New game? Thoughts on building ones own rules for RPG

So, I have played role playing games since 1977. While my introduction to RPGs was through the D&D white box edition,  I have played and or read many, many other games. All too often I find something in every game that I like, but I never find one game that I like in its entirety. It is of course an endless quest, this search for the perfect game. Yet over all these years I always hold out hope that I will find the Holy Grail of games.

Part of the challenge comes from the very idea of game systems. A lot of games take me out of the role playing experience with  

Ruminations about task resolution (RATeR) 2024

Thinking out loud here...

I think all existing systems involve a die (or more) roll against a set difficulty number.

Often the die/dice involved can create quite the variable range of results.

• Percentage games typically have you roll under your skill level (expressed as a percentage) Modifiers, difficulty, situational, can reduce that percentage chance of success.

• D20 has the player roll a D20 (plus modifiers) to achieve a result that exceeds a target number. Typically there is also a take 10 or take 20 rule that allows you to take extra time at the task, not roll the D20 and instead simply add 10 or 20 points to your other modifiers to beat the target number.

• FATE has a target number & die rolls generating -4/+4 & with situational modifiers. The stats are typically from 0 to 5 but can go as high as 10.

• Dice pools allow player to roll multiple dice to achieve a result. Often each die roll has a simple success/fail result, maybe 50/50. To complete task you will need x number of successes.

• Dice pools with unique dice, similar to above but one looks at all symbols on all rolled dice. Symbols on dice not only show success but also provide events or positive results that can be carried forward. Dice pools. Need to roll enough ‘successes’ to complete task. May spend extra successes to have a more outstanding completed task. May save some successes as momentum for future tasks. If failed to complete task may ‘spend’ (remove) dice to boost success. Once spent cannot use again until refreshed.

• Apocalypse system 2d6 rolls plus stat roll 10+ full success, roll 7-9 success but..., 6 or less fail. Sometimes there are success options that you can choose , you may choose more or better depending on the die roll.

All of these systems have a game mechanic that can take one out of the conversation to play a game some are worse than others.

Our task is again to figure out a simple system that allows players/GM to know what a character can do, rather than to overly rely on random dice rolls.

Assess risk, difficulty, time and resolve the task.

What is meant by difficulty number? How does it relate to the players ability/skills?

Most systems have the difficulty impacting the resolution. It can impact the target number or impact the skill level. Why? Not familiar with any system that simply grants success when one compares ability vs difficulty.

Difficulty level should show the skill level required to treat the task as a common task.

• If the skill level exceeds the difficulty level then the task can be successfully completed in the normal amount of time. Limited chance of failure (if any) unless a distraction or some other consideration.

• If the skill level equals the difficulty then there is a chance of failure (increased by distractions)

Skill level vs difficulty

Skill 2x or more than difficulty = auto success

Skill is equal to or higher (but not 2x) = auto success but with chance of random splunge x2

Difficulty is greater than skill (but not 2x) = must roll to succeed chance of critical failure/splunge x4

Difficulty 2x or more than skill = must roll to succeed high critical failure chance & splunge x6

Difficulty more than 2x automatic fail (maybe fate points can help)

Splunge; roll fate die (-1/-1/0/0/+1/+1) could be bad, good or neither good or bad. This would mean success but..., or failure but...Splunge does not create failure or success but creates an effect. So you picked the lock but made noise, or it took longer or it took less time etc

Distractions/obstacles

These can impact any skill roll even auto success.

Options

• Make it more difficult to succeed, meaning a roll even for automatic successes

• Add time to task

• Cause a complication

Return to Cthulhu?

 

So, it has been a while since the gaming trio has gotten together on ROLL20 for a session, but hopefully this week e can get together and maybe come close to ending the scenario. We are playing Regiment of Dread from the Tales of the Miskatonic Valley adventure book.

It is a straight forward adventure and I like the theme. There is a certain amount of railroading in the adventure but I hope to avoid making it too obvious.

RPGaDay 2023 questionaire

 

 So, I am a little late seeing this, but I figure what the hey lets take a run at it.

RPG updates

 

 So, I am actually playing a game as a player. It has been a long time since I have been a player.  It is good to be just a player, no stress, no prep work just show up and play, great! We are using Cepheus for the operating system which really is just Mongoose Traveller. There are some minor changes but not enough to really notice. maybe in the deluxe version there are enough changes but to my mind it looks like the same rules with a new cover. Whatever. I am enjoying the game!!

Now I have run a session of Barbarians of Lemuria and I enjoyed running it. It is a quick and easy system to run and inspires one to run simple straight forward action adventures. I can see playing this for a while, but, I have started to look at running a D&D game, most likely with 5th ed. The main reason is that I feel I would like to run a dungeon crawl high hit point game, or series of games. 

Hit points are something that I have had mixed feelings about. D&D always seemed rather silly with all the hit points that a character could have. The disconnect between weapon damage and hit points is at it's most extreme in D&D. Just try slitting the throat of a 12th level character. You would typically have to saw away at the throat for a few turns to maybe kill them. Your average hero could be a pin cushion given the relatively low damage done by crossbows. But, even with these fault there is some aspect of it that I sort of like. I do feel heroes should be larger than life. I do like to see them suffer damage and not die. They keep on going despite the wounds. In contrast to this are some of the games I have recently played. Bol has very low hit point vs the potential for high damage. Heroes could be dropped by two blows. While that may be closer to reality it does cause a player to be very concerned about survival vs adventure and daring do.

