Today's d-6 starwars game refreshed in my mind the absolute necessity for a new dice system.

Player with blaster rifle: "I'm aiming at the monster to make sure I hit."
GM: "Ok you take a round to aim."
(combat continues as player after player does awesome stuff)
GM: "Ok your turn again.  Aiming bonus is +1D"
Player with blaster: *rolls* "I got a 26 total"
GM: *rolls dice* "That hits!  Roll damage!"
PWB: *rolls dice* "15 damage"
GM: *rolls dice* "sorry... the monster resisted all the damage."
PWB: "... there needs to be a system where an accurate hit counts toward damage"

other examples abound.

So to recall some of the brainstorming done so far on the unnamed game system...

- Only a critical fail roll misses.  Considering making this no missing period.  Because there's folks who'll crit fail every roll.
- One roll needed.  No separate rolls for to-hit and damage.
- Players get way more dice than the NPCs, so even if the NPC has much higher stats, the player still has a good chance to win.
- If there's a dispute over rules interpreting, no "GM is god."  Rather, player and DM both roll a d10 or some such.  Higher roll wins.
- If a PC "dies" they get continues, extra lives, etc.  Why must PnP game systems insist "one life, no continues?!"
- 3 basic stats like in BESM.  Brains, Physic, and Mystical junk.

I'll tell you now that while I like the basic stats for simplicity, I don't like it for practice. But for now, brainstorming.

-City of Heroes wins at life.
-City of Heroes is mother.
-City of Heroes is father.

"The point is... life isn't so simple" -Frostfire (City of Heroes)

The point is, actually, that City of Heroes has it right for a TON of game mechanics questions. So here goes:

-NO MICROMANAGING! In other words, no magic items. All is inherent. No money. Nadda. If the PLAYER enjoys micro-managing items (some do), they can be given such and they will have their own reward for doing such.

-Speaking of money, heroes earn cred maybe, and that earns them things like how favorable a town mayor is to doing them a favor or what not.

-Power source only effects your backstory and how people treat you in game. City of Heroes... we love you.

-Travel powers?

-Primary Power Set (Roll d12's), Secondary Power Set (Roll d10's), Tertiary Power Set (Roll d8's), and so on. Use the dice people own.

-Optional movement rules, so you can play it like dnd 3.5 where you can either have the GM just say "you get there and it takes this long" or set up a quick "here's what combat looks like" with beads and such.

-Advancement needs to be addressed. One thing I noticed about every system except D6 and Quest for Glory is that odd levels (3, 5, 7, etc) are ONLY odd levels. Even CoX slightly fails at that, but even then you are rewarded with slots for powers. I want every level to have the same rewards. IF there's even levels. But levels alone are bragging rights for players, so I think I like that idea.

That's all I got for now.

One thought that occurred to me is this:  A favorite pass time of geeks of all ages is to argue "who would win in a fight?"  ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw...ownOfUltimateDestiny )

*30 minutes later* Wow!  Beware TV tropes!  It's a trap!  Click one link and giggle, then click another, and another...  From Goku vs. Superman, to Mr. Rogers, to Batman, then back to Goku...  Aaanyway.

What would really make a game system rule is to have the possibility of facing off your character against various famous people in the setting you're playing.  "If my guy teamed up with Bubba Fett, we'd take out Emperor Palpatine and Vader no prob."  Or other such.  But this would be silly if your char were just starting out after just having flunked out of martial arts school or whatever.  Which leads to another element that needs carefully considered:

Believability vs. story driven "Players can actually win."  Why are shooting game fortresses riddled with ammo clips that works for your gun just laying around?  Why do enemies drop magical first aid boxes that heal you instantly of dozens of bullet wounds and not use these incredible devices on themselves?  Because a shooting game would suck and be unplayable if it were realistic.  But if it were TOO generous with the buffs, heals, weapons, ammo, etc...  it wouldn't be challenging and thus become boring.

So in a "real" fight with Vader, your character would likely get stomped, but there needs to be a way to make him a challenging fight, but beatable.  Once you're somewhere near his "level" of course.  We've already determined that players must always win against weaker opponents.  So what needs to be defined is: What chance do the PCs have against someone twice their power level?  Three times?  4 times?  And so on...

