#mol ttrpg

[ersetu-gazette]

*bursts into the room with a ruffled lab coat, my hair a mess, and soot covering my face* "I HAVE DISCOVERED THE ANSWER!"

So I had an epiphany to solve an issue with making a MoL ttrpg that I've been struggling with for like 3 days.

So generally speaking there's 2 types of "skill systems" that I enjoy. One is like pathfinder 1e where on level up you get a certain number of points (called ranks) that you can put into skills that you need. You can only have a number of ranks in any skill equal to your level so you have to pace yourself and there are crunchy ways to increase the total bonus to skill rolls. Things like feats, class abilities, and "class skills" all help in allowing you to maximize the number. I like the degree of player control and agency in this type of system. I don't like how out of control the bonuses can sometimes get and how disconnected from the narrative it can be. "Oh on level up in the middle of this dungeon I realized how necessary climb is so I'm investing all my ranks into it and shooting up to max capabilities. So now the wizard went from falling from every rope to freeclimbing a sheer cliff face." That can be . . . weird. The other skill system is the sort of "use the skills to boost them" method. In some systems you fail a check with a skill you earn xp you can spend to increase that skill. In another every success you get to mark on your sheet and at the end you make a roll and if you roll above that skill number then you get to bump it up. All sorts of ways of doing it. It's a very narrative system that makes sense. There's actually one where you need to get a number of successes AND failures equal to your ranks already before you're allowed to upgrade it. You need to fail and practice to improve right? That makes sense. But I'm hesitant to implement it into my vision of a MoL ttrpg. For one thing, it works best in a levelless system. My idea of MoL ttrpg has levels, I can't abandon that yet. And secondly, I don't like that the only way for players to showcase agency is by trying to fish/grind for situations to trigger the upgrade.

So how do I balance my want for levels, player agency, gameplay that encourages practice without grinding, and a system to support the method? How do I let players enact the "fantasy" of honing their shaping skills without it being busted or narratively dissonant?

And then I found it: apparently in Dark Eye 4e whenever you crit (succeed or fail) a skill check the price to upgrade the skill during point buy decreases! I think this would be perfect! If you use a skill more often you're more likely to crit and decrease the cost, but you don't get the boost immediately! You still have some player agency during level up to assign points to new skills you're bad at but you can't immediately become an expert in something with no practice!

I could also implement a downtime rule so that if you just don't get crits and the gm allows you to make time you can just earn the point decrease with dedicated practice between adventures.

There's still some tweaking that probably needs to be done to make it more streamlined and balanced, but I really like this core idea and I had to talk about it in some way.

Now the question is: do I keep this only for shaping skills like I originally intended, or do I combine this with the non-magical skills under the same system for simplicity's sake? Because originally I wanted the magic system skills to be separated from the non-magical skills to highlight the mechanical differences in play, but I really like this idea and think it would fit for "mundane" skills like stealth and bartering.

[ersetu-gazette]

I wonder if there would be any value in specifically making two ttrpg systems for MoL.

One where everything is as crunchy as I feel like a system can handle: with hundreds of spells, shaping stats, ways to modify casting, etc. Just something insane where there is a book of all the spells and spellcasting trees in full, separate from the "core" rules.

And the *other* being a much more toned down, streamlined system, both in general but most specifically with spellcasting. Like instead of millions of spells it's just templates like "missile, beam, cone, direct targeting" and you applying the effects/damage types that you've unlocked.

I naturally gravitate towards the first system style, at least in terms of what interests me as a player/gm if I wanted to simulate the world of Ersetu, but things being too granular might not be more enjoyable for fans of MoL that don't want to do spreadsheet macros and memorize a lot of rules. Should there be a way to make a MoL-inspired system that don't enjoy that style of play?

[ersetu-gazette]

Brainstorming the Mother of Learning TTRPG

So every once in awhile there are forum posts or questions asked about what tabletop roleplaying system would be best for playing in the Ersetu universe. Usually I say that something like Pathfinder or D&D 3.5e would be best because they are the most popular rpgs that MoL at the very least alludes to, with a crunchy gameplay style that the narrative references. There's obvious deep complexity and lots of magic spells. At one point Zorian wonders out loud why some first circle spells aren't 0 circle spells because they don't seem to be more complex and the other character says "marketing" (read: a joke about spell balance). And any missing components could easily fixed with homebrew and hacks (my opinion at the time).

But as I explore more indie ttrpgs and otherwise step further outside of D&D hegemony I realize that it might be that there is a more appropriate ttrpg out there for Mother of Learning. So let's go over the wishlist of what I think might be needed for the system to emulate the world of Ersetu correctly:

Core Mechanics:

Spell points instead of spell slots, no vancian magic.

Partial spell point regeneration in about an hour, mages have options other than needing a full 8 hours to recharge.

Class and character options are mostly magic user focused. No fighters with normal swords. The only martial users of note is a sword user using an obviously magical sword (and also did magic themselves iirc?), and the gun users that individually can't do much: they're only a threat in numbers.

Crunchy and extremely deep range of spells.

Magic item crafting that allows for simple things like spellcasting aides up to complex stuff like automatons.

