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Game Building: Maximizing Generic Power
There are a lot of great generic (read: setting & genre agnostic) tabletop RPGs out there. Savage Worlds. FATE. Cypher System. Fuzion. Genesys. Open Legend. Tide Breaker. The list goes on. But why aren’t these games dominating the scene? Why have they remained niche, forever runners-up in the hobby? Well, let’s dive into it. Background Generic RPGs have existed almost as long as the hobby has,…
Brainstorming Creacher Looks For the Bug Game
Rogue
Knight
Wizard
Warlock
Cleric
did 3 more characters fleshed today
7//12 designs done
[18.05.24]
Am trying to write a D&D oneshot that is based in a city that is designed to be deliberately submerged under the ocean every 100 years and be rebuilt on top of itself.
The main gameplay would be based on diving beneath the city and retrieving the things people forgot as they packed the essentials and heirlooms for the sinking ceremony.
On skills
So in muddling over the idea of making a BPRD LARP, the idea of skills has been lurking in my head. To me, skills don’t define the mechanics of a game but work with them and enhance them allowing a character to do something within the rules that they wouldn’t normally be able to do. They make a character more than just a backstory and personality.
What I am running into is my brain goes to a class based thing with each class having a list of skills available and then there being a list of more generic things like weapon use and the like. Things anyone could know then having the lists that would be tailored to a class.
I think in that I am thinking too large again. I am basing my leanings off of LARPs of a fairly large scale both in terms of time range and in terms of player population.
What I am thinking of doing is making a big-ish list of skills that players can choose from and build their character. They would have either a certain number of points to spend and each skill would cost some of those points (more points for a more powerful skill) or have it be even simpler: A player gets like say 5 slots. Each skill takes up 1 slot. Therefore they have to choose 5 skills to start with. Each event they would get 1 new slot to add a new skill which could be used the next event. So Player A decides to learn Skill A in Event 1, They would then be able to use it during Event 2 where they would earn another slot, and so on. The trick would be to cap the number of slots or to start to space them out more to prevent some one from knowing all the skills in the game because that becomes OP and I don’t want that. I want a game that will be fun and challenging, not where just the people that have been doing this the longest can do anything.
Amtgard is fairly straight forward with the class/skills thing. You have a class of X level, which means you have access to a definate list of skills particular to that class (mostly). Doomsday uses a point buy system that the longer you play the less points you earn each event. First couple are like 5 build points, then 4, then 3 then 2 then going 1/event. Which helps keep characters from becoming just completely OP in a super short amount of time.
Personally, I’m leaning more towards the slot mechanic and having some small skill trees: Where you have like a basic skill, then a mid-range skill, and then a higher grade skill and each next grade requires you know the previous one. For example: Say there was a knowledge skill tree. It could be like Knowledge (Basic Mechines) which any one can grab, then there would be Knowledge (Adv. Machines) which would require knowing Knowledge (Basic Machines) and then Knowledge (Expert Machines) which would require Knowledge (Adv. Machines).
And not all skills would be active, by which I mean some hand/arm motion and/or calling something, but passives are also a good idea because then it doesn’t devolve into a bunch of shouting and crazy gesturing. Well, given the source material it could but that would be a sign something has gone amiss.
I feel like doing either point-buy or slot skills is the way to go and making just one list for a player to build from is a better idea. I am over thinking things again. It does mean I may have to raise a cap of a health style stat I was thinking of just to even things out, but I can live with that. It also means forgoing any ideas of a class set up later on, unless I do it as just a healt-stat booster and no set of skills particular to it.
Something else that Doomsday does that I am ripping off...I mean paying homage to, is a set of skills that are kind of on the darker, meaner side that require the player to make a sacrifice of a health-stat in order to begin to learn. In Doomsday, these are Dirty Tricks and for races that aren’t considered “Others” the initial one, Killing Blow, costs nothing in build but it costs 1 Tether (A stat that helps determine how well you come back from dieing). I like that idea. You give up something but you gain so much more out of it. In this case I might call it like Dark Arts (that is what is currently in my head) and they would be things like Exocutions and Forced Injections and things like that.
Now to create a list of skills then to figure out some other fine tuning bits...
Character: Shian
Name: Shian Otem Brashen Age: 17 Sex: M Gender: Man Height: 5' 10" Weight: 172 lbs Race: Merhian Place of Birth: Kall, Merh, Ozkuran (raised on Phi 8) Date of Birth: YPR 255 Occupation: Student Ship: None Alignment: Good ("Shit's fucked up, and I wanna help!) Languages Spoken: English, Ozkuran, Colonial Basic [Phi] Shian, along with his sibling, was born on Ozkuran, but later moved to Phi 8. He recently finished his basic education courses, and has moved into studying Applied Magic Theory. He has considered joining Lore as a merchant or perhaps becoming a spellweaver (something he's quite interested in). He is a primary character. What can Shian do for your party? -Cast offensive and defensive spells. -His magic concentration is high. -His moderate agility means his turn comes up almost as frequently as Lore's
Character: Pearse
Name: Pearse (last name unknown) Age: 31 Sex: M Gender: Man Height: 3' Weight: 42 lbs Race: Koala Place of Birth: Colony Delta 92 Date of Birth: YPR 241 Occupation: Pirate Ship: Black Death Alignment: Neutral ("I 'int on anybody's side but m'own!") Languages spoken: English, Colonial Basic [Delta] Pearse was born in one of the many overcroweded colonies (Delta 92) to Vargos and Myl, two low-tier workers. After finishing his basic courses, he took up piloting and took to running cargo ships, but ultimately taking to pilaging breakdowns and selling on the black market. He isn't ashamed to be a pirate; he rather enjoys it, actually. What can Pearse do for the party? -Shuttle them to and fro, until a ship is acquired -Act as a temporary party member -Act as an access point to the black market ("This Lore one, I like him." "I'm not a him." "Oh. Well, I still like ya.")