CoX has a dual power level system.  There's the "level" of the enemy, and there's the "rank".  Minion, Lieutenant, Boss, Elite Boss, Supervillain.

A level 50 char could probably sweep the floor with a level 15 supervillain, but solo vs a supervillain of lvl 50 is a feat worth bragging about on forums.  (Even a full team of 8 players can hack away at a supervillain for 10 or more minutes and still wipe out.)

Edit:whoops I edited in a line at bottom of wrong post.  Man I hope I didn't also kill a chunk out of the post.
  -Joe/Will.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:31, Tue 23 Nov 2010.

  Well, as I've been specifically requested to consider Balance oh you poor bastards what have you unleashed upon yourselves? (Pointing out flaws with no viable solutions by the truckload is what).
  Starter Comment.  We must consider things through a lens of 'what if generic Min/Maxers or Malicious GM's were using this system'.   Otherwise no matter how flawed or broken something is we would basically shrug and go 'eh, we're cool so we won't hit those problems'.  Which while wonderfully True, does not make for good system buildy.
  On the flipside, said system would likely benefit from an opening line/rule/comment that 'Gameplay And Story Segregation Happens'.  (I had a better line/rule, but forget what that was may edit it in later)

  Right out the gate.  Hit Roll=Damage Roll=Evil.
While Champions/HERO system doesn't combine them, the often ranted about by me Champion Mush did highlight how utterly Kerbroken things become when Accuracy/Evade become the Most Important Thing.  This would only be multiplied if the Hit rolls doubled for your damage. (It would also not avoid the 'sorry they resisted the damage' situation anyways.  If DAMAGE counting towards damage can't hurt the enemy, then Damage via Hit-Roll would... Still be damage that can't hurt the enemy.  Another Star Wars Example? Sorry Han's perfect Aim, but your critical hit blaster fire Damage was open hand blocked by Vader anyways.)

  Auto-Hits Bad (Champions Online does this, but it's got realtime blocking and both PC and NPC hitpoints instantly leap up to full the second aggro is gone between Mobs).  Yes, missing sucks.  Unless it's the enemy missing.  Everything hitting everything would get outright ridiculous though.  Simple example with classic Icons.
  PC A) I attack an enemy with my Adamantium Claws.  It hits them and they lose some HP.
  PC B) I attack an enemy with my WebShooter.  It hits them and Enemy is out of the fight.
  PC C) Bleh I'm a Zombie! I bite them!  It hits them and I regain HP and they die and are resurrected as an infectious Zombie.  Who attacks an enemy and hits them, who turns into a~recursive.
  Not even going into the inevitable Damage/effects Arms Race to match the constantly Growing HP/resistances thrown about to survive said escalation for more than a hit or two.

  Dice roll for rules disputes.  While open rolling is possible in RL, RPOL DOES specifically has 'rig the roll' mechanics for GM's.  Just sayin.  As another conceptual to game system not us as we're not insane, could also lead to just questioning every single bad thing that happens to you hoping the 50/50 chance results in your favor. (Admittedly, every rules dispute I've been involved in have been of the 'they told me to look it up and we'll go with the rules, so I did and I was right.  Since I was right they told me to *censored* myself' or then said it was one of the, many, unlisted in the House Rules section House Rules.)

  TriStat, could work out as less stats to wrangle and outside of skills I register DnD 4th ED Stats practical as just three based on their Defense (Str/Con, Dex/Int, Wis/Cha).  Which is part of why I cry every time I see a build that's two primary stats are one that go to the same defense.

  I'm all for some form of PC Insurance... But hell if I know how to reasonably manage it without it encouraging Zerg Rushing encounters.  Related, nobody likes losing control of their character.  If you are not in control of your PC's actions it may as well just be another NPC.  Why even bother posting at all in a BBoard style game if someone or something else is dictating it's actions.

  Purely Cosmetic Means=Good.  This can and has worked build mechanics wise.  As ever the problem lies in the script department (Which I've thankfully grasped so I no longer blindly hate Magic itself, realizing Magic is the most common offender because it's the easiest 'it works because it does' asspull means.  Next to completely unexplained/theoretically possible thus valid until proven otherwise technology).
  Amusingly, even the tiniest shred of Game Mechanics your Origin is the most common for of Min/Maxing and easiest (even those who cant bother to get set bonuses do it).  I have NEVER seen a Mutation origin character I can recall outside of us.  I have seen plenty Characters with a Magical power source in their background created as Science or Tech Origin, likely because of the minuscule buff it gives their Veteran Power Clockwork Nemesis staff.  Even Demons from hell (which is extra amusing, as Natural Origin buffs BOTH Ranged Veteran attacks and they would be Legit Natural origin.)