The other games that I have recently played, Pulp Fantastic & Traveller also have low hit points and weapons that can easily kill off a hero. Both systems have players subtract points from their characters stats whenever they get wounded. In Pulp Fantastic you start losing functionality of that stat. So take 2 points of damage from your strength means the next time you use your strength you will do it it with 2 fewer points. Certainly simulates the weakening of a character as they take damage, but really has too big an impact. Take a wound and see your chances of doing something decrease. Now because you fail you have a greater risk of taking more damage and you will rapidly find yourself in a rapid decline that only plot points can save you, but even those only go so far. I do like Pulp Fantastic, but it does have it's problems that I may go into a greater detail sometime.

Right now I think it is time for a simple (simplistic) game of D&D, a game where players can just be heroes and I can just roll damage with no worries about what damage I dish out. 

Barbarians of Lemuria

 

 So taking this out for a spin! I plan to make this the rule set for a spinoff of our ongoing Pulp Fantastic game. The original plan was to use this while characters adventured in H.P. Lovecraft's dream lands. I figured it would be a nice diversion from the 1930s and offer a rules light fun sword and sorcery mini campaign.

Now I have started reading the Lin Carter books and naturally my thoughts start drifting towards running something in Lemuria proper. Maybe a hybrid will work, where portals will allow movement between the realms, maybe Lemuria is just another dream land...

Whatever I do it too will be on Roll20, my preferred way to role play.

Working on super hero RPG gaming

 This time it might really work!

I have decided to try FATE as the game system with Venture City providing most of the framework for powers. I may also make use of some of the ideas in Daring comics and also the origins, and playbooks from Worlds in Peril.

I really like the simplicity of Venture City, very quick and easy to build a character. The playbooks in WiP offer a path to explore the nature of the hero character to avoid the game just becoming a very long fight sequence.

 

Superhero 2021-2022

Skills [22]	Summary	Overcome	Create advantage	Attack	Defend
Athletics	General level of physical fitness, whether through training, natural gifts, or genre-specific means	X	X		X
Bureaucracy	Dealing with red tape. Laws etc	X	X	X	X
Burglary	Aptitude for stealing things and getting into places that are off-limits.	X	X
Contacts	Networking, making, maintaining connections	X	X		X
Deceive	Lying to and misdirecting people.	X	X		X
Drive	Operating vehicles and things that go fast	X	X	X	X
Empathy	Knowing/being able to spot changes in a person’s mood or bearing. The emotional Notice skill	X	X		X
Fists	Unarmed combat, including natural weapons, claws teeth, improvised items.	X	X	X	X
Investigate	To find things out through concentrated effort and in-depth scrutiny.	X	X
Knowledge	Knowledge and education	X	X
Notice	Ability to pick out details at a glance, and other powers of observation.	X	X		X
Physique	Natural physical aptitudes, such as raw strength and endurance	X	X		X
Pilot	Navigate vehicles through 3 dimensional environment, air, water, space	X	X	X	X
Provoke	Getting someone’s dander up eliciting a negative emotional response fear, anger, shame, etc.	X	X	X
Rapport	Making positive connections to people and eliciting positive emotion.	X	X		X
Resources	General level of material wealth in the game world and ability to apply it.	X	X	X	X
Science	Understanding & competence with the scientific method	X	X
Shoot	Ranged weaponry, either in a conflict or on targets that don’t actively resist your attempts to shoot	X	X	X	X
Stealth	To avoid detection, both when hiding in place and when trying to move about unseen	X	X		X
Technical	Practical ability to create, maintain & repair things	X	X	X	X
Weapons	Fight in close quarters with weapons	X	X	X	X
Will	General level of mental fortitude, the same way that Physique represents your physical fortitude.	X	X	X	X

The Basic Game Actions

Overcome:

• True to its name, you tackle some kind of challenge, engaging task, or hindrance related to your skill.

Create an Advantage:

• Whether you’re discovering something that already exists about an opponent or creating a situation that helps you succeed, creating advantages allows you to discover and create aspects, and lets you get free invocations of them.

Attack:

• You try to harm someone in a conflict. That harm may be physical, mental, emotional, or social in nature.

Defend:

• You try to keep someone from harming you, getting past

Starting skill levels, powers etc

All players start with 15 skills rated from +1 to +5. (A total of 35 points)

1 skill at +5

2 skills at +4

3 skills at +3

4 skills at +2

5 skills at +1

The remainder are at 0

Talisman Adventures review

 

                                            Well this was unexpectedly good, go figure!

Well on a stupid whim, I decided to pick up this game just the other day. It is based on a tedious, pointless boardgame that I used to play in my more youthful days, back when I did not know any better. So what could go wrong with making an RPG out such a vacuous boardgame? Well everything! But, somehow the creators of this game managed to embrace many of the aspects of the world created for the boardgame, yet at the same time have sidestepped the limitations of the boardgame.

Enemy Rocket Ships

 

Our stalwart heroes will be going up against these. The bomber will be delivering the Purple Death to the planet Earth if the Earth does not capitulate.

The cruiser is the main workhorse of the Moon, while the heavy cruiser is a larger upgraded cruiser with more guns and a bigger crew.

These were done on Inkarnate, using de-saturated, and increased brightness, wooden ship templates that were also stretched, and narrowed.
 

update to the Rocket ship

I went back to the project and came up with this.

 This works much better. The old version will be changed to become a grav-sled.

 

Well it looks like the Moon Men are set to invade the Earth...

 looks like we will need a rocket ship to hold them off. cue Dr Zarkoff...

This is my test to see what Inkarnate can do with something less fantasy, I think it worked out well.

It is a cutaway image of mans first rocket ship to take them to the Moon!

First attempt at translation of RPG session into a comic