Design Flowsheet: Black Forest

[Username17]

I think we have an idea for a new thread.

Yeah, I think we do.

Black Forest is a game that is intended to take place in the fairytale world of Grimm's tales. Not some kind of Extra Adult version of that world, just the thing itself. As such, it is intentional that players be able to play Little Red Riding Hood or Alice as playable characters. But it also means that players should have access to characters like Prince Phillip and The Fearless Boy. That is, the game should be playable with characters playing at the level of curious children being confronted with goblins and wolves but still playable with characters riding around on horses with magic swords fighting dragons.

The method of doing this is by structuring things into a harshly leveled format structured into tiers. Levels are deliberately going to be unnamed in order to encourage people to begin play at the level that appeals to them narratively. While the intention is to play in Outside, Over There or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the players start as children who are scared and pursued by monsters but who grow as people and get access to badass magic and skills and end up hunting monsters for sport - but the game should be playable and enjoyable playing either extreme - making a single story arc that begins and ends with the main characters still bad ass monster hunters or traumatized children.

Black Forest Design Considerations

Step One: Name the PCs
To emphasize the fairy tale nature of the proceedings, the player characters are called "The Protagonists." This ensures that players are able to refer to characters like Hansel who are basically victims trying to sneak, run, and trick their way into surviving or characters like Parzival who are going out to hack up ogres with a sword.

Step Two: Write up a Six-Person Party

OK, there are two six person parties that we need to accommodate for a set of protagonists: one of them is a group of children, the other is a group of adventuring troubleshooters. In short, there needs to be a separate six player group for the Protagonists of a Brother's Grimm story and again for the Protagonists of The Brother's Grimm movie (by T. Gilliam).

• Curious Child - The character who is the nosiest and therefore good at gathering information. With abilities to get indulgent answers from adults and spot things that are out of place, contributions come as often by inspiring Antagonists into Bond villain monologues
• Goblin Pigkeeper - First of all, you're damn right people will want to play as goblins once they've been introduced. So it only makes sense to throw in some goblin standard characters. The pigkeeper has access to a lot of domestic skills and some good old fashion first aid. They can contribute to adventures by sewing up
• Goblin Ragpicker - the character who is the sneakiest. As a poor and filthy goblin recycler this character can be expected to be good at scouting and stealing, which are both sufficiently important that the character probably justifies his existence.
• Merchant's Kid - the character who can do math and knows how much things are worth. Invaluable to the team when confronted with exploitative offers from creepy strangers and able to contribute goods and advice when confronted with new people and places. Did I mention that he can do math?
• Seer - the character who is the creepy kid who can see and interact with magic in some way. This child can talk to animals or ghosts. His contributions are pretty random, but whenever there's magic around he should be able to add something.
• Shepherd - the character who has spent the longest time outside the village. Contributes with abilities like "knows what bears are" and "can eat wild berries."

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• Assassin - Poison daggers, looks cool in black, and good at scaling into second story buildings. Contributes by backstabbing enemies and scouting. Think of him as a Goblin Ragpicker with a combat shtick.
• Minstrel - the character sings and dances, and gets flocks of rats to do what he wants. Also they can be extremely persuasive or just get people to dance themselves to death like they were in Moonwalker. Like a Curious Child with a combat shtick.
• Necromancer - the character has seven ghosts in a bag, can give inscrutable wisdom, and can peer inside things. Taxidermied boars fight enemies on his behalf. Like a seer with a combat shtick.
• Warlord - Tattered leather coat? Check. Sharp teeth? Check. Riding boar? Check. Huge spear? Absolutely. He's scary and he will stab you. Like a Goblin Pigkeeper with a combat shtick.
• Warrior Prince - He's got a horse and a sword. He wears armor and can woo fair maidens. Contributes by being taken seriously by nobles and also by stabbing things right in the face with a sword. Like a Merchant's Kid with a combat shtick.
• Woodsman - He's got an axe and a beard, and he can both track and kill wolves. He contributes with his ability to locate and murder the monstrous woodland animals, and also in his exploration talents. Like a Shepherd with a combat shtick.

Step Three: Write up a three-person party.
Curious Child, Goblin Pigkeeper, Goblin Ragpicker - this party is going to want to sneak around a lot because 2 out of 3 children are sneaky. The pigkeeper is holding that aspect back, because they aren't much good except at being unobtrusive. On the flip side, the Curious Child could join in with the "getting captured and working in the kitchens" plan that the pigkeeper has while the rag picker goes full sneak mode. In general, you've got one scout, one spy, and one switch. So the Protagonists should be heavy into intrigue plots.