  Inherent is good.  But only if it's actually on par with what you could access at that point otherwise.  4th ED's 'You don't get inherent Defense +3 until the level right before +4 Items' style is mocking and useless.  More so when Enemies are properly in line with equipment despite having mundane weapons or it's like, a non-magical animal.
  Considering our 'you get x1.5 your starter gears worth, you can edit your entire freaking character between outings.  Paying for the Inn and stuff is sorta shrugged, just don't expect Treasure to be anything but bragging rights or plot items' gig in this board(at least so far as I treat it), we've already got the style of that down.  We've basically escalated DnD Point Buy creation to the next level.  We can do this, we have done this, it works.  So that's one thing down at the very least.

  Travel Powers, love em.  They can end up on the 'A and B>>>> E and C' side of things but better than not having them.  One possibility is a freebie 'bargain bin' mobility gig, with better stuff drawing from your creation budget.

  Optional Movement.  Probably for the best unless we want to outline detailed grid/hex mechanics.  Just be mindful of finding any ranged charter you make never, ever, being out of melee harms way for more than a round.  Nor any Melee PC not being out of melee range of ranged enemies. (hurts both ways, but damnit, at least it DOES go both ways)

  I'm hazy on the 'empty levels' thing.  If a level has NOTHING useful or extra then yes it's an empty level.  But on the other hand, especially earlier on, you have the sense of 'damnit I don't have NEARLY enough Feats/Slots'.  In fact it often ends up BACKWARDS for me.  Oh, I have my final ultimate lv 32 Primary Broadsword attack power... It's comparative garbage until my 'empty levels' 33 and 34 go by.  Because even my LEVEL ONE power outperforms it by then via five or six Store Brand Generic Upgrades.  The 6th in those cases usually being a luxury slot while said lv 1 attack tends to hit capped damage output around lv 22 (out of 50) and from there is just keeping it's +hit up to date.
  Also, while Quest For Glory did list experience... I don't think it actually did anything besides make harder enemies appear in the first game, and only your hard stats progression mattered... Wait, are we talking about the same 'Quest For Glory'?  Five games, imported characters? Best Paladin Power Source Ever?

    Side bit (the possibly useful comments) for progression.  Equal Progression across party damnit, as well as keeping any new players or characters relevant.  If you're upset at a slacker getting 'just as much as you are', just think of it as them still being potentially useful if the need arises as opposed to useless as both a person and a character.
  Every Level Is The Same could work depending on how the rest of the stuff is built.  I know in 4th Ed that'd get ridiculous fast with the 30 levels.

  Dealing with 'Fancy' enemies.  Well, for starters don't send Vader after your freshly created lv 1 characters.  The 'ranks' gimmick could end up working out, but even CoH that varies.  Lone Blaster will suffer greatly even against the weakest of Archvillains.  The Glass Cannon is too Glass to live for more than two seconds and their 'best damage in game' ' cannon' is inconsequential against that many HP and resistances.  While a Lone Scrapper (or a certain Robots/Darkness Mastermind) with nothing but Generic parts can solo an entire mission arc filled with them, up to and including the respective Vader/Palpatine/Satan/Captain-Kirk-With-Ripped-Shirt equivalent' ones.
  Giant Monster™ Class enemies are an entirely different subject.

  Bit that hasn't been brought up but I'm saying it now.  Disadvantages in exchange for points can, Say it with me kids,  <Crowd Of Children>Die In A Fire!</Crowd Of Children>.  For both the PC balance logistics and the disproportionate suffering caused by them via GMs.

