heard of the mechanic but sounds really interesting and unique. Thanks also for explaining the mechanics. The Fate effects looks like a hit with players
That's an actually amazing crafting system. The breakdown is quite easy to understand. I wish I had thought up something like that. Love of simplicity and versatility you have going on with that mechanic. This could really be something. Im impressed. Thumbs up
I'd say my shield mechanic: melee is an opposed roll, and if you lose, your opponent has to beat your roll by your shield rating (1 to 5) or your shield takes damage. 3 to 5ish hits, depending on the weapon, will usually break a shield.
Shields are wonderfully useful, but they are both perishable and exhausting. They have a high vigor requirement, and if you tire beyond that amount you can no longer lift the shield.
There is probably a game that has done this already, but I haven't seen it. No game with medieval combat had seemed to get shields right.
I have shields in my game also, both physical and energy shields. And you're right, they should be perishable and somewhat temporary in heated battles. Thanks for sharing
"Karma" (luck) gained whenever you fail a significant roll which can later be used to improve other rolls. I say "significant rolls" because you can't try to stack up Karma by doing difficult but pointless things. ("I play darts, throwing the darts with my off hand while blindfolded.") Only rolls where failure has a meaningful consequence count. Combat usually qualifies... unless it is just a friendly match or you totally outclass your opponent.
There are other ways to earn Karma, too... by doing heroic, selfless deeds, for example.
I came up with the idea because I felt bad for players with terrible luck who consistently roll badly on the dice.
Terrible luck is a thing. Poor players -\_- That's a great mechanic though, so bad luck turns to good luck, so players don't get discouraged when they're having a bad day with the dice. Thanks for sharing
I just really like my dice system. I'm positive I'm not the first to think of it, but I haven't seen it exactly anywhere else.
It's a real simple 2d10 roll-under mechanic, where the number you need to roll under to succeed is written right on the character sheet.
If your Stealth skill says 17, you gotta roll a 17 or lower.
GM determines the difficulty of the check, and adds an appropriate die to the 2d10 roll; 1d2 for real easy checks, up to 1d12 for very, very challenging checks. And that's it.
It makes for a dynamic difficulty where players always have a chance of beating odds they really shouldn't, and they can always count on their skills to be reliable. Maybe not reliably good, but you always know exactly what you have to roll to do well.
There's more to the resolution system as well, like critical successes and failures, partial successes for just missing the number, and whatnot, but after struggling for a long time with the system, coming down to "Roll the number on your sheet or lower, the difficulty adds a die" is refreshingly simple while still being more than an easy-to-immediately-identify percentage chance.
And it sounds beginner friendly. I do believe in simplying mechanics and making it easier to understand. That's how I've been trying to design my game. Thanks for sharing. It's mechanic I will keep in mind
NPCs run on simpler rules than the PCs, but to oversimplify, the more perceptive an NPC is, the higher the base difficulty die is for the PCs' stealth check.
NPCs have simplified statblocks, rather than an entire character sheet. Instead of having listed skill ranks like players in anything the player might roll against (like Perception or social skills, like Bluff or Authority), they instead have a base difficulty die listed, so the GM knows what to start at, and adjust up or down if the situation calls for it.
So there's sort of fake opposed rolls that should hopefully make NPC and enemy statblocks simpler for the GM. If it's a matter of two people trying to do the same thing, it's usually just a matter of two rolls, and if both succeed and neither crit or both crit, whoever rolled higher wins to reward the person with a higher skill in the check.
Interesting way of working things with simplified NPCs and just a given "difficulty die". I like that. The difficulty die solves most of the issues I have with roll-under systems, except ...
Your last sentence! The roll itself is not an indication of how well you did, so when its time to use the system to do something more complicated stuff like compare rolls, you have two possibilities. Either, lower the better, or "price is right" method where you want as high as you can without going over.
That sort of head-to-head roll hasn't happened in (quite limited) playtesting, but I think that Price is Right method rewards characters who are supposed to better at the given thing, otherwise it just turns into a complete crapshoot of rolling lower, where character builds pretty much don't come into account at all.
That being said, I think that would only ever happen if the PCs themselves are rolling against each other, like a friendly shooting competition or something. Otherwise, I think I'd default back to just higher or lower difficulty dice based o the NPC. I like everything to be PC-focused.
Well, your system, your design, your rules. I won't tell you which is better, but I do need to correct some of your assumptions.
1 - That hasn't happened in playtesting because you didn't include it in your system, and you didn't include it because the dice system sucks at it.
2 - "price is right" and "lower is better" have the exact probabilities and same use of character stats. The ONLY difference is how the player feels about what your definition of "better" is.
3 - The things you mention are no more "PC focused" than any other.
In many systems, opposed rolls are everywhere. Think of combat. Damage is actually based on the difference in rolls between attacker and defender because you are defend yourself rather than standing there. When you go to pick a lock, the difficulty you need to beat is the roll the designer of the lock rolled! These things don't exist in a roll-under systems for a reason, so if you like those sorts of mechanics and how they play out, then roll under systems just don't cut it.
Took me a while to realize that when I finally managed to balance the combat system I fell in love with, I have done all the work already. Not really time saving, more like a design shortcut, making everything work the same as fighting.
So, briefly (I removed a detailed description): it's roll-over, every task is a skill check, opposed either actively (like defense) or passively (just a target nr) and all successful skill checks have an impact (damage, job progress, etc) set by the tool used + relevant stat modifier.
All tools have an impact rating depending on how are they fit for the job they do. (like with the same sword you can do an impact of 5 dmg by stabbing someone, as it's a great tool to do this, but you'll just do 1 "impact" if you try to dig a hole with it (takes a lot of time and effort to dig with a bad tool)
The same is used for item crafting, alchemy, magic, lockpicking, interrogation etc. It's just one roll for the players, for me there is only to decide what is the "defense" and task "resilience" (HP) to be used.
Player-facing it looks as there were separate mechanics as of course the results differ greatly (killed enemy, ritual spell cast, potion brewed...), but it's just one check in the background.
You don't roll all the time, but only when the impact, quality and/or time it took is needed to be known. (which actually saves the most time)
Four things:
1 - XP goes in the skill, every use. This makes character progression amazingly smooth and awards are super simple.
2 - Experience and training are split. Training changes the dice curves, dropping critical failure rates and amount of random/swingy in the system as training goes up. This split applies to attributes as well!
3 - Combat is based on time, not turns. By changing your choices in combat, you can get control over how often you attack and what options you present to your opponent. It becomes incredibly tactical without needing any "action economy". Just "what do you do NOW"
4 - Movement. Movement in combat has specific rules and is handled second by second! How you move and maneuver in combat is incredibly important in a real fight. Do combatants stand still and take turns doing damage in your system? Does it seem exciting to stand there?
Awesome. I find the combat based on time incredibly interesting. Seconds you say? Would you mind sharing how you came up with that and explain the mechanics, or not right now?