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Shepherd, Merchant's Kid, Seer - three kinds of exposition gathering, these guys would expect to get banished from or otherwise lose their home town in the first episode because they all have ways of contributing directly to survival and plot advancement in "over there."

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Assassin, Minstrel, Necromancer - good range of stealth, social, and information gathering abilities. Combat appears to involve dropping battlefield control effects while the assassin back stabs people stuck in mind prisons or dance dance revolutions.

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Warlord, Warrior Prince, Woodsman - again, the second party is more exploration and less stealth oriented. But I still note that everyone seems to be contributing something and no one is going to be left behind.
Step Four: Write up an adventure

The Malediction strikes the local baron's castle, and the occupants turn into ghouls. Flesh eating monsters march to the village and drag everyone away to work on the baron's new project of digging down to uncover something the baron is now after (and also for noms). At this point, the Protagonists can either go to the castle and try to collect enough information to find the amulet themselves and smuggle it out for destruction or to run off into the woods and find the local goblin king to figure out how to get his aid against the fallen baron.

For group 1 of children, the move to make would probably be to go right for the castle ironically despite the fact that they have 2 goblins on staff. While the other group would probably be better off going to the Goblin King. I think it important to note that both groups have the ability to complete either task.

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The adult squad can actually open up a third option: run in and start face stabbing.

Step 5: Write out a campaign

So the Protagonists begin the game with their village liquidated by the Ghoul Baron. Regardless of whether they get aid from the forest goblins or not, the characters end this initial adventure with no parents and no home. Given a set of clues to the location of some treasure that could buy them back into society, they wander off into the woods.

There follows a set Goldilocks style monsters of the week, where the player characters learn a series of life lessons and grow as people. Throughout, there will be a recurrent plot about the Malediction and Ghouls. the Players should collect a set of magic items. Probably 1 to 3 per player over this period of the game.

Victory in the first stage of the campaign involves defeating a giant, werewolf, or some similar heroic tier opponent and getting half of a kingdom as one of the protagonists gets married off to some set of royalty. During this period, the characters rapidly graduate to being full heroes who can fight enemy ghouls by cutting them down with swords and spells rather than running away and relying upon plot devices to save them.

Then the second stage begins where the players go back and settle scores with witches, ogres, and monsters that they had to run from earlier. Final showdown is with the BBEG who brought the Malediction in the first place, who is a Superheroic Tier Vampire Lord.

Step 6: Choose a Base System

Out of curiosity, what system does everyone think we should use for this game?

You'd almost certainly have to make your own, as retrofitting is made of Fail.

The goals of the game system are:

• Must have a very resilient mini-game for running away, sneaking around, getting information out of people, and talking.
• Must also have a harshly scaled combat system that is interesting and survivable which gives massive and dynamic support to grabbing and carrying people around.
• Must provide a manner for characters to easily "level up" in the middle of the action, and to do so in a staggered fashion so that spotlights move around.

OK, so harshly leveled systems usually prefer a bell curve. I suggest 3d6 off the top of my head, because it's a lot easier and more studied than other bell curves. But 4d6 has advantages too. You could have a system where people rolled 3d6 on a curve, but if they were doing a "focus" action they rolled 4d6 and dropped one instead.

The real key is giving people a number of chase actions available, as well as the maneuverability and speed scores. The players won't be as fast as a lot of their enemies, so the rules have to get to dodging around trees and furniture right off. Character size also needs to matter a lot. Smaller characters are weaker, but they can also hide in more things and also have their speeds reduced by vegetation less.

The character advancement system is also going to be lifted entirely from the FFT thread. That means players will get a "class" - this class gives them various intrinsic important salient powers. Character advancement is that during any chapter each character is entitled to grow as a person - where they gain a minor ability. They get these minor abilities by choosing them off their class list when they would come in handy (after which they stick). The instant they get enough minor abilities they level up. So they might go from Apprentice Blacksmith to Advanced Apprentice Blacksmith. In general, this means that everyone will level up in the same chapter, though not at the same time during that chapter.

-Username17

[Roy]

I am reminded of DQ 5.

