Community-built game - Rules thread

[Lunaroki]

Yeah, I'm still around. Just haven't been able to focus much the past few days due to headaches. I think I've got a handle on what's been causing the headaches though so I should be able to start participating in this process again shortly. Just as soon as I figure out what the heck you just said with all that skills and dice-rolling stuff.

BTW, does it bug anyone else what you have to check your ability to do backflips when you go to pick locks? The whole Agility/Dexterity thing has always bugged me. The way it always struck me is Agility is gymnastics and Dexterity is brain surgery. You wouldn't want an olympic gymnast operating on your brain, right? It just seems like the two skills should be separate, not mashed together into one mutant conglomeration.

[Dustman]

Hmm... you present a point, but how many attributes do we really want in the game? It might be more realistic to have Agi and Dex as separate scores, but then you'd have one more stat to worry about balancing points in. Gamewise, it makes sense that the character who's pumping up dexterity so he can pick locks, disarm traps, and do all those other useful thief-y things, should be rewarded with enhanced agility so she can more easily dodge attacks and booby-traps. It might not make sense in the real world, but it keeps things balanced, rather than punishing someone for taking a career that doesn't focus on high hit-points. Besides, gymnastic feats or what-have you, juggling, lock-picking and yes, surgery, all rely to a good degree on hand-eye coordination, and a slightly lesser degree on keen reflexes. That being said, no, I wouldn't want an olympic gymnast operating on my brain; then again, I wouldn't want a master locksmith, pinhead painter or a clockmaker doing it either. All four probably have the coordination for it, but not the training.

Did that make sense? I know what I was trying to say, but my mind's all fuzzled. I've gotten like, forty-five minutes of sleep in the last 26 hours, so forgive me if I'm somewhat... um... aphasic. Suffice to say I can empathize with your mental state right now.

On the other hand, you could balance out a larger number of attributes by making each one cheaper to buy. In the point-buy system I played before, ability scores and skills had the same cost chart, with the exception that skills got cheaper with higher intelligence. For that matter, if we wanted to get really wacky we could dismiss attributes entirely and have nothing but skills--but that would totally shatter the magic/ki system I'm so terribly fond of, and would probably have other nasty effects.

I'll talk more later; I'm gonna use the bathroom and take a nap.

[Dustman]

*Grumble grumble* Another double-post *Grumble grumble*

Okay, I've made out a rough draft of a blank character sheet. For the weapon slots section, the basic idea is that you put a letter in each slot to represent what you're spending it on. A for accuracy, D for damage, or an appropriate letter for a special ability: you get the picture. The Atr. column for skills stands for attribute; i.e., which one is the skill associated with. The Spc. Column is the total number of specialized class levels you have in that skill.

Thoughts?

[Narf the Mouse]

Doh! Missed the deletion by three days. Anyway, apology accepted and sorry for the delay.

In the meantime, I have to rescue my brain. Fanfiction has it and won't let it go...

[Dustman]

Reading over my ramblings on the dice rolls for skills, it would seem that it warrants an example; I even confused myself a little bit. So here it goes.

Let's say Rudy is a level 5 thief with 17 agility. This means that, at a maximum, he could attempt to pick locks with a difficulty of 22. He has purchased 10 grades in the lockpicking skill, and as such can re-flip up to 10 coins on any given attempt. He also has 5 specialized class levels in lockpicking (and more than 5 grades in lockpicking purchased), so he is assumed to automatically pass any checks against locks of difficulty 5 or less.
Example: Rudy is trying to get out of a prison cell with a level-16 lock. This is within his range, so he can try to pick the lock. He flips 16 coins, and 9 of them come up heads. Since only 7 remain, and he has 10 ranks in lockpicking, he can re-flip all 7. This time, 5 come up heads. He still has 3 re-flips available, so he re-flips both coins. They both come up heads (my, what fabulous luck), and the door swings open.
If the lock had been 23 difficulty or higher, Rudy could not have made the attempt. If on the first flip--or any flip therafter--he winds up with more tails than he has re-flips left, the attempt has failed. I'm thinking all heads on the first flips makes a critical hit/success, and all tails means critical miss/failure. For automatic passes, the player can do flips to determine whether s/he got a critical success with no fear of a regular failure, regardless of the number of tails. However, they can critically fail if they flip all tails, so be weary.
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Also, no hard feelings about the deletion thing Narf. Anyway, it's been a couple of day since I e-mailed Mookie, and nobody seems to have posted a better idea for an ad banner, so I'm gonna go ahead and give him a line back. The address I'm going to give him is for the main thread, so would you do me a favor Narf and add links to the rules thread and Weregeek's main page in the first post?

