Tabletop RPG Catch All

GWJ was a wee baby back then

There is over 4 days left on the Starfinder Humble Bundle.
Just $5 gets you the core books and some other stuff.
I paid $25 for the whole enchilada. I know I'll only use a tiny fraction of them but it is supporting a good cause, and who knows when I'll stumble upon something covered more in depth in one of the other lesser used resources. And they could be good sources of inspiration once I get a feel for the Starfinder universe.

I have poured over the core rulebook for Starfinder and decided I am going to use it for my RPG.
I am going to try to incorporate my ability score modifications and have determined that classes will have to be 100% custom in order to fit the system. I was planning on that anyways and it happens to be one of my favorite things to design and theory craft. With themes and archetypes, which is essentially superclasses in addition to subclasses, I can accomplish what I set out to do with distinguishing element type or deity from role and combat positioning.
And the stamina/hp/resolve system hits a lot of the same notes I wanted to accomplish without having to reinvent the wheel. And that reinventing the wheel would involve so many things including: items, spells, leveling up, etc.

One thing I have to figure out is that weapons seem to do a crap ton of damage. Things like 7d4 and 4d12 and 9d8 seem out of whack with Pathfinder so I am curious as to how its balanced in Starfinder...

Oh man, into the weeds I am.

I am doing a three pronged class system based off of Starfinder's theme, class, archetype. I am probably going to rename it to fit better: profession, core, archetype.

Profession gets you weapon proficiencies and 3 cantrips
For instance, Royal Guard - polearm, one hand and shield, rifle
-Formation (defensive bonus when next to an ally)
-March (free one square movement when attacking)
-Coordinate (bonus to melee attack a foe that has already been attacked)

Core sets your element, or power and a defensive passive, offensive passive and a special item
-Frost Regent has a chill debuff (penalty to hit due to shivers) or bonuses to tripping attacks; special item is an snowflake talisman or charm
-Nature adds d4 or d6 ( or main stat bonus?) to defensive abilities because of thorns and extra square range on melee abilities; special item is vine necklace or crown

Archetype is made up of a combination of two blocks like as follows:
-Channeling and combustion where channeling is focused on auras, songs, delayed effects
And combustion involves eruptions, sprays, beams
-Guard and Guise where Guard is shield, bash, cover, drag and Guise is concealment, projection, mirror

There are too many blocks to cover all combinations so I am going to flesh out perhaps a dozen at first, which will then have the option of core and profession for further customization.

Cores:
Nature, Malfeasant (unholy), Frost Regent, Empath, Binary Sun (gravity + magnestism), Magma Font, Mechanic, Animal Spirit, Holy Conduit

Professions:
Royal Guard
Commando
Field Medic
Intelligence Officer
Gunnery Sergeant
Strategist
Scavenger

Archetypes:
guard
gunman
guise
savant[caster]
summoner
performer
conjuror[temporary pets]
trickster[traps]

So yeah. When you work on the how, the what starts opening up into impossible levels that would take 5+ years to create and balance.

The thing that strikes me about your posts, fangblackbone, is that you're getting a long way into details but I don't sense what the big picture is.

Have you seen the "big three" game design questions?

1. What is the game about?
2. How is the game about that?
3. What behaviours does the game incentivise in the players?

(Reference and more detail/alternate questions)

Answering those for yourself should help direct you to where your efforts will provide the most gain for your work.

I'm also not sure about jumping into a full hack of one of the most complex systems there is. I prefer to start with a minimal system, and build up the detail from there as needed.

Ooh, good exercise!

What the game is about I feel points towards the plot of a campaign or one shot made in the/my system. "A" story or "the" story specifics are less important than "your" (plural) story. The game is a sandbox to facilitate player voice and creativity for unique stories that you remember for years and want to talk about outside of playing.

The Why
-Setting:

Spoiler:

I love the setting for Dark Sun and I feel it is underappreciated. In fact, I have loved all of D&D's marginalized settings such as Spelljammer, and Al Qadim. The lost tech and horror aspects are there to drive goals, challenges, atmosphere, politics, conflict, caste and adaptation. The whole planet is ruins with varying degrees of rebuild for safety, and disrepair for opportunity. Adventure is always right at your door step.