  One of my 'rules' of design I throw around.
  1)  As a player, do not build a PC/use mechanics in a way that would cause you to throw a Nerdrage if the GM did the same.
  2)  As a GM, do not build an NPC/use mechanics in a way that would cause you to throw a Nerdrage if a PC did the same.
  2b) Players WILL notice if you build something outside the lines of legality for Chargen/their tier. No matter how trivial or obscure any such detail is (But if you are, you're probably doing something obvious anyway.)
  2b, being a frequent bane of trying to translate Official characters into their own game systems in a legal/sane manner.
  I'd bet a pretend Dollar Seth could Legally build Drizzt though.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:37, Tue 23 Nov 2010.

Ok to re-cap, I'll list things we all agree must Die In a Fire and all things made of win:

MADE OF WIN:
- Travel Powers
- Character Progression Matters.  (I.E. Leveling up being something exciting.)
- Race/Origin grants no stat bonuses.  (At least most games aren't misogynistic enough to grant stats based on gender.)
- Don't need fancy gear to survive.
- Rules apply evenly between players and GM.

MUST DIE IN A FIRE:
- Stat bonuses based on Disadvantages.
- Stat bonuses based on race.
- Unequal application of rules built into the rules. (I.E. "Rule #1: GM can break the rules whenever he feels like.")
- To-Hit/evasion stat is god.  (any stat being god for that matter)
- Anything that causes a player to lose control of their character.
- Micromanaging items needed for survival.  (Or anything for that matter.)

Now to brainstorm on how to attain these kinds of goals.  I'm thinking of a spectrum of free-form to hard-statted RP with "anything goes surreal hammerspace cartoon logic" style game on the left and "super realistic physics engine that takes a high-speed computer to handle" style game on the right.  I'm aiming for something in the middle, but leaning heavily to the left because performing calculus to figure out exactly how long it will take for your motorcycle to catch up to the fleeing truck is not my idea of fun.  On the other hand, a game system where you simply have the player and GM play rock paper scissors to determine if the PC "dodged" a point blank nuclear explosion would be going too far.

What I keep picturing in my mind is the way warhammer players play.  One player picks up a handful of dice and dumps 'em on the table.  Only math involved is to compare each dice to a difficulty number.  The number of dice equal to or more = the number of success.  Monsters removed from the battlefield, then Player two rolls a handful of dice.

Only in the system I'm dreaming of, 5-6 players and the GM all dump their dice at the same time.  Dice are compared to each other / some difficulty number, and results are narrated.  No initiative order means it doesn't take 15 minutes for a single round of combat.  Simultaneous actions makes for a slightly more "realistic" encounter where players are sometimes both get a killing shot on the same monster, but most importantly it means players aren't sitting around playing with their ipod for 15 minutes while they wait for their turn to come up.

Random thought before I crash:
1st chapter must be "RP best practices" which would cover things like:
"If you want to house rule any rule, write it down, tell the players ahead of time, and stick to it.  No changing rules on the fly.  You should have learned this concept in kindergarten."
"Do not let OOC spill into IC or vice-versa."
...and other stuff that makes for sane game play vs. a rage-quit waiting to happen.

In 4th Edition it is not hard to build a Drow ranger that fights like Drizzt. And this is intentional. Heck in DDI they even gave you the items Drizzt uses! just look up an optimized 2 weapon ranger build, make it a drow and give it the items Drizzt is known to use, presto you got Drizzt...

In 4th edition it is quite easy to build a character that makes people think, oh this guy fights like Ed or Al from Fullmetal Alchemist, or someone who fights like 'the man in black' from The Princess Bride. (Especially now that a Rapier is now a melee military weapon)

In addition to everything that has been listed so far in this thread, in an ideal game system, creating player characters and equally fleshed out NPCs should be kept streamlined and quick. If it takes 10 hours to make a character something is wrong. (And I am excluding time spent deciding what the character will be. I mean actual time spent assigning initial powers and gear and stats, etc...)

There is no perfect system, there are always trade-offs that must be weighed. A simple character is faster to make, but has fewer options, and having fewer options makes everyone cookie cutter which is not fun. Too many options and then you can fall into the 'I can't decide' or 'I am feat/slot starved' dilemmas.

Ro-Pi-Gamma (Found here: http://rhopigamma.wordpress.com/ ) covers such things. I would actually like to go through their episodes and summarize, pick catch-phrases, and otherwise squeeze every drop of wisdom from those shows to have a "How to Game" chapter written. I wholeheartedly agree that simplifying and giving common sense lessons is win.