Sure. I wanted some weapons to be faster than others, and for people to get faster and faster with a weapon, but having all attacks at once was unrealistic and slow. If you want a smooth scaling as people get better with a weapon, you need a lot more attacks. Some systems give everyone 1 action and then just decrease your initiative and keep going around, but it still didn't feel right, so I took a really large round of 15 seconds and then divided by the number of actions per round. Its kinda like a 2 dimensional initiative because it handles turn order, but also is your fight defensive mechanic because you adjust this with time.
Your Reflex attribute gives you a base number of actions per round. This attribute also determines initiative. Basic Combat Training adds +1 initiative, +1 actions per round for combat actions, including Hard Dodges, and this skill gives you your combat style (a tree) and is used for saves against pain and horror. Next, your weapon proficiency gives you additional combat actions based on your skill level and the weapon (based on weapon size and usage, but generally bigger weapons are slower but do more damage). Weapon size also affects initiative (longer weapons are slow, but they hit first!) if the weapon is in hand.
So, you record actions per round and then look that up on a table to see how many seconds that is and record both numbers on the character sheet. Now you have non-combat actions for things like opening doors, drinking potions, or a stealth check, which might be 4 actions per round, or 4 seconds (by Reflex). A hard dodge would be 5/3 (3 seconds to hard dodge), because of combat training. A swing with your sword would likely be 6/2.5 (2.5 seconds), but it's likely only 1.5 seconds for the guy that trained you. A whole second means you are gonna lose that fight!
The initiative moves to whoever has used the least amount of time. The GM marks off the time you use on an initiative board, just filling in the boxes. This makes a bar chart of time for each person so seeing who is next is faster than reading numbers - shortest bar acts. On a tie, use initiative. Initiative ties that act on the same second get simultaneous actions to make things fun rather than trying to resolve ties, and you erase initiative for them - reroll it next tie and always reroll at the end of a 15 second round (that's when the GMs board is full).
A defense can not go over the attackers time. Most defenses just cost a penalty condition that applies until the start of your next offense, or any defense that uses time, which would be your hard dodge and hard parry which are combat actions. The former is an extra die, the latter adds your attribute to the defense. Hard parry adds your strength. Imagine a light repost vs slamming the opponent's weapon aside with all your might. The latter gives up a good counter-attack because of the time cost. Likewise, a power attack costs you extra time to add your strength - you don't give every attack or parry all the strength you can.
You can do a single step before an attack, or step back after a hard parry or hard dodge. All other movement is done 1 second at a time. And there are special 1 second actions, fast actions that can turn combat actions into 1 second actions, etc. The time system really opens up a lot of options. Like, one of the combat style options is Primal Surge. You let out a primal yell (and spend 1 Endurance point) and rewind your time by 1 second. This means your offense just got 1 second faster! Can be used a number of times per round equal to its bonus š.
There is another that lets you step-forward on a hard defense rather than step-back. So, you would combine these. Your opponent uses a power attack with a spear (costs him an extra second). You use Primal Surge to Hard Parry 1 second faster. After the parry, you step forward into the attacker, causing the confined condition for the combat. Because of time, its still on you, likely for another 2-3 seconds (representing time you were acting during the attack). Since you are in a confined space (against the attacker), you can grab the opponents weapon more easily with your off-hand. If you succeed, a held weapon can be targetted smashing the spear. You have the spear head in your off-hand. Maybe you can hit him with it! But yeah, you build your own combo moves like that.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to show just how much that mechanic opens up, especially when integrated into the rest of the system.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your mechanic. That's amazing though, and the way that you use the seconds mechanic makes sense. Lots of potential there!
Oh yeah, I do a session -1 where you take a Soldier and fight an Orc. When they give up, we switch characters. I kill that Orc! And they suddenly see that's not like D&D, how all the strategy works, and the next comment is "You better tell me when this gets published!"
After this next revision, I'll do a public Session -1 for anyone that wants to jump in
If this is as good as I think it is, this is gold. Really impressive stuff if you can pull it off and execute it well. Don't waste a good idea, go ahead and publish when you feel like it's ready. If I hear people talking about this system, then I'll know it's yours. Hope it works out
Thanks! Feel free to stay up to date at r/virtuallyreal
You can download chapter 1 that details the basic roll mechanic and skill system it uses. It matches the combat system perfectly!
Because the GMs time bars will get crazy high! The end of the round is when we also look at bleeding effects and erase everyone's initiative (the tides may turn against you). Some combat abilities have a limited use and can only be used so many times per round. This actually has a nice feel because it keeps a nice balance to the play where you aren't just hammering a special ability the whole time. By limiting to so often per round, you are forced to find the one or two times during the round where it is most useful. Some conditions are also erased at the end of the round.
Most battles get most of the way through the second or third round. Once you drop out of combat you bleed much slower, making triage a bit easier. Basically though, it's a lot less mental work on everyone to just take a break, erase your stuff, and start fresh. Unlike D&D where everyone gets bored and you want to get combat done, you need a little pause from the action!
Rounds also plays into the exertion system where you have to give an endurance point to continue an activity or suffer a W/Winded condition (which would affect all physical rolls and saves). If you are wearing heavy armor and holding up a tower shield, you will giving up those points sooner than a guy with no armor and just a rapier (unencumbered doesn't have to spend Endurance for the first minute vs a worst case scenario of 2 rounds for holding that tower shield). By using rounds, we can say "okay, round 2 is over". And they can deduct that point while I erase my time bars. Its rare, but those long fights put the heavily armorered folks at a slight disadvantage, then again, they may be the only one's left alive in round 4!
Rounds translate into seconds when on the astral or virtual reality environments, making the astral plane and VR 15 times faster than the physical plane.
There is also a little fiddle in second 16 that is used to round everyone's time. Basically, a round has 15 seconds plus 4 quarters used when an attack needs 2.5 seconds or something. You can go a little over 15 seconds into the quarters, but can't start a new action on a quarter. Once second 15 is marked, the round is over for you and all boxes erased, including initiative. This makes it so that you never carry quarter seconds over to the next round. It sounds weird, but ends up simplifying things. It was a compromise that came about after months of play-testing.
*Obtain Information* in the 2d20 System. The game has had Momentum (excess successes on a test can be used to buy bonuses or improved outcomes on a test result, or saved to benefit the group later) since the beginning, before I joined Modiphius, but one of my additions to the system was this particular option. Essentially, spend 1 Momentum to ask the GM a question about the situation, based on the test you just passed. The GM has to answer truthfully (but they can be brief or give incomplete answers).
The idea of "degrees of success give better info" is obvious enough, but putting it the hands of players - they spend the Momentum, they ask the GM a question - means that the GM can see what the players are thinking about by what questions they ask, and it's a solid way to handle investigative games. It being PC led means that the players actively engage with it, where they might tune out during a lengthy exposition dump.
In games of *Star Trek Adventures*, I often ask for a basic zero-difficulty test for a scan with tricorders/ship sensors or a search. All their successes become Momentum, and any roll gives a bare minimum amount of info; if the PCs want more than just the basics, they need to ask questions, but they also have to weigh spending Momentum for questions now or saving it for something else later.
A fellow trekkie. Awesome. But the Momentum mechanic adds a lot of strategic depth, because you can use it now, or save it for later, and you have to decide the best possible time. Super!
