Aspects & Essence
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 11:44 pm
Ok, so I'm making a d20 RPG.
The game is mostly standard fantasy fare, but there are no classes. Instead you build your character by picking "Aspects" on 4 different categories.
- You have a "Combat Aspect" that gives you 2 different attack options, one that deals damage with a small rider effect and another one with that deals a small amount of damage (or none at all) and has a bigger rider effect. By spending 5 points of energy (a resource every pc has, 5 points being approximately 1/4 - 1/5 of your starting pool) you get to make both effects with the same action.
- You also have a "Style Aspect" that gives you an ability that pushes you towards a role: DPs, "Defender" (basically a debuffer), Buffing and "Big payout" (You an additional effect when you connect with both attack options on the same turn).
- There is also a "Utility Aspect" that gives you a way to spend your "Utility points" (similar to healing surges/action points of 4e) for a 1 time healing/energy recovery effect and a little 1 turn self buff.
- Finally you have your "Life Aspect" that's basically your background and just gives you out of combat options (more on that on another post).
My goal is to make a game that has a relatively fast advancement and short, easy to improvise, campaigns. I'm aiming to award level ups after about 2 sessions and having a soft "level cap" of 10. So that after about 16-20 sessions you hit max level, play the big conclusion, and move on to another character. This is, of course, based on my preferred style of play (I am, after all, making the game to play it myself), but it could be changed with little effort.
The basic mechanic is:
1d20 + Bonuses - Penalties
<2 = Critical Failure
3-10 = Failure
11-18= Success
>19 = Critical Success
On each skill description there is an example of a task that would have a penalty of “0” and examples of things that give bigger penalties (or even negative penalties, so that they are easier). Let’s take “Athletics” for instance, a skill for moving around. The base task is climbing a tree, so you have no penalty. If you are trying to climb something that’s harder to climb (say, a wall with few places to hold on) you have a -1 (or higher) penalty.
Is there any pitfall I've already fallen into? The game has been mostly completed a couple of years ago (I even playtested once, to good reviews) but I feel I've learnt one or two things since that time and I want to give it a whole make over.
The game is mostly standard fantasy fare, but there are no classes. Instead you build your character by picking "Aspects" on 4 different categories.
- You have a "Combat Aspect" that gives you 2 different attack options, one that deals damage with a small rider effect and another one with that deals a small amount of damage (or none at all) and has a bigger rider effect. By spending 5 points of energy (a resource every pc has, 5 points being approximately 1/4 - 1/5 of your starting pool) you get to make both effects with the same action.
- You also have a "Style Aspect" that gives you an ability that pushes you towards a role: DPs, "Defender" (basically a debuffer), Buffing and "Big payout" (You an additional effect when you connect with both attack options on the same turn).
- There is also a "Utility Aspect" that gives you a way to spend your "Utility points" (similar to healing surges/action points of 4e) for a 1 time healing/energy recovery effect and a little 1 turn self buff.
- Finally you have your "Life Aspect" that's basically your background and just gives you out of combat options (more on that on another post).
My goal is to make a game that has a relatively fast advancement and short, easy to improvise, campaigns. I'm aiming to award level ups after about 2 sessions and having a soft "level cap" of 10. So that after about 16-20 sessions you hit max level, play the big conclusion, and move on to another character. This is, of course, based on my preferred style of play (I am, after all, making the game to play it myself), but it could be changed with little effort.
The basic mechanic is:
1d20 + Bonuses - Penalties
<2 = Critical Failure
3-10 = Failure
11-18= Success
>19 = Critical Success
On each skill description there is an example of a task that would have a penalty of “0” and examples of things that give bigger penalties (or even negative penalties, so that they are easier). Let’s take “Athletics” for instance, a skill for moving around. The base task is climbing a tree, so you have no penalty. If you are trying to climb something that’s harder to climb (say, a wall with few places to hold on) you have a -1 (or higher) penalty.
Is there any pitfall I've already fallen into? The game has been mostly completed a couple of years ago (I even playtested once, to good reviews) but I feel I've learnt one or two things since that time and I want to give it a whole make over.