(High Fantasy) First Thoughts for a new system
opsneakie:
Well, I'm not sure how to feel about spending your stamina/exhaustion up front - it's honestly something I haven't thought about, so I'll need to consider it for a while longer. I'm trying to decide if it would be too punishing to players, especially when they miss. It would instill some sensible risk-taking in them, though. If your potential for dealing big damage and taking big damage are linked, you don't want to overextend too hard, for fear of messing up and getting stomped flat.
I talked over the system with a couple of friends, and the system we were toying around with was this: Junk attributes completely, just let your skills be descriptive enough (pretty much exactly what you were saying about the brawny blacksmith), and instead of having skills and items both be a modifier, we were toying with keeping gear as a modifier, and having skills control the die size of a roll. So an unskilled peasant would roll a d4, all the way up to the greatest master of a skill rolling a d20. Meanwhile, most weaponry would give you a +1, while the greatest artifacts might give as high as a +5 or better. I'm wondering still about better ways to handle things.
Another one of the mechanics I have been thinking about is doing roll and keep stuff. I've always liked the idea of it, but never found a chance to slot it into anything I was playtesting. Maybe the quality of equipment could let a player roll their skill die a greater number of times, essentially giving you more chances to do well.
Sun & Storm looks really fascinating, but I haven't really had time to dive into it yet. I'm hoping to run a couple combat playtests, possibly with some of the different rule ideas you've brought up here. I think, when all's said and done, I'll have a really enjoyable system on my hands. I'll post back after I've tested out the die size skills with modifier equipment. If that doesn't turn out too well, I think I'll try the stamina pool up front spending next.
Alfryd:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 22, 2012, 09:01:34 PM
2. You should think carefully about the difference between mechanics and Color. Let me give you an old-school AD&D example. Now, everyone likes to bitch about and poke fun at those hit points, especially the way you're supposed to be a bad-ass veteran (first level) with 7 on a good roll, and then at 5th you're running around with maybe 30, and at 10th, say, 60 or 70. Cue all the japes about how the high-level characters get shot up with fifty arrows and don't blink, then and now.
My point is that all the jokers were and are morons. I've got plenty to criticize about every iteration of D&D, but that's one mistake the rules don't make. Instead, according to the AD&D Player's Guide (1979), what people mistakenly call "First Edition," Gygax is wonderfully clear about what hit points are. They are literally story armor (not his words), indicating that the same fatal damage inflicted on a minor character would not touch a higher-level character the same way, resullting in a mere scratch (his words).
Speaking as one of these morons, I remain skeptical that Gygax's interpretation was remotely supported by anything else in the rules he wrote. (To give but one example: healing spells usually take *longer* to restore the ostensible 'cuts and bruises' of the veteran than they do the near-disembowelment of the hapless novice. Never mind what happens when you immerse them both in molten magma.) And I'm not sure sustaining fifty shallow grazes in the course of one duel strains credulity less than fifty arrows in the back.
I can agree with your contention that Hit Points could be seen as a starting point for the evolution of more abstract conflict-resolution mechanics (e.g, faction disposition in Burning Empires,) and I fully concur that trying to squeeze out every last detail of descriptive colour on a rules-only basis is staring into a bottomless, yawning abyss. But I don't think the implications on colour made by ever-increasing, character-specific HP as a literal-minded survival-meter can be so easily glossed over.
Quote from: opsneakie on March 22, 2012, 06:08:43 PM
How do I make a single roll that covers hit and damage, and involves a character's stats, skills, and gear? Ideally, all of those should make a difference, but I also want things to flow quickly enough for combat to flow nicely.
I seem to recall from the site review that Zero had a resolution mechanic that essentially settled everything by rolling 2d6 and multiplying them together versus a target obstacle, with appropriate mods for skills, gear, etc. I imagine Ron knows more about it, though.
Daniel B:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 26, 2012, 07:52:36 AM
Quote
Exhaustion I want to stay, since I really like the thought of having the characters simply drop from exhaustion at some point, just being too worn out to fight. It also means things can cost an exhaustion point, if I decide to have powers or something of that type.
Have you thought about flipping it around, so that instead of an attached bank of endurance (the usual method), have a character's raw effectiveness (chance to hit, damage, whatever is the primary consequential mechanic in the game) be driven specifically by the effort put in? In other words, instead of doing X and therefore having to check off how much X costs, start by saying how much you’re putting into it, and that number sets up all kinds of things like chance to hit and damage, or even defense as well. You could even say that how much effort you put in even raises the risk of how much damage you could take …
H’m, let me brainstorm. My character has Endurance 20. I spend 5, which gives me a nice solid chance to hit + level of damage inflicted on hit, but it also means that if I get hit, I’ll take more damage than if I’d just put in 1 or 2. Never mind the numbers exactly, but I hope you can see how I’ve made effort and exhaustion the centerpiece of strategy – i.e., they simply have to do it, the question is how much – without turning the characters into total wusses, or forcing them to track secondary number pools. It basically lets the characters dig their own graves depending on how badly they want something, and includes the enjoyable effect that they’ll fight only when they really mean it.
Interesting idea, Ron..
opsneakie, mind if I steal this? No guarantees I'll use it but I'd like it on my plate of options.
Daniel B
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