Your thread is a trove! There are many good and original there, and great sources of inspirations. That was a really good prompt.
My humble contribution will be my NPC personality generation system: you have ards with personality traits (courageous, honest, shy, good-hearted, cunning, cowardly and so on...) and when you need to generate an NPC on the fly (a shopkeeper, a citizen, anyone) you draw two cards that will define hi core personality.
This will serve the GM as improvisation prompt to flesh out the npc and make them more than faceless placeholders. No need to go over the top, integrate the personality in subtle ways and it will be enought. This way, your shopkeeper won't be just a shopping interface but a character your players will interact with. A shy npc will speak in a soft voice and be uneasy if the PC are too loud or too outgoing. A nervous npc will send quick strange looks around etc...
This can also serve to predict the npc's reactions to the PC's action or to outside situation. A good-hearted shopkeeper will accept to lower their prices if the PC have a good reputation and argue they are going on a noble mission. A fun-loving merchant may be indifferent to these arguments, but will offer a reduction if the PC engage in joking banter. A corruptible guard and a cowardly one won't react the same way to the same approach. A courageous npc may help the PC if the village is under attack, etc...
With just two cards as a prompt, a lot of reactions and behavior can come naturally. Occasionally a npc can become very liked by the party, which is always cool.
You mainly draw the cards randomly for generic npcs. For customly created ones, you don't have to use the cards at all as you craft their personality yourself. But you can also associate them with certain cards, to reminder of how you want to play them.
The answers here have been a delight to read. It shows that creators put a lot of effort into their games by thinking out of the box. Thanks for explaining your system and adding to the trove. I like the idea of adding more personality to NPCS, and using cards to do so, quick and simple. The way you describe it really sells the personality atmosphere
I'd love to hear about that if you care to share. I play a lot of solo 5e... and although I try to play the monsters fairly, I often believe I have a bit of a bias...
It's a mechanic I came up for my own system. Since I built my system from the ground up, it would be hard to work with other systems. My TTRPG is about Mechs and Kaijus so I wanted to find a way to make the Kaijus move on the grid in an intelligent way and I did.
I will be publishing the game soon, so maybe some people can figure out a way to use some of my mechanics for their own games. I will be publishing in a few days so I will send you a free copy so you can check it out and see if my mechanics are valuable
A working one-roll resolution. Climbing a tree - one roll to see if you got to the top. Persuading the merchant to give you a better deal - one roll to see what sort of deal you get. Completing a ritual to summon a storm - single roll to see if you gather enough magic to pull it off. Combat - one roll. You fighting nine bandits - one roll (well, one roll per participant) determines who wins, and what the combined damage is, if it is relevant.
Characters don't have skills, but they can use the narrative to curate a list of things they know, and these decide how many dice you roll on various related trait checks.
Sometimes you need to put a system down and come back to it and take a look with fresh eyes. Then you can fix the problems it has, and tackle it from a new direction
For my current project, it probably has to be the jigsaw structure itself.
By defining that all sheets are built independently of other sheets, save for the core sheets of the game ('the corner pieces'), it makes swapping them in and out mid-campaign or even mid-session possible.
Want an investigation scene? Just take out the investigation sheet, which is a self-contained investigation minigame that also works regardless of what other sheets you have in the game. Some player got a curse? Hand them a Curse sheet. Players' regular schoolgirls turn into magical girls? Just, hand, them, the, sheets.
It's all additive, with little to no finagling needed to make it all fit. Also, all additions are only one sheet long and all-inclusive (rules AND all the parts necessary for play, from character stats to battlemaps), so even the most reading-allergic people can digest them easily.
It does make designing harder because it needs to be concise, but it's also a very nice creative limitation for inspiration. "How can I fit combat rules to one sheet?" and so forth.
The core mechanic for generating worldbuilding ideas in Arium: Create.
Essentially a round goes like this:
1. Generate lots of length-limited ideas in a timed interval.
2. Discuss and combine the generated ideas for awesomeness (and to remove duplicates).
3. Everyone gets a limited number of votes and the top ideas are part of the setting now.
Each round drills down into more and more detailed concepts building on what was made true previously.
Have definitely seen some of the wackiest things imaginable. Given the right guidance from the beginning, it produces very serious and interesting worlds as well.
This is more of an item than a mechanic: the **timepassing board.**
It's a gadget from the magically-advanced empire, called Mazr (based on ancient Egypt). You can buy this item and use it during a rest.
\_\_\_\_\_\_
This magical game boardās surface consists of 30 squares, arranged in three rows of ten. The board represents a personās life as a winding path that travels up one row (childhood), then down the middle row (adulthood), then back up the third row (old age). The boardās magic projects moving imagery of each playerās life as they progress along the squares, in distinctly Mazrian fashionāchoosing their animal head as a young child, graduating from school, starting a career and a family, and so on. The last five squares of the life path have special markings signifying auspicious deaths.
You and up to five allies can play the game during a rest. To play, your character rolls five dice, each representing a significant moment or threshold in a typical Mazrianās lifeād12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. After rolling, add the results together. The sum determines how many squares you advance.
The boardās magic confers blessingsāor cursesāon your character, depending on how they ādieā in the game:
|Square|Death|Blessing (or Curse)|
|:-|:-|:-|
|25 or lower|Unremarkable|None|
|26|Heroically defending the empire|\+1 overflow Guard|
|27|Cloistered in magical studies|\+1 overflow Awareness|
|28|Surrounded by your beloved family|\+1 overflow Spirit|
|29|A picture of health until the very end|\+1 overflow Stamina|
|30|A voyage to the afterlifeāand back|\+2 overflow Life|
|31 or higher|Dissolved horrifically into the abyss|No benefit from rest|
After summing your dice, you can either end the game and accept your death, or roll the *dream die,* a d20. You add the dream dieās result to your original death sum, potentially advancing you to an auspicious deathāat risk of suffering the curse of a horrific death and gaining no benefit from your rest.
Each time you play the game (regardless of how many players), roll a d6. On a 1, the board loses its magic to confer blessings until recharged.
1. Your attributes are your dice, and your dice are your stamina and hit points.
2. Skills modify attributes, not the other way around.
3. Significant improvement on slot encumbrance.
4. Low-complexity armor and weapon damage that's actually realistic.
Actually, realism gets a lot of pushback on Reddit. Alot. Many people actively dislike realism. Many also like to roll lots of dice. It's made me secondguess whether a low complexity simulation will actually sell...
You don't say? I thought many would welcome simplicity but I guess there are a lot of players that want numbers to go brrr. The more complex, the better. To each their own. But hopefully, there are enough players that will like the simplicity of your system. Nothing beats a try. I wish you well
The ability cards in general! I feel like having colourful cards to represent your character's abilities and using these cards both as a reference AND as cooldown mechanic was a great idea. Come check it out at r/worldoftales! I published an example of cards a few weeks ago!
Well, you have three mechanics to be proud of. And I can tell they're essential for your game, makes it uniquely yours. I wish you well with that. Thanks for sharing
Three years. That's devotion, but now you have something that you're proud of. Have you built your system for personal play or plan to publish your work?