-Story system:

Spoiler:

What has struck me about the popularity of Critical Role and Titan's Grave is that the DM is truly a guide, and the players know how to use their voice and interact with each other. From my table top experience, I wanted to facilitate the expansion of the story of each dice roll.
DMs will be given paths with branching to lead the party down. DMs will have the opportunity of creating paths of least resistance, and/or letting the party freely choose their path.
DMs will also be given essentially short improv spines and hooks along the adventure path to create conflict, and puzzles. These spines will have prompts based on which stat(s) is being used to address the challenge

-Puzzles:

Spoiler:

"We don't have a rogue!" I want to expand upon and encourage players to use party skills instead of an individual player's skill to solve puzzles, hidden areas and traps. But alongside using the collective party skill to pass something like a mobility check, I want cross skill collaboration. Knowledge Nature might help a mobility check on scaling a cliff because the former identified a slick surface to avoid or a section of roots that are stronger to hold on to. Once the party gets more familiar with one another, the only checks will be for the DM to be able to determine if more attempts are constructive or suggest options and create events for the party to move on. In addition to the DM having building blocks for puzzle creation and solution, they will have the option to role play a seemingly unrelated skill check providing a boost to a related skill check solution.

-Class System:

Spoiler:

The never ending balance between familiarity, choice, growth and power. The profession allows for familiarity, choice and a start for growth and power. The core allows for familiarity, choice, growth and its special item is a primary source of power. The archetype involves choice, growth and power but also enhances familiarity when combined with core.
I am designing the class system where the numbers are at your finger tips if you want them, but not at the forefront on creation or leveling up.

Again, thanks for this. I am going to put this at the top of every section of my design doc!

Cool, I'm glad that was useful!

Just a quick redirect, (I hope I can pick your and other GWJer's brain from time to time)
In your experience is player voice and having moments to share outside of playing the key to getting people to want to play a table top RPG? I mean, they have to have something to distinguish themselves from video games and double down on it, right?

Anyone willing to share their thoughts regarding that would be helpful...

I am thinking that an overly complex character system, though not what I am planning on developing, would bring back players and engage them if it sparked unique moments during creation.
Or that no matter how basic a story, say generic fetch quests, players would walk away excited if they could choose how they fetched, what order they fetched, the challenge/complexity involved, or if they even completed the quest without fetching at all.

I am also empathizing with the work that DMs have to put in. So if I can support them, it will help with DM retention and improve their guidance. I am also thinking that the amount of work involved currently in DMing might lead to controlling or power tripping. So if I can guide and support them, we will have less "don't be a dick!" experiences.

fangblackbone wrote:

In your experience is player voice and having moments to share outside of playing the key to getting people to want to play a table top RPG? I mean, they have to have something to distinguish themselves from video games and double down on it, right?

I'd say that's *one* thing people might want from a tabletop RPG. But I'm very firmly of the opinion that nothing is going to work for everyone, and that different people want different things. So I'm very much not looking for "one perfect rpg" in my own designs or a shop shelf. Instead, I focus on "what experience do I want? which game will provide that?"

More broadly, if you're looking for why people play tabletop RPGs instead of anything else, the key elements of it for me are:
1. The social interaction and shared creation/audience experience of the game group.
2. The fact your story can go anywhere you all take it, not limited by what any author put in their story or programmer put into their computer game.

I'm sure other people will get their primary enjoyment from other aspects, too.

I am thinking that an overly complex character system, though not what I am planning on developing, would bring back players and engage them if it sparked unique moments during creation.
Or that no matter how basic a story, say generic fetch quests, players would walk away excited if they could choose how they fetched, what order they fetched, the challenge/complexity involved, or if they even completed the quest without fetching at all.

Possibly. I'd say for the character development system, having the ability to get cool stuff is more important than if its simple or complex. For wide appeal, simple will be better.

For adventures, yes, that's exactly hitting my "main reason to play #2" above. This is very important. I mean, I'm all-in on the "play to find out" style anyhow. My preferred adventure design is: "Here's whats going on, and here's the terrible things going to happen soon. What are they going to do about it?"

Oh, and regarding DM support. Remember that the DM/GM/whatever is another player. They should be having fun too! Your goals there are on point.

