The Gaming Den

I was thinking that I might start to write a “future+magic” tabletop RPG game. Here comes the part where I explain that although almost all of the other projects like this aren't finished, mine will be different because reasons. realistically, my main intention is to get better at writing and to give myself something creative and constructive to do with the massive amount of free time I will have for the next few months given I am only taking 6 credits this semester.

I was thinking of organizing it like this:

1: Character creation booklet.
This short book is intended to be printed on 8.5x11 paper with 14 point font and stapled. I will contain all the information needed to create a character, with no fluff/word wasting. It should say “strength: this increases your melee damage, your jump height and several physical skills”, instead of the “strength: it makes you stronger, and stronger is good, like this character. And here is an example of what you can do with strong, and here is an image of a character being strong, and…” bullshit. Basic, direct explanations and information is all that would be in here.

2: Rule book
This is the “core” book that has the majority of the rules in it. Like the character creation booklet, this will have as little fluff as possible. The focus would be on being a reference, and not a “book”.

3: World book
This is where all of the stories, pictures, and example characters are located, along with all of the fluff and feel of the game. Maps, political organizations, story ideas, NPC examples, and stories will make up the majority of this.

I want a large emphasis on arkham-horror like tokens and aids, to speed up gameplay and give a more "it’s a game" feel to it that will make some of the abstraction easier to swallow(I think). Also, tokens are awesome.

FLUFF AND SETTING

For the setting and feel of the game, I was thinking of a shadowrun-derived world, with as little shadowrun idiocy as possible. My current picture is that in about 1990 kids started being born with minor, latent magical abilities. This was ignored and basically unknown due to the incredible weakness of the “magic”, and that magic was obviously bullshit so quit being a retard. It wasn’t until about 2000 that some governments and corporations started to actually throw money at research concerning these “gifted” kids. It turns out that when focused on, this talent develops into something stronger, and by 2010 shit was getting weird. Information had been leaking for a while, but the first YouTube video of an amputee getting her limb regenerated was what really caused the crazy. It turns out that magical healing can, with time, repair practicably anything INCLUDING nerves (and damaged brains, more on that later). Rivers of bio-medical/mechanical scientists’ orgasm juices and five more years later cybernetics become a thing, with the muscle replacements and cyber eyes we all know and love becoming only uncommon instead of un-heard of.

The world never ended, the internet didn’t “crash”, and no one nuked anyone else. Google is still a thing, and while “huds” (Google glass like things) has mostly replaced cell-phones and personal computers, the postal service still runs and people still do things like buy groceries and work. Some people are replacing their huds with artificial eyes, but it’s not too common yet.

The problems really started when things that weren’t people started to also possess some of this latent magical ability. Highly intelligent wolves, stupidly large crows, and elk that had death-laser eye-beams began to turn from a nascence to a serious problem. The fish and game department got some serious funding, domestic militias were created, armies were dispatched and it was a very confusing couple of years.

Currently (no idea on date), most people have ether moved into huge megacities or been eaten by giant Africanized bees. Large militarized militias are the norm, and resources haven’t become rare, just much harder to actually get. Nuclear power means that inside a city everything is still fine, but long range transportation has become an issue ever since giant squids got a taste for crude oil and started eating refineries and super-tankers. Growing food, moving mined ore, and getting lumber have become so dangerous that a military-grade escort is the MINIMUM security outside of the cities. Large scale government has had some problems due to the new logistics complications; so many cities are basically self-run.

This is the part where cities fight over resources and “us vs. them” turns into “people who live with me in [my city] vs. anyone, sentient or not, who might want the same resources that we want”.

This is all preliminary stuff, and I don’t claim any special knowledge or insight. I usually just lurk these forums and people who read them will probably know much more about this stuff than me. I’m just asking for information, suggestions, criticism and help for basically any part of this endeavor. The only thing that I am bringing to the table in this is a lot of free time and a motivation to write SOMETHING so that I can bet better at it. Instructions on how to organize, write, design, balance, test, etc are greatly appreciated. Also: No sacred cows besides future+magic. I don't really view this as MY project so much as a project I want to work on.

Edit: I think I posted this In the wrong place. Could an admin move this to the IMOI fourm?

I'd say this is fine as an IMHO topic - IMOI is more for drafts and such once you have something worked up. Advice and worldbuilding are half the threads here after all...

Regards the premise, my only concern is we already have a Shadowrun expy in development/concepting here so there might be some conceptual or mechanical overlap. The "warring arcologies vs. insane wildlife" angle does seem pretty distinct from the "societal collapse + megacorporations" thing, but it's something you might want to be aware of.