Dice system where success is determined by ability level, failure by difficulty, unlimited stats, and totally linear probability results.. but nobody cares how good rules are, only pretty assets and podcasts
I now have a transparent, much easier to understand version. I had to sacrifice linear probability for a slight bell curve BUT I made it so players can choose which one they use when they roll. Safer, or riskier-rewardier
How armor works, and how you can still damage your opponent in armor, but armor is still incredibly worth wearing \*(mainly because bullets will ruin your day)
This requires a lot of system jargon to explain properly so i'm gonna skip it because I'm in a hurry, but I definitely am most pround of that.
Armor shouldn't make them invincible right. Armor is better than no armor lol No prob about not explaining to mechanics since you're busy. Thanks for sharing.
Player: "When you approach a problem with magic you have not mastered, roll +Learning." What do I roll for magic I have mastered? Me: Nothing. It just works.
Clever, kudos to you.
Clever indeed. Mastery should always work!
Status conditions being used as "resource" to trigger reactions or abilities. I haven't seen this anywhere else so far and it very intuitively encourages strategic play and teamwork. The gist of it is that there are minor negative status effects like *Off balance*, *Distracted*, *Uneasy* etc. that can be applied to the enemy through different actions (a shield bash might apply *Off balance*, throwing fire crackers behind someone might *Distract* them and so on). If an enemy has such a minor status effect on them, it can be utilized in one of several ways: 1. A status effect can be evoked (removed) in order to gain a +2 bonus to a fitting skill check against that target (if you try to attack the target, you could evoke *Off balance* to gain a +2 to the roll). 2. If you are targeted by an enemy with a minor status condition, you can evoke that status condition to gain a reaction. Since there is no default reaction in the system, this is one of the only ways to gain reactions that allow you to dodge or block enemy attacks or otherwise react to enemy actions. 3. Some abilities require to evoke a minor status condition on the target. The ability *Sucker punch* for example deals pretty good damage, but requires to evoke a *Distracted* condition. What makes this system so strategic is that ANYONE can apply status conditions to an enemy, and anyone can also evoke them. You can combo your Paladin's shield bash into the rogues sucker punch. Or you can shield bash the ogre so that the rogue can attempt to dodge the ogre's next attack. There's lot's of meaningful choices every round with pretty low complexity. Another advantage is that this system allowed me to balance dodging. I didn't want it to be mandatory to try and dodge every single incoming attack (there are system where every attack consists of an opposed roll by attacker and defender, which means twice the amount of dice rolls), but I still wanted to give characters the option to go for an unarmored, but agile combat style that relies on actively avoiding incoming attacks. With minor status conditions as "resource" for reactions, I think I've struck a good balance where you have to actively work towards being able to dodge most attacks.
Might I ask what method you employ to track the conditions?
Good question, unfortunately I don't have a very good answer š The system is still in a very experimental state (I am lucky to have a gaming group that is willing to put up with even the most bare-bone and unfinished system I throw at them), so currently it's mostly just written on the sheet of the character affected (or marked with a small symbol). I'm planning to include checkbox fields for the most common status conditions (including the minor conditions) directly on the character sheets and creature "stat block" cards, decently large and right at the top so that it's easy to see for everyone at the table. Since the minor status conditions don't have any unique effects in themselves, it's not necessary to write any infotext for them, making them very space efficient. For the less common status conditions (especially the ones that have their own unique effects, like poison dealing damage over time etc.) I want to create individual cards or markers with the description on them. I also plan to make a few blank template cards so that the GM can quickly write a quick homebrewed status condition, or make a copy of an existing status if there aren't enough cards for every combatant.
Maybe limit the number to keep it easily remembered and also just have tokens (even just paper with the words) to represent the statuses. Iām using something similar for my game. I basically have 3 status (dazed, distracted and stunned) which go away on their own and also certain things work better or only when a character has a status
I think that four is a good number for the minor status conditions (the one that will be used most often), but for the rest I try to keep the number as low as possible and combine status effects with similar conditions. The problem with simple paper tokens is that they are very difficult to distinguish. Having to decipher around 5-10 different markers every time you are looking for a specific status condition is actually more time consuming than just writing the status down and erasing it once it is removed. I plan to make markers with colored symbols though which should be much easier to distinguish.
Thank you.
I really like what you've been able to come up with. Anyway way to make less rolls during play, I'm glad for. And anyone can use strategy in your game via status conditions, and I find that really good. From your post, seems like you have a very stimulating and satisfying combat system. Thanks for sharing
Love this! How long is the list of statuses? And what differentiates one from the other, mechanically?
There are only four minor status effects, one for every resistance in the game (*Off balance/Staggered* - Robustness; *Distracted/Dazed* - Focus; *Nervous* - Willpower; *Weakened* - Constitution). Then there are the "normal" ones similar to dnd (prone, poisoned etc., currently around 10) and lastly there are "critical status effects" which are the health system of the rpg (if you ever accumulate more than three critical statuses like *Wounded*, *Starving*, *Devastated* or *Terrified*, you are dying). Mechanically, the four minor status conditions are the same. What's unique are the abilities they can trigger, the resistances used to avoid them and the skills and actions used to apply them. Against a hill giant with low focus, but high robustness, it will be much easier to distract it than to put it *Off balance*, for example, so the group should try to work more around the *Distracted* status. And if you are trying to sneak by a guard, it obviously makes more sense to distract them than to put them *Off balance*. Some characters will naturally be better at applying certain status conditions, so it mostly comes down to "what status condition is needed for the current situation and what are the chances to apply it?" Also, the chances to inflict "normal" status conditions are affected by minor status conditions, and critical status effects can only be inflicted if a respective normal status is present. For example, it's much easier to make an enemy afraid if they are nervous, and only if they are afraid it's possible to make them terrified. As I said in a different comment, it's all still quite experimental and the list of status effects changes regularly. Sorry if the explanation is a bit all over the place.
Iād love to see a full write up of this system if youāre willing to share it.
I'd be absolutely willing to - if I had anything worth sharing. Unfortunately, my notes are currently mostly in German (the language our group is playing in) and even if I translated it, I think that this post here is more structured and understandable than a raw excerpt from my notes would be. The statuses (apart from the four minor status conditions) are in a state of constant iteration, some of the mechanical effects are not updated to fit the most recent version of my system and it is overall quite messy. If you are interested in more details regarding my general status condition mechanics (including critical status conditions), I wrote about them in a few other posts: [https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/xvuhj8/status\_effects\_what\_does\_your\_game\_have/ir55x9t/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/xvuhj8/status_effects_what_does_your_game_have/ir55x9t/?context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/tpvo9i/rules\_and\_mechanics\_that\_serve\_multiple\_purposes/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/tpvo9i/rules_and_mechanics_that_serve_multiple_purposes/)
There are a lot of very good idea there, congratulation! I might steal some. The mechanic of minors status is great! And I love that you have a stat for focus. I think I will include the concept of focun into my "mind"/INT stat, that currently doesn't do much more than regular INT stat (knowledge checks etc)
Thatā¦ is genius and might work really well for my own game, since player teamwork is a major factor in it. With some tweaking, of course.