You start off as a 6 year old kid traveling around with your dad, who does most of the hard stuff for you. But you can fight easy monsters right off. Sometimes you sneak off either alone, or with your childhood friend and go do some stuff on your own. You clearly aren't that capable, because you're fucking 6 years old and your friend is 8, but you beat up weak monsters and solve small scale mysteries like haunted castles.

You also save this cat like monster cub, who follows you around and helps fight.

A bit later you and your dad go try to save a prince. The monsters attack and your dad tries to hold them off... but some high level enemy stops you anyways. You get your asses kicked and get captured. Your dad also dies trying to protect you.

Time skip 10 years, you're in a slave labor camp. You end up breaking out and wander the world, now with considerably better stats.

Eventually, you get married, knock up some girl, and have kids. But shortly thereafter you get your asses kicked again by a foe that greatly outclasses you and you and your wife get petrified.

Cue another time skip.

Now you're 26, your kids, who are now a little older than you were when you started save you and the three of you try to save your wife/their mom. You eventually find her, and between you now being able to handle him and your kid getting the Artifact Sword fix you kick the ass of the guy who has been humiliating you all this time and save your wife. Then you kick his bosses' ass too, for good measure to Save the World.

Sure there's something useful in there.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I am somehow reminded of Bully.

My question is, do we want to include more explicitly narrative gameplay elements like fate points and player control over protagonist resilience? It seems like a good opportunity to implement that sort of thing.

[Username17]

Yeah, Dragon Quest 5 seems to have a lot of appropriate pacing elements. I really think that the game shouldn't blink to have "a year pass" and such.

As for attributes, I think that the game can be left down to a single attribute: Size. As you grow, your Size increases. This is both good and bad. Things like Speed and Maneuverability, while numeric, should be calculated from your Size by the movement abilities you are using. And yeah, I seriously see a variable size increase as characters age that you can roll against or choose. And furthermore, I think protagonists should be able to grow to adulthood at weird sizes. Sometimes, a protagonist is just a dwarf or a hulking ogre of a man - nothing wrong with that.

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I honestly don't see much to be gained from having protagonists be anything other than humans and goblins. Ogres and trolls can just be humans and goblins respectively who have been cursed. Same for werewolves, ghouls, vampires, zombies, and beastmen. Mostly we're looking for a Ravenloft feeling and that genuinely works better if I don't have to care about people being Snow Elves or Gold Dwarves. While I think gnolls and skaven are super fun, they just don't seem like they'd fit.

So let's brainstorm up some classes for child characters:

• Apprentice Blacksmith
  For starters you get to be bigger than other kids. Also, you can use a hammer. You get to know a lot about tools and lift heavy objects. Pick locks, shoe horses, separate coal.
• Apprentice Miller
  You know how machines work. And you know all about grain. And you've eaten the grist from the ground flour. Construct rube goldberg traps, sort flour, throw flour at people and use dust to find secret doors.
• Curious Child
  You're talkative and nosy. Like Alice or Goldilocks. Get indulgent answers from people, find hidden stuff, poke holes in arguments, get away with social faux pas.
• Merchant's Kid
  You've been involved in buying, selling, shipping and otherwise interacting with goods and gold. You know how to count past 12 and you know how to counterfeit a coin.
• Milk Maid
  You milk cows. This makes you resistant to disease. Also you can get up at stupid times and are surprisingly strong. Also you can spook and calm animals.
• Pigkeeper
  A Goblin childhood. You tend to the swine. Take care of livestock, but by extension you can probably take care of other animals or even people. Slop pigs, spook animals, clean up enormous messes.
• Ragpicker
  A Goblin childhood. You wander around sorting through trash to find things worth recycling. You have lived a hand to mouth existence, and you're good at skulking and stealing.
• Rat Catcher
  A Goblin childhood. You spend a lot of time killing rats, which means that you hand out around sick and dead rats a lot of the time. You are resistant to disease and you can poison things.
• Seer
  You have second sight. This lets you be really creepy and identify magical effects and ghosts. Unnerve people, bargain with ghosts, spot enchanted shit.
• Servant
  You get to play dumb and have people talk in front of you. Also you are meticulous and can clean things really well. This also allows you to sort things, and find tiny objects and do anything else that requires doing repetitive tasks. Wash dishes, sweep floors, flawlessly repeat things you've heard...
• Shepherd
  You get to know about stuff in the woods. Also you know all about sheep. Which turns out to be not much. But more importantly, you can run around in the woods and find trails and food.
• Singer
  You get to use your Disney protagonist powers to sing and talk to birds. This makes you the main character from Protector of the Small, or possibly Snow White.
• Trapper
  A Goblin childhood. You camp out in the woods and capture rabits. This lets you get by in the woods pretty well and also makes you good at trap making. A much larger snare could hamper a man...