So, did you have any thoughts on the basics of the system or anything?

Red_Rob wrote: So, did you have any thoughts on the basics of the system or anything?

Combat:
Roll attack(Attribute+Skill+Item), subtract defense roll (Attribute+Skill).
If attack hits, Roll difference, add damage, subtract armor.

Example would be:
Add Precision(attribute), Handguns(Skill), and Accuracy(Item). Roll this to get "ATTACK".
Add Reflexes(attribute), Dodge(Skill), and cover(???). Roll to get "DEFENSE".
If DEFENSE > ATTACK: you missed.
Else:
take ATTACK-DEFENSE, roll, then add Damage(Item) and subtract Armor(Item) to/from successes.

This way, successes to hit only give you an extra die to roll for damage, so +1 to hit is not just better than +1 damage. I'm not really sure how to deal with armor turning lethal damage into shock damage, I’m thinking of adding this step into the -Armor step. certain armors will simply convert X amounts of lethal to shock, then subtract Y from lethal and Z from shock. this might allow weapons to do dual damage types, but that might be a needles complication. I think this helps with the 2-shot problem and the vehicle issues that 4e shadowrun has, but I could be wrong.

I'm not sure how many actions I want per turn. I'm leaning toward 2 "actions" that are really 1 actions doing 2 things. an example would be aiming and shooting vs. hipfire while advancing vs. running. I want to avoid rolling multiple attacks per round, due to ZZzzzzzzz and 3 rolls already being done per attack, but aiming could give you +skill to hit and + item do damage...haven't really done any math on this yet and reluctant to go forward without guidance.

I wanted "wired reflexes" to be a thing, but I’m not really sure what that thing is yet. My current ideas bounce around from "extra actions are stupid give bonuses instead" to "extra swift actions or bonuses to shit depending on player choice in combat" to "just add +1 to everything". I might just make them not a thing.

I want char-gen to have linear costs, with one resource used during gen and level up.

I want to have the "roll larger piles of dice" to be the RNG, but I'm not sure if I like the 1/3 in shadowrun or if I should move to a 1/2 per die. I am planning on playing around with anydice.com, but I’m not really sure what is "good" or "bad" in this situation so I might just steal the shadowrun d6.

I REALLY want to avoid laundry lists of 500+ items, and the ability to buy items with character gen points. I was thinking of having generic templates for items and sub-lists for modifications. Examples would be "Revolver" with "+ accuracy" and "- noise", or "grenade" with "+ AOE" and "+ fire damage". At character gen you would buy "Resource points" in the appropriate category, and before each mission/job/adventure you could buy/sell/trade(just pick new items) stuff off-screen until you had filled your points up. Resource points would demonstrate your general ability to acquire fancy toys in whatever way you want, instead of a "my daddy was this rich".

I like the idea behind LOS hacking so that the hacker has a reason to leave the house, but I'm not sure about brain hacking. Anyways, hacking something would be the same as shooting it, with "firewall" replacing "armor" and other word changes. Your hud(new comlink) would be your armor/health and your programs would be your weapons.

For magic, I was thinking of adding a "stress" resource. it would regenerate automatically with time(1 point per hour?) or by taking specific actions(drugs that + stress but - health/ rubbing one out). everyone would have this, not just mages. hackers damaging your stress and street sams using it to power active cyberware would be a cool thing, but I'm not really sure how to implement it.

I was brainstorming "roles", and while I think role protections is stupid, I do like the idea that magic and tech don't mix well. I was thinking of a "square" to visualize the abilities of each "role". The top of the square would be "active" characters, who directly affect the health and well-being of other things in a negative manner. The bottom would be "passive/support" characters, who spend more time modifying the environment and their allies than the other guys. The right side of the square would be tech, and the left would be magic. I don't want any mechanics that enforce this, but I imagine most character will fit somewhere inside the square, and I wanted to give "areas" of the square names.

Sorcerer-------------------- Street sam
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
shaman--------------------drone hacker


And that stream of thought ramble is most of what I have in my head currently. My next step would be to sketch up a character sheet.

The help I would appreciate most is links to topic where people have already discussed things like this. Having everything re-explained to me is probably not as good as a simple: "read this".

Red_Rob wrote: Regards the premise, my only concern is we already have a Shadowrun expy in development/concepting here so there might be some conceptual or mechanical overlap. The "warring arcologies vs. insane wildlife" angle does seem pretty distinct from the "societal collapse + megacorporations" thing, but it's something you might want to be aware of.