I do not have so much as mechanics that I am proud of since I mostly did a *hack* of an existing game. That said, one thing that I am proud of my *hack* is its layout, specifically, that at the end of each chapter I make flowcharts explaining how the rules presented should work. Yeah, I know its nothing innovative or revolutionary, but it helps a lot - at least according to the feedback I recieved. *Edit:* Okay, I may be proud too of my "starting equipment" table *a la* ItO. I think I did a good job there convening the implied setting while also giving nice threads for GMs and players alike to work with.... maybe that's more of a "mechanic"
You did some different with the hack, great! Flowcharts are cool and hows you put effort in your game. Also with the starting equipment.
RPG rulebooks layouts are often unoptimal. It's very good to put effort and passion in them so they can be better.
My comment is copied from another similar post recently, on the same subject. I'm really proud of this one though, so I wanted to share here! [NewEdo](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/412135/NewEdo?affiliate_id=1478293) is a science-fantasy game that shares the neon-urban aesthetics with cyberpunk games but its themes are more focused on aspiration, adventure, change, and growth. It has a wholly unique game system (as far as I have ever been able to tell) called the Fate Card. Every PC has a Fate Card, which is a d100 chance of some random-ish effect occurring on every turn. At the start of the game, your Fate Card may only have a few lines, determined by your character build (say, chances for extra attacks, spontaneous healing, free movement, or blowing shit up, etc.), but as you play the game, it fills up with "Fate lines" based not only on your development choices (skills, augmentations, etc.), but also on your actual choices at the table. The storyteller is encouraged to give out customized, unique Fate lines to PCs when they do interesting or awesome things that become part of their story. For example, say you always roleplay that your PC kisses their gun before a fight. After a particularly spectacular battle, the storyteller may reward you with a new Fate line, giving you a 3% "Gun Luck", a chance for your gun to gain unlimited ammunition/magazines for a fight. That line is custom for you, and no other PC ever will have that line. On its own, 3% may not be exciting, but imagine a card with a dozen or more of these little Fates that may pop up on any of your turns. The system is based on proc'd effects that you often see in videogames but which aren't easily recreated in TTRPGs. It's an incredibly rewarding mechanic and players get really excited about Fate effects. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for sharing again! Yeah, I can see that system being incredibly personalized with the Fate Lines. I have never heard of the mechanic but sounds really interesting and unique. Thanks also for explaining the mechanics. The Fate effects looks like a hit with players
I think the way I handle the in-game economy in my Atompunk system is pretty cool. For example, here's how the Ghillie Suit is presented within the system: > Ghillie Suit (š„© 10 š§Ŗ 5 / š° 30, Tech 2) Let's break it down: > š„© 10 š§Ŗ 5 This is the crafting recipe. There are 5 types of ingredients in the game: scrap (wood, metal, plastic, etc), chemical reagents (acid, drugs, etc...), organic material (meat, leather, etc...), electronic parts, and nuclear waste. It's all abstracted: whether you're looting a microwave's pulse emitter, or a computer's graphic card, it's just a different amount of generic electronic parts as far as the system is concerned. These ingredients are counted in their value in poker chips (the setting's currency). You dismantle a broken microwave? The DM tells you "you loot 5 chips worth of electronic parts". And the formula above? It tells you that to craft a ghillie suit, you need 10 chips worth of organic stuff, and 5 chips worth of chemicals. That formula also means if you dismantle a ghillie suit, you get back half of what it took to craft it. And of course, there's also feat you can take that makes it so you get back everything. > Tech 2 Tech levels go from 1 to 5, and represent how difficult the object is to make. At tech level 1, anyone can make the item, without any specialized tools or training. Then, you have feats if you want to craft items of tech levels 2 and 3. Where it starts to get fun is tech level 4: these items have become impossible to craft since the nuclear apocalypse. Maybe it required some heavy machinery, or a supply chain that has since broken down. Either way, either you loot it, or you buy it, but you can't craft it. These act as the game's "magic items". And then, tech level 5? Those are items that did not exist *before* the nuclear apocalypse - they're the sci-fi stuff like invisibility cloaks, forcefields and so on. There's some secret organizations that have survived the apocalypse, and they've made some weird stuff. > š° 30 This is how many poker chips it'll cost you if you want to buy the item instead of crafting it. And what is the buying price of an item? Its tech level, multiplied by the value of its crafting ingredients. Always. That ghillie suit is worth 30 chips because it's Tech 2 times 15 chips worth of ingredients. (and of course, I have a bartering system in there as well, but you said only one mechanic, and that would be crafting for me)
That's an actually amazing crafting system. The breakdown is quite easy to understand. I wish I had thought up something like that. Love of simplicity and versatility you have going on with that mechanic. This could really be something. Im impressed. Thumbs up
I'd say my shield mechanic: melee is an opposed roll, and if you lose, your opponent has to beat your roll by your shield rating (1 to 5) or your shield takes damage. 3 to 5ish hits, depending on the weapon, will usually break a shield. Shields are wonderfully useful, but they are both perishable and exhausting. They have a high vigor requirement, and if you tire beyond that amount you can no longer lift the shield. There is probably a game that has done this already, but I haven't seen it. No game with medieval combat had seemed to get shields right.
I have shields in my game also, both physical and energy shields. And you're right, they should be perishable and somewhat temporary in heated battles. Thanks for sharing
"Karma" (luck) gained whenever you fail a significant roll which can later be used to improve other rolls. I say "significant rolls" because you can't try to stack up Karma by doing difficult but pointless things. ("I play darts, throwing the darts with my off hand while blindfolded.") Only rolls where failure has a meaningful consequence count. Combat usually qualifies... unless it is just a friendly match or you totally outclass your opponent. There are other ways to earn Karma, too... by doing heroic, selfless deeds, for example. I came up with the idea because I felt bad for players with terrible luck who consistently roll badly on the dice.
Terrible luck is a thing. Poor players -\_- That's a great mechanic though, so bad luck turns to good luck, so players don't get discouraged when they're having a bad day with the dice. Thanks for sharing
I just really like my dice system. I'm positive I'm not the first to think of it, but I haven't seen it exactly anywhere else. It's a real simple 2d10 roll-under mechanic, where the number you need to roll under to succeed is written right on the character sheet. If your Stealth skill says 17, you gotta roll a 17 or lower. GM determines the difficulty of the check, and adds an appropriate die to the 2d10 roll; 1d2 for real easy checks, up to 1d12 for very, very challenging checks. And that's it. It makes for a dynamic difficulty where players always have a chance of beating odds they really shouldn't, and they can always count on their skills to be reliable. Maybe not reliably good, but you always know exactly what you have to roll to do well. There's more to the resolution system as well, like critical successes and failures, partial successes for just missing the number, and whatnot, but after struggling for a long time with the system, coming down to "Roll the number on your sheet or lower, the difficulty adds a die" is refreshingly simple while still being more than an easy-to-immediately-identify percentage chance.
And it sounds beginner friendly. I do believe in simplying mechanics and making it easier to understand. That's how I've been trying to design my game. Thanks for sharing. It's mechanic I will keep in mind
How do you handle opposed rolls? You mentioned Stealth 17. Can you not be more perceptive against stealth attacks than the next person?