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My question is, do we want to include more explicitly narrative gameplay elements like fate points and player control over protagonist resilience? It seems like a good opportunity to implement that sort of thing.

I would think so, yeah. We're already giving players the ability to take command of the story in the middle of a chapter by getting new abilities of their choice. Giving them some narration abilities at the same time seems reasonable.

-Username17

[Maxus]

So about about skills/challenge resolution? Would it be reasonable to say that there are some things you can do flawlessly every time--like the servant cleaning up a mess, or making a snare?

How about teaching the other players to do some of what you do? I'm pretty sure a servant could teach the other kid how to dust a room until it gleams ("Look, pick up the music box, set it on the floor, do that with everything else on that table, then wipe the dust off...") or the trapper can tell how to make snares to catch animals (or people).

[angelfromanotherpin]

Some of these class features are going to be hilarious:

A Sheep's Worst Enemy... [Shepherd]
...is another sheep. If one of them has footrot, they all have footrot. As an expert in this field, you automatically know if something is wrong with anyone you see at least once a week, whether it's the blues, or a tick on their neck, or if they've been charmed by sorcery; though you won't recognize ailments you're not familiar with, you will know there is an ailment. You have [a large bonus] to discover similar problems among people you see less often.

[CatharzGodfoot]

How about teaching the other players to do some of what you do? I'm pretty sure a servant could teach the other kid how to dust a room until it gleams ("Look, pick up the music box, set it on the floor, do that with everything else on that table, then wipe the dust off...") or the trapper can tell how to make snares to catch animals (or people).

But these are kids, so being able to learn something is not the same as doing. You can be pretty certain that unless the servant is supervising, the other kid is going to slack off or fuck up. Unless the other kid chooses to learn the 'cleans stuff well' minor ability.

Some of these class features are going to be hilarious:

A Sheep's Worst Enemy... [Shepherd]
...is another sheep. If one of them has footrot, they all have footrot. As an expert in this field, you automatically know if something is wrong with anyone you see at least once a week, whether it's the blues, or a tick on their neck, or if they've been charmed by sorcery; though you won't recognize ailments you're not familiar with, you will know there is an ailment. You have [a large bonus] to discover similar problems among people you see less often.

Also a good ability for a milk maid.


And, Frank, I'm going to assume that there is some flexibility. For example, a human rat catcher does not seem to out of place.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Other classes we need:

• Villein's Child
Your dad's job is to collect taxes for some faraway authority figure. You know what it's like to be hated, how to make vague threats, and how to know if and where people are hiding things. You can also do some math.

• Ostler
A combination of animal care and sucking up to strangers is your bread and butter.

• Goblin Charcoal-burner
You live in the forest and turn wood into burnt wood for a living. So you're good with both fire and paranoid safety procedures.

Also...

Inspire Hope [Shepherd]
Sheep don't want to live. You know how to convince them that one day they might want to. You have [a bonus] when convincing unhappy people, and [a larger bonus] when convincing unhappy people to take action against their unhappiness.

It's Quite Harmless... [Milkmaid, Ostler]
...unless it happens to lie down on you. You spend a lot of time around creatures who could crush you with trivial effort, or just if they stopped paying attention. You have [a larger defense bonus than usual] against creatures that are bigger than you.

I like the last one, since Jack the Giant-Killer was a Milkmaid.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, if I'm getting this right:

Goldliocks == Curious Child

Peter (of Peter and the Wolf) == Pigkeeper

Seven in One Blow == Merchant's Kid


??

[Caedrus]

This idea sounds awesome.

[Username17]

So about about skills/challenge resolution? Would it be reasonable to say that there are some things you can do flawlessly every time--like the servant cleaning up a mess, or making a snare?

How about teaching the other players to do some of what you do? I'm pretty sure a servant could teach the other kid how to dust a room until it gleams ("Look, pick up the music box, set it on the floor, do that with everything else on that table, then wipe the dust off...") or the trapper can tell how to make snares to catch animals (or people).