New season of Peaky Blinders on Netflix for any Blades in the Dark fans.

Oh, and regarding DM support. Remember that the DM/GM/whatever is another player. They should be having fun too!

Wait, wait, wait...
OMG
Light bulb!!!!

For the DM: role system, role reversal mechanics, role change mechanics, plot twist types (rolled or drawn or planned or planted), clues and flags and unlocks (discovery mechanics)

Hmm...

fangblackbone wrote:
Oh, and regarding DM support. Remember that the DM/GM/whatever is another player. They should be having fun too!

Wait, wait, wait...
OMG
Light bulb!!!!

For the DM: role system, role reversal mechanics, role change mechanics, plot twist types (rolled or drawn or planned or planted), clues and flags and unlocks (discovery mechanics)

Hmm...

Die has some interesting DM mechanics if I remember correctly.

Stars Without Number has a 'faction turn' for the GM to update the stats and goals of the various organizations in your game.

BitD also does factions, which might be something to look at too.

I found the way factions were adapted from SWN to WWN was basically broken. Playtest your stuff. The changes made for WWN’s faction subsystem feel like they were never put through their paces in a campaign.

MikeSands wrote:

Have you seen the "big three" game design questions?

1. What is the game about?
2. How is the game about that?
3. What behaviours does the game incentivise in the players?

(Reference and more detail/alternate questions)

Answering those for yourself should help direct you to where your efforts will provide the most gain for your work.

This is nice. It was helpful for me to firm up my elevator summary.

1. What is the game about?
The game is a dying earth fantasy role-playing game supporting low-prep sandbox play and compatibility with creatures and adventures designed for Moldvay Basic.

2. What do the characters do?
The characters adventure in pursuit of a grand goal they chose at the start of play. The purpose of the campaign is to see whether they can achieve it and what it happens along the way. Characters will gain power and wealth, and their actions will effect changes to the setting.

3. What do the players do?
The players make decisions as their characters, experiencing the setting and world as their characters do. The referee sets the stage but remains hands-off when it comes to determining outcomes. The system provides tools to facilitate this.

Mechanically, it takes a lot of cues from various editions of D&D. Feeling like D&D is important. It’s one of the reasons why a game like Freebooters on the Frontiers isn’t an option for us even though it also offers B/X compatibility and playing to find out.

The customization stuff is still a WIP. We don’t want a lot of fiddly bits. I don’t want to have to design them, and my players aren’t that interested in customization for its own sake. My current thinking is to further reduce the skill list while leveraging the specialization subsystem for other types of customization.

Has anyone here played 7th ed Call of Cthulhu? I want to run a campaign based on the Chalmers book The King in Yellow and was wondering if that was a good system to use.

Not played 7th Ed, but don't think it differs hugely from 6th, which I have played a lot of and really like since it's d100. Which is my normal go to system for first time rpgs since it's just a case of roll under this number.
If you are looking for something that involves an involved character leveling system its not for that though.

Have you seen the Yellow King RPG by Robin Laws?

It’s a bit spendy and everything I think I know about it comes from the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast, but the ways it extrapolates from Chambers’ work sound pretty wild.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Have you seen the Yellow King RPG by Robin Laws?

It’s a bit spendy and everything I think I know about it comes from the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast, but the ways it extrapolates from Chambers’ work sound pretty wild.

.

Wow. Pretty much what I’m looking for. Any idea how the gameplay is?

Has anyone played Mutants & Masterminds 1st edition and 3rd edition and can tell me how they compare?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Has anyone played Mutants & Masterminds 1st edition and 3rd edition and can tell me how they compare?

The biggest change that I've noticed is that 3rd Edition removes the legacy of Attribute Scores. That is, your attributes in M&M 3rd edition are just the bonuses that you would normally be deriving from the "score". This helps clean the system up since attribute scores were just a legacy d20 thing from D&D that have no real reason to be there.

Incidentally, while M&M is a good Superhero system, I personally prefer his other game ICONS.

Paleocon wrote:

Any idea how the gameplay is?

It's using a tweaked version of the Gumshoe system, so I'd expect it to play similarly to Esoterrorists or Trail of Cthulhu. But I don't have any personal experience with those, either.