I really don't want to cock-block anyone. I think mine is different enough...but it could be more if it bothers people.

The first hurdle we need to overcome is attributes(i think). I was thinking of:

Power-health limit, stress limit, melee damage, physical soak
Precision-(ranged + melee) to hit
Speed-initiative, movement, (meele + ranged) defense
Logic-hacking damage, spell effects
Knowledge-digital to hit, digital defense
Empathy-max number of drones/spirits, spiritual defense

the top 3 are physical, bottom 3 are mental. I'm hoping to avoid god-stat syndrome. I also know that discussions on attributes were held before I was born, so links to those would be appreciated.

Everybody stop crowding the market with Shadowrun clones so I can release mine and blow SR5 out of the water. : P

I'm just kidding, carry on with your off brand Shadowruns, the more the merrier. (Mine is still SR, just a fanhack of SR4/alternative to SR5, which is a tiny bit different anyway.)

I wanted "wired reflexes" to be a thing, but I’m not really sure what that thing is yet. My current ideas bounce around from "extra actions are stupid give bonuses instead" to "extra swift actions or bonuses to shit depending on player choice in combat" to "just add +1 to everything". I might just make them not a thing.

Ok I'll bite like a gator. Why are extra actions stupid?

Bad touching the action economy is just flat out generically good. In SR4 Wired Reflexes are often seen as a bit of an equipment tax needed to stay out of the kiddie pool, so while they remain genre defining they rather cease to be character or archetype defining--it's not really -that- hard to make a Face who is wicked fast.

Beyond that, it's a bit of an IRL time issue-- if the majority of the time people are just going to use their Wired Reflexes for more dakka and more full defense, then maybe you could just cut out the middle man and represent that increased effectiveness by giving people a bonus instead of rolling umpteen times in one turn.

Whipstitch wrote:Bad touching the action economy is just flat out generically good. In SR4 Wired Reflexes are often seen as a bit of an equipment tax needed to stay out of the kiddie pool, so while they remain genre defining they rather cease to be character or archetype defining--it's not really -that- hard to make a Face who is wicked fast.

Beyond that, it's a bit of an IRL time issue-- if the majority of the time people are just going to use their Wired Reflexes for more dakka and more full defense, then maybe you could just cut out the middle man and represent that increased effectiveness by giving people a bonus instead of rolling umpteen times in one turn.

I agree. If I want to show how "fast" someone is, moving further, having more time to aim (getting better shots), and being harder to hit will work. No need to add more simulationist layers on top when they aren't needed.





Short Update: I think I have narrowed down the attributes and what they do:

Body: Amount of Health and Stress, Physical Soak, Melee Damage, Move Speed.
Dexterity: Physical Attack and Defense.
Intelligence: Digital Attack, Magical Attack, Digital Soak.
Wits: Initiative, Digital Defense.
Charisma: Max # of Drones or spirits, Magic Defense, Magic Soak.

Some Magic attacks use physical defense instead of magic defense (dodge a fireball instead of resist mental stun).

Hackers with drones get to break the action economy. Ether the hacker does his thing(ability to deal stun damage with programs or use guns) or he can control his drones(gets multiple actions, but doesn't get to use attributes in rolls, only skill). I'm worried that this will ether be stupidly broken(how many minigun death lasers do you have again?) and conceptually retarded(...so my drones cant do anything if i'm not telling them exactly what to do?). I'm really not sure how to deal with this.

People who summon spirits are also a problem. Giving out +1 to everything is a massive pain in the ass and is often forgotten about. I want spirits to be all-day long passive buffs(spirit, can you just hang out and make me a little harder to see?), while being able to spend stress to allow for temporary, more powerful manifestations(spirit, can you throw that guy across the room for me? ill help you manifest yourself.)

I really want to limit the utility of magic. The "offensive" magic guys don't interact with spirits, instead they use their own spirit to change the physical world. I'm thinking of bending(last airbender) as a good example of how its done/what it can do, but not necessarily limiting to one "element". They really won't have much over a gun, except that they can also do some utility stuff(temporary chest high wall of stone), while cybered gunfighters will probably be much better at actually just shooting shit due to cyberware giving attribute bonuses.

_

The basic lore is that the "spirit" world is becoming "closer" to the "physical" world, making it easier weaker and weaker spirits to manifest themselves and have more and more effect in the physical world. When a spirit "enters" a "thing" it not only looses a large amount of its power and identity/memory, but it is also limited by the abilities of what it is "inside". A tree spirit doesn't have eyes, or really any senses at all, and can do little but grow. Even thinking must be done with "magic", as the tree has no nervous system. If a spirit was desperate enough to posses something like an squirrel it would be close to suicide because if the squirrel dies/gets destroyed with the spirit inside the spirit also "dies/gets destroyed". this is why nothing that has a chioice will posess a toaster, because when it gets unplugged, there is no guarantee that it will be plugged in ever again.