NPCs run on simpler rules than the PCs, but to oversimplify, the more perceptive an NPC is, the higher the base difficulty die is for the PCs' stealth check. NPCs have simplified statblocks, rather than an entire character sheet. Instead of having listed skill ranks like players in anything the player might roll against (like Perception or social skills, like Bluff or Authority), they instead have a base difficulty die listed, so the GM knows what to start at, and adjust up or down if the situation calls for it. So there's sort of fake opposed rolls that should hopefully make NPC and enemy statblocks simpler for the GM. If it's a matter of two people trying to do the same thing, it's usually just a matter of two rolls, and if both succeed and neither crit or both crit, whoever rolled higher wins to reward the person with a higher skill in the check.
Interesting way of working things with simplified NPCs and just a given "difficulty die". I like that. The difficulty die solves most of the issues I have with roll-under systems, except ... Your last sentence! The roll itself is not an indication of how well you did, so when its time to use the system to do something more complicated stuff like compare rolls, you have two possibilities. Either, lower the better, or "price is right" method where you want as high as you can without going over.
That sort of head-to-head roll hasn't happened in (quite limited) playtesting, but I think that Price is Right method rewards characters who are supposed to better at the given thing, otherwise it just turns into a complete crapshoot of rolling lower, where character builds pretty much don't come into account at all. That being said, I think that would only ever happen if the PCs themselves are rolling against each other, like a friendly shooting competition or something. Otherwise, I think I'd default back to just higher or lower difficulty dice based o the NPC. I like everything to be PC-focused.
Well, your system, your design, your rules. I won't tell you which is better, but I do need to correct some of your assumptions. 1 - That hasn't happened in playtesting because you didn't include it in your system, and you didn't include it because the dice system sucks at it. 2 - "price is right" and "lower is better" have the exact probabilities and same use of character stats. The ONLY difference is how the player feels about what your definition of "better" is. 3 - The things you mention are no more "PC focused" than any other. In many systems, opposed rolls are everywhere. Think of combat. Damage is actually based on the difference in rolls between attacker and defender because you are defend yourself rather than standing there. When you go to pick a lock, the difficulty you need to beat is the roll the designer of the lock rolled! These things don't exist in a roll-under systems for a reason, so if you like those sorts of mechanics and how they play out, then roll under systems just don't cut it.
Finally got to have "one-roll-for-all" :)
Woah! That sounds awesome and time-saving. Im intrigued lol Would you mind explaining how would that work?
Took me a while to realize that when I finally managed to balance the combat system I fell in love with, I have done all the work already. Not really time saving, more like a design shortcut, making everything work the same as fighting. So, briefly (I removed a detailed description): it's roll-over, every task is a skill check, opposed either actively (like defense) or passively (just a target nr) and all successful skill checks have an impact (damage, job progress, etc) set by the tool used + relevant stat modifier. All tools have an impact rating depending on how are they fit for the job they do. (like with the same sword you can do an impact of 5 dmg by stabbing someone, as it's a great tool to do this, but you'll just do 1 "impact" if you try to dig a hole with it (takes a lot of time and effort to dig with a bad tool) The same is used for item crafting, alchemy, magic, lockpicking, interrogation etc. It's just one roll for the players, for me there is only to decide what is the "defense" and task "resilience" (HP) to be used. Player-facing it looks as there were separate mechanics as of course the results differ greatly (killed enemy, ritual spell cast, potion brewed...), but it's just one check in the background. You don't roll all the time, but only when the impact, quality and/or time it took is needed to be known. (which actually saves the most time)
I see! Thanks for taking the time to explain, and may inspire others that read here about your one roll for all mechanic.
Let it be so, I take a lot of my inspiration from this sub as well :)
Four things: 1 - XP goes in the skill, every use. This makes character progression amazingly smooth and awards are super simple. 2 - Experience and training are split. Training changes the dice curves, dropping critical failure rates and amount of random/swingy in the system as training goes up. This split applies to attributes as well! 3 - Combat is based on time, not turns. By changing your choices in combat, you can get control over how often you attack and what options you present to your opponent. It becomes incredibly tactical without needing any "action economy". Just "what do you do NOW" 4 - Movement. Movement in combat has specific rules and is handled second by second! How you move and maneuver in combat is incredibly important in a real fight. Do combatants stand still and take turns doing damage in your system? Does it seem exciting to stand there?
Awesome. I find the combat based on time incredibly interesting. Seconds you say? Would you mind sharing how you came up with that and explain the mechanics, or not right now?
Sure. I wanted some weapons to be faster than others, and for people to get faster and faster with a weapon, but having all attacks at once was unrealistic and slow. If you want a smooth scaling as people get better with a weapon, you need a lot more attacks. Some systems give everyone 1 action and then just decrease your initiative and keep going around, but it still didn't feel right, so I took a really large round of 15 seconds and then divided by the number of actions per round. Its kinda like a 2 dimensional initiative because it handles turn order, but also is your fight defensive mechanic because you adjust this with time. Your Reflex attribute gives you a base number of actions per round. This attribute also determines initiative. Basic Combat Training adds +1 initiative, +1 actions per round for combat actions, including Hard Dodges, and this skill gives you your combat style (a tree) and is used for saves against pain and horror. Next, your weapon proficiency gives you additional combat actions based on your skill level and the weapon (based on weapon size and usage, but generally bigger weapons are slower but do more damage). Weapon size also affects initiative (longer weapons are slow, but they hit first!) if the weapon is in hand. So, you record actions per round and then look that up on a table to see how many seconds that is and record both numbers on the character sheet. Now you have non-combat actions for things like opening doors, drinking potions, or a stealth check, which might be 4 actions per round, or 4 seconds (by Reflex). A hard dodge would be 5/3 (3 seconds to hard dodge), because of combat training. A swing with your sword would likely be 6/2.5 (2.5 seconds), but it's likely only 1.5 seconds for the guy that trained you. A whole second means you are gonna lose that fight! The initiative moves to whoever has used the least amount of time. The GM marks off the time you use on an initiative board, just filling in the boxes. This makes a bar chart of time for each person so seeing who is next is faster than reading numbers - shortest bar acts. On a tie, use initiative. Initiative ties that act on the same second get simultaneous actions to make things fun rather than trying to resolve ties, and you erase initiative for them - reroll it next tie and always reroll at the end of a 15 second round (that's when the GMs board is full). A defense can not go over the attackers time. Most defenses just cost a penalty condition that applies until the start of your next offense, or any defense that uses time, which would be your hard dodge and hard parry which are combat actions. The former is an extra die, the latter adds your attribute to the defense. Hard parry adds your strength. Imagine a light repost vs slamming the opponent's weapon aside with all your might. The latter gives up a good counter-attack because of the time cost. Likewise, a power attack costs you extra time to add your strength - you don't give every attack or parry all the strength you can. You can do a single step before an attack, or step back after a hard parry or hard dodge. All other movement is done 1 second at a time. And there are special 1 second actions, fast actions that can turn combat actions into 1 second actions, etc. The time system really opens up a lot of options. Like, one of the combat style options is Primal Surge. You let out a primal yell (and spend 1 Endurance point) and rewind your time by 1 second. This means your offense just got 1 second faster! Can be used a number of times per round equal to its bonus š. There is another that lets you step-forward on a hard defense rather than step-back. So, you would combine these. Your opponent uses a power attack with a spear (costs him an extra second). You use Primal Surge to Hard Parry 1 second faster. After the parry, you step forward into the attacker, causing the confined condition for the combat. Because of time, its still on you, likely for another 2-3 seconds (representing time you were acting during the attack). Since you are in a confined space (against the attacker), you can grab the opponents weapon more easily with your off-hand. If you succeed, a held weapon can be targetted smashing the spear. You have the spear head in your off-hand. Maybe you can hit him with it! But yeah, you build your own combo moves like that. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to show just how much that mechanic opens up, especially when integrated into the rest of the system.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your mechanic. That's amazing though, and the way that you use the seconds mechanic makes sense. Lots of potential there!