I gotta go to a neuroscience conference, so I'll make this fast. One of the things you should be able to do in a dynamic ability gaining situations is to take an ability not that is on your class list, but which is already on the known list of one of the other players. That is, a plot point could be that everyone gets led up the side of the castle walls by having the orchard boy show them how to climb. This sort of organic and lateral character growth is what the game should strive for.

As for Seven in One Blow, I think the brave tailor may in fact be a tailor. But having him be a Merchant Kid wouldn't be unreasonable.

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Finally, about tiers: I don't think they need to be strictly linear. That is, you go from childhood to heroic tier, but the people around you go from childhood to adult tier. A tier that is kind of like heroic tier except that you suck.

Not everyone becomes a warrior prince. A lot of people become farmers and millers.

-Username17

[MartinHarper]

So, if a protagonist is a Milkmaid or a Farmer's kid, does she stay that way until she reaches Adult tier or Heroic tier, or does she get to transfer to become a Seer or a Shephard partway through the campaign? It doesn't seem to make much sense to have more than one occupation class, but Creepy Kid + Shephard is plausible.

[Username17]

So, if a protagonist is a Milkmaid or a Farmer's kid, does she stay that way until she reaches Adult tier or Heroic tier, or does she get to transfer to become a Seer or a Shephard partway through the campaign? It doesn't seem to make much sense to have more than one occupation class, but Creepy Kid + Shephard is plausible.

Characters seriously do jump from one occupation class to another, but only rarely. I mean Snow White goes Princess -> Servant class over the course of her travels and a lot of characters go from some kind of farmer to merchant kid or trapper. But yeah, PrCing is something that doesn't happen a whole lot in the source material. Now part of that is that Grimm tales are normally centered on just a single chapter in a single character's life story. In Black Forest, Rotkapchen will go on to being a woods explorer and eventually to being a valkyrie. But the story in the book begins with her and a basket of food and ends with her being rescued by a heroic woodsman.

That being said, it's entirely possible that the child tier should be shortened or classes be made repeatable for credit - because while characters in the heroic tier are universally going to want to be Warlord/Necromancer/Assassins (or whatever) by the time they get out of the heroic tier, a lot of children characters are going to want to be a shepherd straight through to adulthood without being apprenticed to a blacksmith or becoming an ostler.

Now a very real solution to that might be to have a lot of child classes that are seemingly independent of what you are nominally being trained to do when you grow up. If a lot of the classes are things like Singer, Talkative Kid, Bully, and Dreamer, then people can just usually conform to the stereotype of taking one "job" class and a couple of "descriptor" classes. That is probably the direction that it should go.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

We are going to need classes for being extremely tiny (like Tom Thumb or Thumbelina), and probably for being a magical talking animal (like Puss in Boots), and those strike me as perfectly reasonable sorts of classes, because they're both the basis for some neat abilities, and neither of them seems likely to break the game.

We're also going to need a big abilities list, and then some method of deciding how many abilities a class has access to and how many it gives per level, and how much choice a player has versus how much is decided for them.

[Username17]

We are going to need classes for being extremely tiny (like Tom Thumb or Thumbelina), and probably for being a magical talking animal (like Puss in Boots), and those strike me as perfectly reasonable sorts of classes, because they're both the basis for some neat abilities, and neither of them seems likely to break the game.

Not classes. Races. If people want support for Tinkerbell and Hans Hedgehog, there needs to be a Talking Animal race and a Pixie race. Now as you've pointed out, it seems like the Black Forest region could support playable talking animals and pixies without breaking down. Both of those things are going to end up being NPCs anyway, and being permanently 11" tall isn't as much of a problem when a goodly portion of the game pretty much expects that a single ghoul can one punch any member of the Protagonists.

Adding races adds clutter yes, but I guess those two can fit in well enough.

We're also going to need a big abilities list, and then some method of deciding how many abilities a class has access to and how many it gives per level, and how much choice a player has versus how much is decided for them.

Oh yes. Any game of this sort is going to need a huge ability list. Huge. Big enough that two players can be Apprentice Blacksmith Bully Scouts without treading over much on each other's toes.

-Username17

[Maxus]

Also, the adult classes.

For that matter...

[*] Witch-- Almost universally female seers who have grown up. The nice thing about being a witch is you're allowed to be as bad or good as you want to be, and the warts and dancing around without your drawers on is completely optional. You probably a good line on potion brewing and herblore and practical folk medicine, as well as magic and cursing.