Also, Drizzt can be found in the sample characters in character builder. You don't even HAVE to make him. He's already been made for you.

Totally agree.  One of the reasons I love d6 system is it's simplicity and chargen ease.  You have TONNS of options, but it's super simple to raise skills.  And Tim's suggestion crossed my mind too.

Now on to actual basic combat mechanic I was pondering.

LVL 1 NPC vs LVL 5 PC!  Both attack each other.  NPC has a combat value of 1 because he's a wussy compared to awesome PC!  LVL 5 PC has a combat value of 5!  The difference between the two is 4.  Each roll the number of dice they're allowed, whatever that is.  The number of dice that the NPC rolls that is a 4 or better = the number of successes.  The number of dice that the PC rolls that is -4 or better, I.E. all of them, = the number of successes.  Success are then tallied and levied against fighting spirit / hp / whatever.

The mechanic for determining HP, combat value, etc. has yet to be determined, but I'm seriously thinking it's entirely level based.  In other words, you cannot Min/Max the primary combat stats.

"But I want my character to be super accurate compared to my allies!"

Ok fine.  Spend the char advancement points, and you get no ranged penalties up to 300 yards.

There's more than one way to skin the RP game mechanic cat.  I like methods that involve as little math as possible.  And by precluding primary combat stats from tinkering, you avoid Min/Max and "this one stat is GOD" situations.

Also, following the above example's logic, if the dice everyone is rolling are d6's...

Level 8 PC vs lvl 1 NPC (or vice-versa) difference is greater than the maximum value of the dice, so the fight is rightly impossible to win for the lower level.  In D&D 4e, a fight with monsters that are +3 your level is considered a very difficult boss fight, but winnable.  +4 or more and you're in "probably going to TPK" land.  Implied in this guideline, as Joe pointed out, if a sadistic DM were to throw a level 10 encounter at a level 6 party, the players would likely ragequit.  Technically, if the players always rolled crits, and the monsters always 1, the level gap for potential success is much wider...  But the threat of ragequit is the only safety net preventing silliness like lvl 10's vs lvl 6's.  (The opposite is encouraged.  "Occasionally throw easy -3 encounters at the PCs so they can have a feel for how powerful they've become.")

Also, the D&D mirror exists in the "just take the difference of their level" mechanic.  After all is said and told, a level 30 character has just as much chance of hitting the AC of a lvl 30 minion as a level 1 character attacking a level 1 minion.

"Attack mod progression of PCs vs defense mod progression of monsters don't match in 4e!" you might say.

Don't confuse the facts with the argument.  The point is, in my ideal dice system, they WOULD match.  So any complaint about WotC being evil only proves my point that when you boil it down, an even match should be just that - an even match.  And vastly mismatched fights should be just that - a one sided curb stomp.  And this should remain essentially the same regardless of level.

Lastly, this concept allows for infinite progression and easy high level monster / PC generation.  In DBZ, "Over 9,000!" was a big deal at first.  Then they just tacked on a zero at a certain point.  Then another zero.  And another.  And so on.  Essentially, if you wanted, your characters could just keep getting more and more powerful, but still be evenly matched by the armies of majin bu they face off against.  The mechanic remains the same, just sounds more impressive the more mythical "zeros" you tack on.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:19, Wed 24 Nov 2010.

And then there's earning powers and diversity. Maverick at level 1 in Star Wars didn't have any powers. Just his sneak skill. Now, he can bend all four elements like Ang and even hover around while juggling a rock, a fireball and a ball of water. I think it should be the same in our system. Higher level should FEEL higher beyond simply flavor text. If being higher level is only about tacking on another zero, the love won't be felt.

I agree that neat new powers are neat, and it's what keeps me interested in leveling up, but...

Level 1 Rampage in d6 Star Wars rolled 6d6 to hit, and 5d6 damage with a blaster.

Level 10 Rampage in d6 Star Wars, after much dumping of character points rolls a 11d6 to hit, and 10d6+2 damage.  With a lightsaber.

If the game were more like CoX, and weren't broken unfair in favor of Jedi, it wouldn't matter if he was using a lightsaber or a fist, the game mechanic would essentially be the same at level 10.  Roll lots of dice.  Enemy defeated.