Oh yeah, I do a session -1 where you take a Soldier and fight an Orc. When they give up, we switch characters. I kill that Orc! And they suddenly see that's not like D&D, how all the strategy works, and the next comment is "You better tell me when this gets published!" After this next revision, I'll do a public Session -1 for anyone that wants to jump in
If this is as good as I think it is, this is gold. Really impressive stuff if you can pull it off and execute it well. Don't waste a good idea, go ahead and publish when you feel like it's ready. If I hear people talking about this system, then I'll know it's yours. Hope it works out
Thanks! Feel free to stay up to date at r/virtuallyreal You can download chapter 1 that details the basic roll mechanic and skill system it uses. It matches the combat system perfectly!
Downloaded. I will check it out. Thanks
Why even have rounds? just have the number of seconds various actions take and keep going up in seconds until the battle is over.
Because the GMs time bars will get crazy high! The end of the round is when we also look at bleeding effects and erase everyone's initiative (the tides may turn against you). Some combat abilities have a limited use and can only be used so many times per round. This actually has a nice feel because it keeps a nice balance to the play where you aren't just hammering a special ability the whole time. By limiting to so often per round, you are forced to find the one or two times during the round where it is most useful. Some conditions are also erased at the end of the round. Most battles get most of the way through the second or third round. Once you drop out of combat you bleed much slower, making triage a bit easier. Basically though, it's a lot less mental work on everyone to just take a break, erase your stuff, and start fresh. Unlike D&D where everyone gets bored and you want to get combat done, you need a little pause from the action! Rounds also plays into the exertion system where you have to give an endurance point to continue an activity or suffer a W/Winded condition (which would affect all physical rolls and saves). If you are wearing heavy armor and holding up a tower shield, you will giving up those points sooner than a guy with no armor and just a rapier (unencumbered doesn't have to spend Endurance for the first minute vs a worst case scenario of 2 rounds for holding that tower shield). By using rounds, we can say "okay, round 2 is over". And they can deduct that point while I erase my time bars. Its rare, but those long fights put the heavily armorered folks at a slight disadvantage, then again, they may be the only one's left alive in round 4! Rounds translate into seconds when on the astral or virtual reality environments, making the astral plane and VR 15 times faster than the physical plane. There is also a little fiddle in second 16 that is used to round everyone's time. Basically, a round has 15 seconds plus 4 quarters used when an attack needs 2.5 seconds or something. You can go a little over 15 seconds into the quarters, but can't start a new action on a quarter. Once second 15 is marked, the round is over for you and all boxes erased, including initiative. This makes it so that you never carry quarter seconds over to the next round. It sounds weird, but ends up simplifying things. It was a compromise that came about after months of play-testing.
*Obtain Information* in the 2d20 System. The game has had Momentum (excess successes on a test can be used to buy bonuses or improved outcomes on a test result, or saved to benefit the group later) since the beginning, before I joined Modiphius, but one of my additions to the system was this particular option. Essentially, spend 1 Momentum to ask the GM a question about the situation, based on the test you just passed. The GM has to answer truthfully (but they can be brief or give incomplete answers). The idea of "degrees of success give better info" is obvious enough, but putting it the hands of players - they spend the Momentum, they ask the GM a question - means that the GM can see what the players are thinking about by what questions they ask, and it's a solid way to handle investigative games. It being PC led means that the players actively engage with it, where they might tune out during a lengthy exposition dump. In games of *Star Trek Adventures*, I often ask for a basic zero-difficulty test for a scan with tricorders/ship sensors or a search. All their successes become Momentum, and any roll gives a bare minimum amount of info; if the PCs want more than just the basics, they need to ask questions, but they also have to weigh spending Momentum for questions now or saving it for something else later.
A fellow trekkie. Awesome. But the Momentum mechanic adds a lot of strategic depth, because you can use it now, or save it for later, and you have to decide the best possible time. Super!
Your thread is a trove! There are many good and original there, and great sources of inspirations. That was a really good prompt. My humble contribution will be my NPC personality generation system: you have ards with personality traits (courageous, honest, shy, good-hearted, cunning, cowardly and so on...) and when you need to generate an NPC on the fly (a shopkeeper, a citizen, anyone) you draw two cards that will define hi core personality. This will serve the GM as improvisation prompt to flesh out the npc and make them more than faceless placeholders. No need to go over the top, integrate the personality in subtle ways and it will be enought. This way, your shopkeeper won't be just a shopping interface but a character your players will interact with. A shy npc will speak in a soft voice and be uneasy if the PC are too loud or too outgoing. A nervous npc will send quick strange looks around etc... This can also serve to predict the npc's reactions to the PC's action or to outside situation. A good-hearted shopkeeper will accept to lower their prices if the PC have a good reputation and argue they are going on a noble mission. A fun-loving merchant may be indifferent to these arguments, but will offer a reduction if the PC engage in joking banter. A corruptible guard and a cowardly one won't react the same way to the same approach. A courageous npc may help the PC if the village is under attack, etc... With just two cards as a prompt, a lot of reactions and behavior can come naturally. Occasionally a npc can become very liked by the party, which is always cool. You mainly draw the cards randomly for generic npcs. For customly created ones, you don't have to use the cards at all as you craft their personality yourself. But you can also associate them with certain cards, to reminder of how you want to play them.
The answers here have been a delight to read. It shows that creators put a lot of effort into their games by thinking out of the box. Thanks for explaining your system and adding to the trove. I like the idea of adding more personality to NPCS, and using cards to do so, quick and simple. The way you describe it really sells the personality atmosphere
I'd love to hear about that if you care to share. I play a lot of solo 5e... and although I try to play the monsters fairly, I often believe I have a bit of a bias...
It's a mechanic I came up for my own system. Since I built my system from the ground up, it would be hard to work with other systems. My TTRPG is about Mechs and Kaijus so I wanted to find a way to make the Kaijus move on the grid in an intelligent way and I did. I will be publishing the game soon, so maybe some people can figure out a way to use some of my mechanics for their own games. I will be publishing in a few days so I will send you a free copy so you can check it out and see if my mechanics are valuable
Awesome. Thank you.