Trail of Cthulhu got some praise early in this very thread, though.

I found the GUMSHOE system to be fine, but bland. (My experience was a long Trail of Cthulhu game).

A key feature of the system is that "you can always find the next clue you need, not miss it due to a bad roll." But I didn't play investigation games like that anyhow, so that big feature is a wash for me.

I've been quiet for a while but that isn't because I haven't been prolific, because I definitely have been, prolific.

I don't want to keep dumping seemingly small posts that get out of control in short order. So I'd figure I'd save posting until I have some interesting break throughs.

One of the reasons a lot of games are migrating to deck based gameplay is its accessibility. Dice can be intimidating and especially so when you have more than 3 and they have many more than six sides.

But for longevity questions in addition to my personal tastes, I have decided to push for accessibility in areas other than using a deck system. Namely, old school CRPG style battlefield grid where battlefields are a 4x6 grid. They are four players wide and front, middle, back rows for the party and the enemy side. (BMF FMB) These should be simple enough to draw on the fly, perhaps with a provided dry erase board grid. Grids can be filled in to indicate obstacles and cover. Grid edges can be thickened to indicate cover direction and whether the cover can be occupied or not. With a dry erase board, you can have dynamic cover that can be moved or destroyed. This system will draw from early computer RPGs where certain weapons and classes will have special abilities like being able to melee attack from the middle row with a polearm.

This battlefield layout can apply to puzzles or any room. I want the ability to split the party for puzzles on the fly. In fact I would love to give a split player the reins for a while and let them communicate what they see to their party. Like "I see four sigils on the door but only one pressure plate. Look around up there for the others." for an example scenario.

Another accessibility area is the action/reaction combat system. I get the feeling this will be similar to some current RPGs but I am putting my own spin on it. It is more of a reaction system where actions are primarily used to provoke reactions. Other than a few special cases, reactions will only occur off another's attack.
Also, grunt enemies will not get reactions. They will be reserved for players, and enemy champions and bosses. In fact, I envision GM's loving playing a "boss" with multiple reactions or fighting creatures sized larger than a grid with multiple natural weapons that trigger reactions. (tail sweeps, claws that pin, bites, gaze attacks) So actions will be basic swings and push or pull. But reactions will be like a spin attack that hits the attacking enemy and another adjacent enemy. Another scenario is an enemy attacks and you use your reaction to cause them to overextend and one of your party next to you can do a hilt strike to knock them down.
Some unique things I can do with reactions is granting an archetype/class the delay ability. If they choose to delay their attack until the end of the turn, they get granted an additional reaction until the end of the turn. Typically players get an attack, a move that lets them swap rows or go to the next grid, and a reaction. Other archetypes will get disengage which allows them to move back a row and attack. Even more, there are reactions specific to things like dual wielding where you can double block against other dual wield attacks as opposed to only blocking one when not dual wielding.

Anyways, that is a big dump. And I would love confirmation or thoughts on whether anyone plays months or years long campaigns based on a deck system.

How does it play?

Right now initiative rolls lay out the combat order.
Reactions can happen at any time so long as the event (action or attack) is happening to you, or to friend or foe in the space next to you. So you can use a reaction before you move or attack, or after. I think this retains the importance of attack order in the round, but doesn't leave your character helpless if they don't move or attack until later/last in the round.

There are special circumstances for how some classes use reactions. Summoners use their move and attack actions to allow their summons to attack. So if they move or attack, one of their summons can only use reactions on their turn. If the summoner moves and attacks, then both summons can only use reactions and not attack.
Other special circumstances are for classes that have songs, auras or channels can use a reaction to continue their song/aura/channel if they lose concentration from being attacked.

So back to initiative... Players designate whether they want to be in the front, middle or back row as a basic formation. Like I mentioned, there are only four spaces per row so not everyone in the party can start in the front row. (unless you have less than 4 in the party)

I think I need to draw a diagram. I'll work on it and post it soon.