Or d'you guys think that we should set up a site somewhere with all the rules compiled into one section first? Maybe I'm just trying to move things too fast with the advertising thing. The more I think about it, the more it sounds like a bad idea; too many people would probably try to move the project in too many directions.

That being said, I'm calling a vote. Please post whether you're in favor of, or against, the idea of advertising on Dominic Deegan. I'll save my vote for last, partly because it was my idea in the first place and partly because I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or not.

[Spyder_V]

This may be out of time and maybe even out of place, but I was thinking today...

Why limit the system to the classes set up already? I mean, I know it's easier, and sort of a safety net to make sure things are balanced, but why not mix things up ourselves and create our own builds, classes, and even then... names for them?

[Dustman]

Um... at the risk of sounding like a smartass, and hoping therefore that I'm not totally misreading what you're saying, I kinda did already. The rule-set with Miasma at the top of it isn't from another site, it's something I came up with last year.

Now, if I am misunderstanding what you meant by that, I can think of two alternatives: either you're talking about making class features modular--which is basically the same thing as having no real class system at all--or you're talking about adding new classes to the ones that are already there. As far as the first idea goes, I have thought about it. However, despite the complaints that classes can be limiting, I like them; they're a simple system of defining what your character's place in the party is. This is supposed to be a community effort, however, and you're not the first one to suggest that we seek an alternative to the class system (Narf was, unless I'm mistaken). That being said, I'm open to the idea of doing away with classes if we can come up with something workable to take their place--if it's what the community wants. Bear in mind, though, I'll be heading to Iraq again come mid-December, so I'd like to get at least a little beta-testing in before then, in case I land somewhere without 'net access.

Of course, if you're just talking about making up new classes, go for it. As I recall, we have some voids to fill in regards to the different types of magic users--and probably mad scientists as well, if we're sticking with having a steampunk region in New England.

I don't know, man, I'm doing the insomnia fandango again. On the plus side, I just drove the Orks from Lorn V. Yay me! Just 4 more armies to go.

[Spyder_V]

I guess I made my post a bit hard to understand, sorry. I didn't mean to get rid of the class system, that's something GURPS does and I personally want to stay as far away from GURPS (when attempting to creat something original ateast, I do like GURPS) as possible.

I merely meant to propose that we redefine the classes. I mean, almost every game in sight has the stereotypical, Warrior, Mage, Thief, etc.

If you guys already have the setting down (sorry, my reading of these threads has been lacking lately to say the least), it should be a bit easier to do so. I know it IS just another thing to up on the already exhausting list of things to do, but if you/the community end(s) up redefining the system, I personally think it'd be amazing.

It's just a propositiong without much behind it. I've been really busy with school lately, so I haven't even given other classes a thought yet... this is just an idea.

[Dustman]

Yeah, you're probably right. The stuff I came up with might not be the most original in the world, nor is it the most compatible with the setting we've got going either. Still, jobs like fighters, wizards and thieves are common among RPGs for a reason. I'd hate to see a game without any one of those classes (give or take spellcasters depending on setting, of course). Still, there's no reason we couldn't flavor them up some to go with the setting; we could replace Weaponists with Narf's Crater Soljers, for instance, and give them different advantages depending on what sort of boss they work for.

Also, I've got a beta-version of an allegiance list/system written down. I just need to make a skills list and organize the skills under the various allegiances, then I can post it for you guys to hack, slash and improve upon. I should be able to finish it the next time I work on it, and I'll try to make that sometime within the next 48 hours.

Oh yeah, and it was actually Kronus, not Lorn V. I'm such a dork.

[Spyder_V]

Yeah, after thinking about it for a while, I know some classes are kind of "necessary", but you see what I mean. I like your idea.