Counterspelling and dispelling is a core thing most mages are expected to do.

The more the better wishlist:

(These mechanics aren't all necessary but at least some are needed)

Bloodlines and unique abilities reducing spell point cap (how it's done, whether that's through the "vanilla" classes just being assigned more or that taking bloodline feats outright reduces, doesn't exactly matter. As long as it's balanced somehow)

Magic defenses being divided into body, mind, and soul.

The expectation for players is that they're all humans. Shifters and Morlocks seem to be types of humans, cultures and races (shifter might be a class), as opposed to a fully different species like an elf.

Capped base ability scores and spell point growth. No Hercules with a magic pool that continues to grow after hitting the cap. Instead progression past early levels is using what you have more efficiently.

Epic/Mythic optional system to represent the divine abilities/items. (ex. Zach's special mana reserves, the divine crown, high level angels with access to divinity, etc.)

And a skills system that can be invested in.

So, is there a "perfect" ttrpg system we can use for Ersetu? Or are there systems that work better than others that we might need to homebrew?

[ersetu-gazette]

I've been thinking about the mol fan ttrpg design, and this might be a bit weird to those who recognize MoL as very much inspired by D&D, but I'm considering for the main "attributes" dropping strength as a stat. Or maybe rolling it into the constitution/fortitude equivalent.

Because, let's be honest: Does how much you lift actually matter to most mages? And with the ttrpg trying to capture the experience most characters (all magic users in this case) will have in the Ersetu world, why should physical strength take up such real estate as the main stats? Sure, I could imagine at lower levels your ability to punch or swing a weapon being useful, when novice mages are still taking two rounds to invoke a spell you can run up and stab them and ruin their focus, but at higher levels? It's much less important.

I think characters should still have the option to be martial arts/weapon user mages if they want that fantasy (Hey, we all like the "combines magic with traditional fighting" archetype) but in my opinion it would make more sense to delegate "unarmed combat" or maybe "weapon fighting" to its own skill in the "non spellcasting" area.

[ersetu-gazette]

So, if I'm going to try to make a fan ttrpg about everyone being a mage, I want to talk about how spellcasting could work.

As a casual fan of ttrpgs and one that's been sifting through other people's magic systems I would say, very broadly speaking, there's about two relevant "ways" to being a spellcaster. There are obviously more but these are closest to how MoL spellcasting could work imo.

The first and most renown way is spell lists. Either you pick a class that has certain types, you randomly get access to spells based on tables, or you study and learn spells. Spells say what they do and do what they say, with no ability to twist or do improv. A wizard can't go all of a sudden "I cast burning hands but spend more spell points to keep the cone of fire continuously shooting out of my hands for multiple turns!"

This method isn't as popular in "all magic user" systems it seems, and for good reason. If the main fantasy of being an all wizard party is delving into the secrets of magic, then all the answers being what is plainly stated in the rulebook is . . . not a great way to fulfill that fantasy. However, Ersetu's magic largely functions based on this model of "structured magic," so this needs to be kept in some form or another. There needs to be motivation for learning spells from ancient scrolls and keeping them secret from other mages after all.

The second method, found in the most popular "all wizards" games is the what I call, "creative formula" in Ars Magica. In games like this, the method of casting magic is more based on generalized "spheres" or "schools" of magic combined by or limited by other aspects of the pc related to how they can actually manifest magic. For example, Ars Magica uses the famous "noun and verb" system where if you want to make a fireball you use the "create" sphere and combine it with the "fire" sphere and create fire, in the form of an explosion. There are other ways to design the fomula but that's the gist of it.

This, I think, works very well for unstructured magic (shaping), but with how hard, methodical, and limited unstructured magic means that if I were to implement this method, the formula for casting unstructured and expanding your skill will have to be very carefully balanced. For example, it makes sense for you to be able to use alteration magic with the verb "destroy" to crumble up a rock, but I don't think a novice mind mage should be able to as easily use the verb with mind magic. There needs to be either limits to what verbs/forms one can use with what schools of magic and/or varying levels of difficulty depending on the combo. Like for example, at level 2 you can combine the verb for "mimic" with the alteration school and make one statue resemble another, but you can't do that with, say, soul magic.

With this in mind, I think the best option is to actually have two "separate" systems of magic at the same time. Structured magic would be something that is the most easy and straightforward thing to learn. You automatically progress a decent amount with level ups and other than managing the eventual large list of spells you know, is very easy.

Shaping however I imagine as something that you have to actively practice and invest in to get gameplay benefits outside of minor tricks. Could have a skill tree of methods and tiers of power level tied to each type of magic to allow for more and more creative freedom the more you invest in it. But I imagine the speed of it would be much much slower compared to "standard" casting, and maybe not even able to reach the same ceiling of raw power/capability as structured casting. Probably have to calculate how much downtime it takes to increase a shaping skill/unlock a technique, and also adjust that formula depending on which type of magic you're learning and if you have a bloodline/are a species specialized in that. Like say Veyers with elemental (fire) magic and aranea with mind magic.

This probably tripled the amount of work I'll have to do to make this balanced (and make it fun for players) but I can't quite imagine it working any other way.