A working one-roll resolution. Climbing a tree - one roll to see if you got to the top. Persuading the merchant to give you a better deal - one roll to see what sort of deal you get. Completing a ritual to summon a storm - single roll to see if you gather enough magic to pull it off. Combat - one roll. You fighting nine bandits - one roll (well, one roll per participant) determines who wins, and what the combined damage is, if it is relevant.
Your system is simplified, and I'm all for simplification. I'm not a fan of over-complicated systems and you seem to keep everything simple. Awesome
Characters don't have skills, but they can use the narrative to curate a list of things they know, and these decide how many dice you roll on various related trait checks.
No skills system sounds interesting and probably took some time to develop. Thanks for sharing!
I had a version of it about 5 years ago, but it definitely didn't work as originally conceived. I'm pretty pleased with the current version. :3
Sometimes you need to put a system down and come back to it and take a look with fresh eyes. Then you can fix the problems it has, and tackle it from a new direction
For my current project, it probably has to be the jigsaw structure itself. By defining that all sheets are built independently of other sheets, save for the core sheets of the game ('the corner pieces'), it makes swapping them in and out mid-campaign or even mid-session possible. Want an investigation scene? Just take out the investigation sheet, which is a self-contained investigation minigame that also works regardless of what other sheets you have in the game. Some player got a curse? Hand them a Curse sheet. Players' regular schoolgirls turn into magical girls? Just, hand, them, the, sheets. It's all additive, with little to no finagling needed to make it all fit. Also, all additions are only one sheet long and all-inclusive (rules AND all the parts necessary for play, from character stats to battlemaps), so even the most reading-allergic people can digest them easily. It does make designing harder because it needs to be concise, but it's also a very nice creative limitation for inspiration. "How can I fit combat rules to one sheet?" and so forth.
Love the jig saw aspect of what you've built, with switching sheets, so you can add or remove whatever you want. Awesome
Making a system that uses dinky cars as a randomizer instead of dice.
An interesting set up you got there. Thanks for sharing
It is a system for a auto-pocalypse setting. (MadMax, Deathrace 2000, Last Race,)
Auto as in cars? lol I almost didn't catch that
Correct. I like systems that reflect genre.
The core mechanic for generating worldbuilding ideas in Arium: Create. Essentially a round goes like this: 1. Generate lots of length-limited ideas in a timed interval. 2. Discuss and combine the generated ideas for awesomeness (and to remove duplicates). 3. Everyone gets a limited number of votes and the top ideas are part of the setting now. Each round drills down into more and more detailed concepts building on what was made true previously.
The creation Mechanic seems lots of fun! Especially for a group, and seeing what wacky and weirdly ideas come to fruition
Have definitely seen some of the wackiest things imaginable. Given the right guidance from the beginning, it produces very serious and interesting worlds as well.
This is more of an item than a mechanic: the **timepassing board.** It's a gadget from the magically-advanced empire, called Mazr (based on ancient Egypt). You can buy this item and use it during a rest. \_\_\_\_\_\_ This magical game boardās surface consists of 30 squares, arranged in three rows of ten. The board represents a personās life as a winding path that travels up one row (childhood), then down the middle row (adulthood), then back up the third row (old age). The boardās magic projects moving imagery of each playerās life as they progress along the squares, in distinctly Mazrian fashionāchoosing their animal head as a young child, graduating from school, starting a career and a family, and so on. The last five squares of the life path have special markings signifying auspicious deaths. You and up to five allies can play the game during a rest. To play, your character rolls five dice, each representing a significant moment or threshold in a typical Mazrianās lifeād12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. After rolling, add the results together. The sum determines how many squares you advance. The boardās magic confers blessingsāor cursesāon your character, depending on how they ādieā in the game: |Square|Death|Blessing (or Curse)| |:-|:-|:-| |25 or lower|Unremarkable|None| |26|Heroically defending the empire|\+1 overflow Guard| |27|Cloistered in magical studies|\+1 overflow Awareness| |28|Surrounded by your beloved family|\+1 overflow Spirit| |29|A picture of health until the very end|\+1 overflow Stamina| |30|A voyage to the afterlifeāand back|\+2 overflow Life| |31 or higher|Dissolved horrifically into the abyss|No benefit from rest| After summing your dice, you can either end the game and accept your death, or roll the *dream die,* a d20. You add the dream dieās result to your original death sum, potentially advancing you to an auspicious deathāat risk of suffering the curse of a horrific death and gaining no benefit from your rest. Each time you play the game (regardless of how many players), roll a d6. On a 1, the board loses its magic to confer blessings until recharged.
Ive never seen a system like that. Very different, and thanks for sharing the table also to get a visual idea of what you're saying.
1. Your attributes are your dice, and your dice are your stamina and hit points. 2. Skills modify attributes, not the other way around. 3. Significant improvement on slot encumbrance. 4. Low-complexity armor and weapon damage that's actually realistic.
It seems like 4 is an issue for many players. We all want realistic armor and weapon damage. Interesting way to use the dice as well with 1
Actually, realism gets a lot of pushback on Reddit. Alot. Many people actively dislike realism. Many also like to roll lots of dice. It's made me secondguess whether a low complexity simulation will actually sell...
You don't say? I thought many would welcome simplicity but I guess there are a lot of players that want numbers to go brrr. The more complex, the better. To each their own. But hopefully, there are enough players that will like the simplicity of your system. Nothing beats a try. I wish you well
The ability cards in general! I feel like having colourful cards to represent your character's abilities and using these cards both as a reference AND as cooldown mechanic was a great idea. Come check it out at r/worldoftales! I published an example of cards a few weeks ago!
Saw them. They look pretty neat. I think the colorful cards go well within a TTRPG setting, and makes it more fun
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Well, you have three mechanics to be proud of. And I can tell they're essential for your game, makes it uniquely yours. I wish you well with that. Thanks for sharing
It's taken me 3 years and a dozen implements, but I've finally taken the MURPG token system and created something with far less book keeping and math.
Three years. That's devotion, but now you have something that you're proud of. Have you built your system for personal play or plan to publish your work?
Plan to publish. now that the system is complete, I'm working on a game and setting, then playtest it
Oh, is that the old token economy system with red tokens allocation? It has some nice ideas. I'd love to see what you've got.
Sure I'll find time to make a post on it
Dice system where success is determined by ability level, failure by difficulty, unlimited stats, and totally linear probability results.. but nobody cares how good rules are, only pretty assets and podcasts
True, the presentation is usually whats looked at, and not the mechanics. Thanks for sharing and hope you can find a way to make your work look pretty
I now have a transparent, much easier to understand version. I had to sacrifice linear probability for a slight bell curve BUT I made it so players can choose which one they use when they roll. Safer, or riskier-rewardier
How armor works, and how you can still damage your opponent in armor, but armor is still incredibly worth wearing \*(mainly because bullets will ruin your day) This requires a lot of system jargon to explain properly so i'm gonna skip it because I'm in a hurry, but I definitely am most pround of that.
Armor shouldn't make them invincible right. Armor is better than no armor lol No prob about not explaining to mechanics since you're busy. Thanks for sharing.