[angelfromanotherpin]

These images seem relevant, for inspiration's sake.

[violence in the media]

Also, the adult classes.

For that matter...

[*] Witch-- Almost universally female seers who have grown up. The nice thing about being a witch is you're allowed to be as bad or good as you want to be, and the warts and dancing around without your drawers on is completely optional. You probably a good line on potion brewing and herblore and practical folk medicine, as well as magic and cursing.

[*] Toymaker-- You are the maker of wonderful toys that delight children and amaze adults. Beyond the simple clockwork mechanisms of your lesser peers, your creations live. You make the tin soldiers, the music box ballerinas, and the moving chess sets. All manner of mechanical animals, whirlygigs, and doodads are at your disposal. You can create automations, golems, and even your own little wooden boy. Like anything else in Black Forest, you can be a source of joy or terror.

[Judging__Eagle]

Oh damn, this is so incredibly cute. I love it.

hmmm....

Brat - Terror of cats, collector of frogs and worms, friend of dogs, as well as pesterer of children of the opposite gender and adults alike.

You have lots of fun in chasing cats, and you can help your friends discover the joy in harassing such animals (a recovery mechanic?). Good animals (or all canines) are friendly with you (unless you have a pet dog, then all wolves/mangy dogs/etc. will growl at you and leave). You have frogs and worms in your pockets, they can be used to scare or distract other people. You have a slingshot or a good throwing arm. You also tend to annoy the crap out of older people and tend to have an edge when you want to bug children of the opposite gender. Oh, you're also able to convince people that stupid things make sense.

Tom Sawyer was a Brat, sort of. He also had lying abilities. I'm thinking Dennis the Menace here, but there could be other similar characters like Bart Simpson (who is an older brat with extra abilities such as "pull off crazy prank" or "make graffiti").

[Lago PARANOIA]

Little Professor- You are one of those insufferable genius kids who seem to get smarter just by passing by a library. Because your head is in books all of the time your eyesight is a little bad and you're smaller than other kids; whether this makes your parents proud or despise you depends what kind of family you're in. Regardless, you can recall all sorts of useful tidbits about biology, religion, superstition, history, and so-on.

Sidekick- You don't really have any skills useful in this economy, even for an untrained fantasy laborer, but you hang around adults that do and they like you for some reason. People are afraid to let you down and look bad in front of you. So whatever they do, you can make them better at it just by being nearby and having a concerned look on your face. Ironically, sidekicks make the best leaders for this reason. Since sidekicks usually have to patch their mentors up after they get their ass kicked in a barfight or slay a monster, they also have good first aid knowledge, too.

Burgeoning Chemist- Somehow you acquired access to chemistry set, whether from exploring an abandoned building or having a parent interested in this. The swirly glass tubes and glowy liquids fascinated you more than most kids and it has become your favorite toy. You always have an alchemy kit nearby and you know several formulas and recipes that just might come in handy. You also know what's safe to ingest and what's not safe to ingest.

A Boy and His X- You don't really know anything all that special and are in fact a huge wimp, but that's okay, because you have an animal companion that does all of the asskicking for you. Your companion is either some wild creature that you have an understanding with or a household pet of unusual size, usually a canine of some sort. Your creature is unusually intelligent, able to conceptualize and understand human language but is unable to speak. Your job is to mostly find ways to keep yourself and your buddy out of trouble and verbalize whatever thoughts your friend is having.

Dojo Urchin- Some bright mind along the way decided that the best way to make a master of The Ways was to start them as early as possible. And you are that person. You're really good at any kind of physical challenge, even silly ones like balancing on two fingers, and because your kung-fu is stronger than your friends you can intimidate a lot of folks just by giving them a nasty look and doing some shadowboxing--even adults. Or you can just hurt them with your tiny fists; if you can break a rock you can break a bone.

Stand User- You have some sort of invisible guardian force watching over you, whether it's a ghost, an angel, or a cricket. On the one hand, you don't have much more aggregate asskicking than a infinitely loyal capuchin monkey who always has to stay within 5 feet of you or wink out back to their home plane. Then again, they're invisible and can selectively phase through things so they're still useful to have around. No one can see or hear this spirit but yourself unless you want them to, but you generally have no reason to. Because you have two sets of eyes and ears and a source of advice, you might get to reroll something.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Gravekeeper's Kid- You're not quite strong enough to move bodies and dig holes without causing a big mess yet, but that doesn't mean you can't learn some other skills. Since you have to learn the burial mores of a lot of customers, you know a lot about religion and the afterlife--and even various undead critters. You can accurately determine the cause of death of creatures or at least eliminate most other causes.

