Chronicles - Tabletop Roleplaying - Development Thread
Daniel36:
I had to get a little used to the way you guys work here on this forum, but now I feel inspired to post what I have so far.
http://www.mediafire.com/?27b8b7b35ug8155
This is not a finished product yet, nor can it be used as is, but it shows my design philosophies. The thing that I find most difficult right now, and wich is holding me back, is the character sheet. I have immense difficulty with laying it out in a clear manner which makes it easy to check and makes sense. As such, the explanation of the stats is probably going to change a little, but not too much.
As you can read from this document, Chronicles is designed to be easy to play. I only use D6 dice, and I decided to couple the "to hit" phase in combat with the basic action table, so basically, if something is really easy it's a 2D6 roll of 4, easy is 5, normal is 7, difficult is 8 and very difficult 10. This way, there aren't many values you need to remember. I am most probably going for the same thing with the shooting to hit phase and the magic phase as well.
I changed my ideas about skills. Though this document says they can be found in a document called the "Old School Curriculum", I decided to go for a skill tree instead, so you can find what skills your Adventurer can learn on the Adventurer Sheet, and you have to make choices about what path to go. But I am not sure if that is the way I want to do it just yet. Am I going for a pure skill tree? Or am I going to give people the choice of mixing "branches" instead? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Let me know what you think. I would be more than happy to answer any questions.
Daniel36:
Couldn't get my mind off of it, and now I have this idea that I want to run by you guys.
I still want to make skill sets unique to Adventurers, but the whole skill tree idea just didn't feel right enough.
I came up with this idea. Adventurers each have a list of skills. These skills are divided into "levels" (for lack of a better term, hate the term though).
There are Level 0 Skills. You need the amount of Skills correspondent to the level to be able to buy them. So as soon as you buy one of those, you are entitled to Level 1 Skills. If you have a total of 2 Skills, you are entitled to Level 2 Skills, etcetera. You don't necessarily need a Level 2 Skill to be able to buy a Level 3 Skill, as long as you have a total of 3 Skills when you do.
The higher level skills are more powerful, but cost more Skill Points to use, so you can also choose to focus on the lower levels instead.
How does this sound to you guys?
Josh Porter:
Quote from: Daniel36 on August 18, 2011, 01:30:55 PM
Couldn't get my mind off of it, and now I have this idea that I want to run by you guys.
I still want to make skill sets unique to Adventurers, but the whole skill tree idea just didn't feel right enough.
...
How does this sound to you guys?
The obvious question that springs to mind for me is: "Why extra complexity?" Don't misunderstand, I LOVE complex rules and I like the sound of the idea. But I have to wonder what purpose it serves. I figure that it is probably to a) differentiate the characters by their skills, or b) make certain skills harder to achieve. I assume it more of A than B, but I could be wrong.
Is it integral the game's design to have disparate skills? Or is it just a way to make characters more specialized. And what kind of skills are available at higher levels?
Daniel36:
Hey Josh, thanks for the question.
The skills (and spells, which in this sense are skills as well) are there to give the different Adventurers a bit of colour. They are special attacks, so to speak. So it is indeed a) to differentiate characters and give them specific roles within the party.
I haven't yet thought of enough skills to give them, other than the spells for the Flame Wizard, one of the first four characters that I am going to release.
You see, characters are all going to be pre-generated. Leveling up is also pre-generated. Weapon levels are pre-generated, and the skills and spells that players get to choose from are also pre-generated. However, what isn't pre-generated is the skills that players are going to choose. I want to set a max of skills choosable from the list, so they have to think about which path they are going to take.
Am I going to give my Flame Wizard a minor healing spell so he can pitch in when needed? Or am I going to give him a far more powerful flame blast spell to give him even more oomph? Very broadly speaking, you have two types of skills. The offensive and defensive ones, and it is up to the player what kind of warrior he wants to create from these.
So, it's not really added complexity as much as it is the only way to create different types of warriors within the choices. So it adds a bit of flavour. Most of these skills are going to be damage dealing or damage reduction, though I am more than open to any other suggestions.
Come to think of it, here are the four starter Adventurers. I would love for everyone to come up with suggestions for fun attacks and skills to give them.
Human Mercenary
– Sword and shield
Dwarf Adventurer
– Dwarf Axe
Elf Hunter
– Bow and Hunter Knife
Human Flame Wizard
– Staff
Aside from Shatter Armour for the Dwarf Adventurer, which destroys the opponent's DEF roll (Armour Save), and the Mercenary's Charging Smash, which does double damage when activated while charging the opponent, and the Fireball attack, Fire Wall defense and minor Healing Hand spell for the Flame Wizard, I haven't really been able to come up with cool skills. Another I just came up with is Piercing Shot for the Hunter, which I suppose will half the enemy's DEF roll...
So basically I am looking for skills such as these to outfit the Adventurers with. Perhaps I can also add things like “Strength” which just gives you an added D6 damage bonus...
But I am open to cool suggestions. Just give a general description of what it does and I will translate it to things that work mechanically.
Thanks in advance.
Josh Porter:
Cool!
So skills in this sense are more along the lines of 4e powers or Apocalypse World special moves. Please forgive my preconceived notions of what skills are. You have challenged my assertions!!!
I think every good dwarf should have some type of "solid as a rick" type ability. Perhaps a skill in which the dwarf doubles his armor and reduces his movement to a minimum?
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