When a human is born and a spirit enters it, the spirit looses so much of its ability and identity/memories due to its new incredibly weak form that it ends up being a "child" in all respects. Every human is a spirit that wanted to be in the physical world bad enough to at least loose most of what made that spirit itself, as well as risking oblivion if the host dies/is disabled before the spirit learns to leave. Not all spirits are equal, and more powerful spirits can keep more of themselves when they enter a host as well as push out weaker spirits from an desirable host.

The "host" is arbitrarily defined. While almost every tree has a "spirit" in it that has very limited abilities to influence anything, an incredibly powerful spirit can enter the "forest"(and not get kicked out by a stronger spirit) and gain considerably more ability, yet not complete control of the individual spirits/trees. This is why you know you should work out/study yet don't. This "yo dawg" scales down to atoms and up to planets/galaxies, so "god" technically exists as the spirit that has no ther spirits that is more powerful and want a place in the physical world.

The reason that everything has a spirit in it is mostly selection bias. even if a very small fraction of existing spirits wanted to affect/experience the physical world, and a even smaller fraction were able too, an arbitrarily large number of spirits existing means that most things that are even sort of desirable to be "in" are filled.

However, no one really knows that and scientists and shamans alike have no idea what is going on. The causes/effects are observable but the how/why is completely unknown and un-testable. What "people" think is that "holy shit, magic is now real somehow" and that "also, sometimes these weird spirit things can be talked to and asked to do magic" and little else. This is close enough to simulating the effects that being wrong about how it actually works isn't a problem.

Humanity is currently divided between using technology, mastery of the physical world, or magic, mastery of the spiritual world, to survive in an increasingly un-predictable and dangerous environment.

Also, i'm calling bullshit on this being a short update. I was going to write a little on stats, and look what I've done.

Strung Nether wrote:Combat:
Roll attack(Attribute+Skill+Item), subtract defense roll (Attribute+Skill).
If attack hits, Roll difference, add damage, subtract armor.

Example would be:
Add Precision(attribute), Handguns(Skill), and Accuracy(Item). Roll this to get "ATTACK".
Add Reflexes(attribute), Dodge(Skill), and cover(???). Roll to get "DEFENSE".
If DEFENSE > ATTACK: you missed.
Else:
take ATTACK-DEFENSE, roll, then add Damage(Item) and subtract Armor(Item) to/from successes.

Do you want your game to include people who are really good with pistols, but suddenly become super-inaccurate when they pick up a rifle with a scope?

If not, you probably want to generalize a bit with your combat skills. Then you could use the freed-up space to make individual weapons more interesting or something.

Avoraciopoctules wrote: Do you want your game to include people who are really good with pistols, but suddenly become super-inaccurate when they pick up a rifle with a scope?

If not, you probably want to generalize a bit with your combat skills. Then you could use the freed-up space to make individual weapons more interesting or something.

Good point, plus it gets rid of skill bloat. Weapon skills: Firearms, Hacking, Spellcraft, Melee+Brawl.

How much difference do you want between states? How much culture shock will PCs experience when they cross a border?

We've established that human cities fight over resources. We have also established that caravans outside of cities require large military escorts. Trade is probably still a thing, but the temptation to just take stuff you want probably gets increased in these circumstances. You could probably get quite a few adventure hooks out of big trade depots filled with nervous soldiers of two or more different nationalities.

If spirits can bond with abstract concepts, does that mean that an automobile or steelworking plant could have its own spirit? Will a sorcerer who shoots fire from his hands have any incentive to get x-ray cybereyes that let him see through cover and burn things more precisely?

I figured I should just post what my current ideas for skills are:

Body
---Athletics/Run/Climb, Intimidate/presence
Dexterity
---Melee, Firearms, Evade, Craft/Repair, Drive ____
Intelligence
---Spellcraft, Hacking, Bluff/Lie, Medicine, Knowledge
Wits
---Awareness, Software/Coding, Empathy/Sense Motive, Animals, Search/Research
Charisma
---Willpower, Persuade, Leadership, Animals


Common actions:

Deciding who goes first in combat:
---Everyone rolls Initiative (Wits + Awareness), and the higher numbers go first.