Cosmopolitan Kid- You're the offspring of some super-important noble somewhere and you're not afraid to (ab)use your position. You know how to get people to do what you want them to, either by charming them with your grace or being a spoiled brat. By lending your friends some of your wit and style you can even disguise that kid you found digging through the garbage yesterday seem like a dauphin's pet with an outfit and an afternoon training montage.

[Username17]

Perhaps the biggest difficulty is making a combat system where the players are expected to frequently want to escape from combat rather than participate in it. Certainly the standard baseline of "autoattack until you win" is wholly unacceptable. So here's the things that need to be doable:

• Prince Phillip (heroic tier) needs to be able to one-shot a goblin jailer (adult tier) with his gleaming sword. The guard doesn't need to be dead, but he does need to be out of the fight.
• Goldilocks (child tier) needs to be able to run out from between the legs of the great bear (heroic tier) and off into the woods without necessarily getting caught.
• Taran (child tier) needs to be able to stand his ground while being leapt upon by a wolf (adult tier) and have his blade pierce and incapacitate the wolf even as Taran gets knocked down.
• The cook (adult tier) needs to be able to grab the prince (child tier) and carry him off to the evil wizard.

If we're using a curved RNG (like 3d6 or 4d6), then having plausible events happen frequently isn't much of a stretch - if the chances of success are more than half they tend to make themselves very likely pretty fast.

Which brings me to my thought on how to get Goldilocks to run between the bear's legs while still letting Taran take down the wolf by standing his ground (let's face it: these are very similar circumstances): actions should be declared first and then acted upon. Actions should have speeds and maneuverabilities to help them interact with each other. So for example: the bear lunges, while Goldilocks does a duck and run - this combo means that Goldilocks is using her high maneuver score to oppose the bear's attack and she is likely to run past. Most likely Goldilocks can spend a dramatic necessity point to either be able to choose last (so she can probably get away) or even force the bear to make a suboptimal choice.

-Username17

[Username17]

So we're looking for a combat system in which a child can bang essentially uselessly on a deathknight for a long time while an old man can end combat by stuffing a kid into a bag. Doing that with linear hit points is pretty much a non-option, because an Ogre would end up having so many more hit points than a chicken that the math involved with ogre slaying would be just unworkable. So to work in the cock choking and giant slaying that we want to have in this system, there needs to be a consistent method of generating relative damage whereby the numbers generated are not overly large but the results are effectively wildly disparate.

The basic way that is done in a game is to compare the damage number (either static or rolled) to a soak roll or static damage threshold, and have the difference determine the kind of effect the attack causes. The key is that this damage differential can cause quadratic or even exponential growth in effects. That is, because the difference between a Level 2 Wound effect and a Level 1 Wound effect is less than the difference between a Level 3 Wound effect and a Level 2, the actual numbers generating these effects can be quite linear and accessible - and the Superheroic Tier Giant can still step on a chicken and have it turn into red paste without rolling dice.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

This core mechanic stuff isn't my thing, but I'd be happy to start working on ideas for the big list of abilities.

I'm not sure how many different abilities we want a class to give access to. Enough that two people taking the same class aren't identical, but not so many that two people taking the same class have nothing in common. We also want to use the rule of 5 enough that players can manage their ability lists in their heads.

So, I think each of the classes mentioned could probably have their abilities divided into 3 themes, and each theme could have 5 abilities in it. If the player got to pick one ability from each theme per level, then two characters who have finished the class each have 9/15 abilities, which means they have at least 3 abilities in common.

Now, coming up with 15 abilities/class may seem like a lot, but of course the classes themselves will have considerable overlap; since both Ratcatchers and Milkmaids have Sickness Resistance, and both Milkmaids and Ostlers have Not Get Crushed By Big Things.

So, does this seem like a decent starting point, or am I missing anything?

[Murtak]

So we're looking for a combat system in which a child can bang essentially uselessly on a deathknight for a long time while an old man can end combat by stuffing a kid into a bag.

The Shadowrun 3rd edition wound system should work fine, no?