Hopefully this is clearer and indicative of how battles can be laid out in minutes:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/9KBqE8v.jpg)

What I mean is have you played or done any testing? If so, how did it go? It would be bad to do a ton of work only to find out at the end that the mechanics didn’t function properly or weren’t even fun (the former being a complaint I have against Worlds Without Number). Since you’re using Starfinder as a base, it should be possible to take some pregens and an adventure, make changes, then see how it plays. You won’t know how the whole system works, but you’ll know e.g., how this new encounter procedure works in practice.

I’m making this a separate post, but the above is how I’m on the fifth iteration of my skill system. The first iteration took a slightly tweaked skill list from Worlds Without Number with a fixed DC. Specialities were handled by rolling 3d6 and taking the best 2d6. The second iteration experimented with using PbtA style resolution in place of a fixed DC, but the results were specified too loosely. The third iteration changed specialities to be defined in terms of the fiction, and the fourth one addressed dice math and better codified degrees of success. I don’t think I ever ran the third one, but the fourth one worked pretty well at the table. The better structure addressed the problems I had with version 2. Unfortunately, my players find specialities confusing, so fifth try.

My fifth take changes the range of modifiers from [−1, +4] to [+1, +5]. The −1 is replaced with a −2 untrained penalty. The skill list was reduced down to seven general skills (Command, Connect, Convince, Exert, Know, Study, Survive) and three combat skills (Brawl, Shoot, Strike). In addition to skills, characters have specialities. Specialities range from things like First Aid to Open Locks to combat specialities like Power Attack and Many Shot. Specialities Ranks also range from +1 to +5. When you gain a level, you can increase two skills or specialities, or you can gain a new speciality at +1. Specialities unify the previous narrative handling of specialities with feats. Feats are gone completely now.

I still have some work to do reworking classes and ancestries. I have a rough idea how specialities will interact with them, but I need to get things documented for Saturday. We’ll be doing another character rebuild. Hopefully, things will be easier for the players and go more smoothly. I also have a (mostly) complete list of specialties, so that should provide a more natural opportunity for my players to customize their characters. There are 60 non-combat and combat specialities total, which sounds like a lot, but it was a lot easier writing these than it was trying to design feats that didn’t touch the system’s math.

I’m hoping the fifth take ends up being the one that works. It’s the biggest departure from previous practice in my game, but it gets rid of the jank while simplifying things. Some of the parameters may need tuning, but I’d still consider it a success overall if that’s all that needed changing.

Note: I am considering making casting available as a speciality to classes outside of the mage group. Your caster level would be based on your SR. While I think archetypical classes are important, I don’t really want a bunch of “like X but slightly different” classes. A ranger is enough of its own thing, and so is a barbarian, but a thief-acrobat is basically just a thief. Even a paladin is basically just a fighter with Cast Clerical Spells and Turn Undead specialties.

Speciality Examples

Some function as additional skill options, reflecting a capability that not all adventurers have. Note that there are no stealth or perception skills because the initiative mechanics take care of that. These will most likely have a description explaining what the speciality is about to help adjudication. For example, Hide in Shadows is a speciality that lets you hide in just shadows. That is on top of the usual stealth mechanics that are handled by initiative and surprise. Other examples of these kinds of specialities include Open Lock, Play Instrument, Hunt Prey, and Research Spells.

The other kind of speciality are combat specialities. They can be theoretically used any time, but their expected use is in combat. If “usage” is unspecified, then using the speciality is “free” or “no action”. The thing in []s is a tag. The Fortune tag means Lucky can’t be used in the same turn you used or benefited from other Fortune effects. SR is an abbreviation for Skill Rank. The rest should be self-explanatory.

Lucky [Fortune]
Rank Limit: +3
Frequency: Once per session
Trigger: You fail an attack roll or saving throw
Reroll the failed attack roll or saving throw using dice based on SR instead of the original d20.
SR +1: 1d20
SR +2: 1d16+4
SR +3: 1d12+8

Many Shot
Usage: 1 action
Requirement: You must have at least SR projectiles available to shoot.
Make a missile attack at −SR to shoot 1+SR projectiles (reducing ammunition accordingly). The damage roll uses 1+SR weapon dice based on the projectile instead of just one die as normal.

Power Attack
Usage: 1 action
Make a melee attack at −SR. The damage roll is increased by 2×SR. Certain Strikes does not benefit from this increase.