Seeing how far you can move:
---You can move (Athletics/Run/Climb + Currently Unknown Constant)

Shoot a guy:
---Roll Attack (Dexterity + Firearms + Weapon Accuracy) then subtract the defenders roll (Dexterity + Evade). If you hit, then re-roll what you have leftover and add Weapon Damage to get Lethal Damage. Add the weapon's Armor Modifier to the Lethal Armor and Stun Armor. Lethal Armor converts Lethal Damage to Stun Damage, and Stun Armor soaks Stun Damage(bullets that don't go through armor can still hurt).

At the tabletop it will look like (player is attacking mob):
---Player rolls Attack with red dice, WC(world creator) rolls Defense with blue dice. Take away all failures and pairs of red and blue successes until only one color is left. If the remaining die are red, the player rolls them again and adds Weapon Damage. Take away Lethal Armor from that number, and you get how much lethal damage is done. Add the dice that the Lethal Armor soaked to the Stun Damage, and then soak that total with Stun Armor.

Hacking a dude:
---Roll Attack (Intelligence + Hacking + Program Versatility) then subtract the defenders roll (Wits + Software/Coding). If you hit, then re-roll what you have leftover and add Program Power to get Program Effect. Subtract the defender's Firewall from Program Effect to get Stun Damage.

Note that sometimes programs allow other effects besides Stun Damage. For example the Data Bomb program affects all targets inside an area, while the Chaff program keeps you from being found while inside an opponents signal range. Some programs also cause stress when being using.

Casting a Spell:
---This will be different. While there are spells that act similar to shooting a guy, most don't. Still, the Attack dice pool (Intelligence + Spellcraft + ???) and the Spiritual Defense pool (Charisma + Willpower) will be common. Some spells will target (Dexterity + Evade) like bullets do, and many won't involve defense rolls in the first place.

Avoraciopoctules wrote:How much difference do you want between states? How much culture shock will PCs experience when they cross a border?

We've established that human cities fight over resources. We have also established that caravans outside of cities require large military escorts. Trade is probably still a thing, but the temptation to just take stuff you want probably gets increased in these circumstances. You could probably get quite a few adventure hooks out of big trade depots filled with nervous soldiers of two or more different nationalities.

If spirits can bond with abstract concepts, does that mean that an automobile or steelworking plant could have its own spirit? Will a sorcerer who shoots fire from his hands have any incentive to get x-ray cybereyes that let him see through cover and burn things more precisely?

I was thinking that this setting allows as much difference as you want between states. There could be a militarized police state and a feudal theocracy that are close enough to a forest(spirit) worshiping tribe to cause contention while there is still the threat of being plundered by the Spartan Empire to the east. One of my favorite things about this setting is that almost any culture or government system could actually exist without too much "don't think about it too hard" from the WC.

Yes. However, there are problems: When a spirit possesses something, it usually keeps no more of what it "used to be" than can fit inside the new form. In your case of a steel plant, unless the spirit was incredibly powerful it would be able to have almost no effect in the physical world, and when the workers go home for the night the spirit is practically dead. If something happened and the factory was never put back in work the spirit would stay dead. The issue with non-organic hosts is that the spirit can't do much. A toaster will still be a toaster, it will never grow or learn so the spirit that possesses it is basically committing suicide. Spirits only "exist" when they affect things. There are probably spirits in everything...but they cant think or do anything...so they basically "died" the second they possessed it. Under too much inspection, this starts to break down. I'm ok with that because no-one alive in the game has any idea how any of this even begins to work, so: "well, shit happens and gets weird sometimes, and yea...magic" is a perfectly good explanation for EVERYTHING.

Maybe. I need to manufacture a reason why a mage can't get as cybered up as the street sam and still cast spells. I'm really not sure how to do this yet.

I can't help but feel that I'd be more interested in this project if it had an ego and an agenda.

Orion wrote:I can't help but feel that I'd be more interested in this project if it had an ego and an agenda.

Probably not the best title. I chose it because many of the homebrew's I have heard about/read are basically "I want your opinion, look at what i made its perfect, fuck you if you opinion is different", or some other variation of asking for criticism but only accepting approval. I wanted to convey that I was actually looking for people to shoot holes in it wherever they can, so I can fix it/improve it.

I am starting to finalize layouts for the character sheet. The final issue comes to how I will handle weapon/spell/program "cards". I was thinking of actually having all of the "swap-able" gear be displayed on playing cards, so that people don't have to get eraser-happy when exchanging gear and for easy reference. The problem is that the "weapon cards" will also have "weapon mod cards", which gets exponentially complicated. I will have a "finalized" weapon/program list in a couple of days, but I haven't even started on the spells.