For me, what really makes a lightsaber fun is the flavor text.  The fact that the game system is broken in favor of Jedi actually takes away some of the fun.  (Evidenced by Nivera's complaints about 'I suck in combat because I had to spend points in piloting' making game less fun for me and her both.)

So yeah.  When it comes to basic game mechanic, I would like for everyone to be dumping about the same number of dice when at the same level.  There should be slightly more combat dice for the character who obsesses over combat and slightly more piloting dice for the one who obsesses over piloting, but not so much that if one is KO the combat guy will crash the ship trying to turn it on or the pilot will punch themselves in combat.

Decided to make a whole forum for discussing the best practices chapter of the game system.

link to another game

    Important Backwards angle from the 'Don't need fancy gear to survive'.  Unless there's some discount mechanic you have employed to buy something as an 'item', Don't make people suffer for having their straight up abilities flavored as Items.  Right about here, would be text spam ranting about Champions Mush experirnce outlining this issue.  But I'll skip that and short version.
  If somebody purchases an ability that could legally function as being just 'duuur, I have powers!' as it's Flavor, Don't force them to deal with the hassles of 'Item' powers if they want to flavor their Abilities as a Power Armor or something, and they are NOT buying it with 'item' discounts or whatever.

  The 'no initiative' thing. We 'almost' have that with our DnD rig in that the turns of allies are interchangeable (so long as there are more allies 'next' to them in the initiative).  However it could likely get very hard to post stuff properly if everything happens at the exact same time, even if everyone posted in a timely manner.  The 'more than one person gets a kill shot' can get kind of out of hand with even just DnD powers alone (not even touching the DnD powers that trigger of defeated targets).  Sorry Wizard, but that Swordmage banished your target from existence temporarily so the target out of your Acid Arrow range.  You also have *rolls* 17 arrows sticking out of you, but the cleric has already declared hitting a minion with a melee basic so maybe next turn they can heal you AFTER you have to make a death save roll.
  SOME kind of order is needed, especially on Play By Post when you can't just work out everything the Team has planned in a span of five minutes or so.

  The 'Advanced calculus to play' to 'Imaginaaatioooon!' style.  At least figured HP and hit/defenses.  No matter how much they end up the cause of Arg, they are kinda needed in most cases.  As for skills, simplify.  A) follow the logic that PC's are conveniently baseline skilled (sorta like they are in DnD, even if official DC's are too hard even for skill monkeys to manage regularly).  B) Don't make a pile of a zillion skills, nor make a few flagrantly better than the vast majority of them.
  18 different kinds of melee and ranged attack skills is not fun if they all boil down to 'you might actually hit something'. (let's see, Blaster rifles, blaster pistols, slungthrowers, Melee weapons, vibro weapons, ranged dodge, melee block, unarmed block, etc)  conversely, don't make one skill a super package deal that others can never compete with even if they get multiple skills, especially if it also has extra abilities and/or damage sources. (Lightsabre.)
  In fact, considering we likely wont be 'gear heavy' as that means stating up gear/making item tables/etc it's probably best to just assume you're competent with whatever method of carnage you employ, while any combat skills (if we even have them) should be for making your method of choice more trick shotty or something.

  The Tri-Stat deal and combat stat thing.  I would suggest 'let your primary stat be your combat stat', but then you have people punished for well roundedness instead of min/maxing even more than usual.  Why have 5/5/5 when 3/3/9 works just as well or better at keeping you alive/ass kicking?  However, it would also be one of the best ways to prevent 'this one stat is king' so, yeah.  Wish I had better insight there.
  But in general, the Tri-Stat intention (only need to think about 3 stats instead of 6 or more) is good idea.

  On the 'how complex, how many stats, skills, items' in a lump comment.  Simpler is better.  Not only because it would to the previously mentioned streamlining of creation gig, but there is also the fact that anything for this intended system is something we need to create in the first place (movement rules alone can be brain meltingly complicated).  By we I mean mostly you guys.  I just ramble and attack perceived flaws with a pickaxe.

  Minor twitch at the 'no range penalties up to' skill from past experience... But, Champs system DID have a good idea there.  Yes, Melee attacks were 'cheaper' than ranged.  However, there was no penalty (nor bonus) for shooting at things while in melee combat.
  Mildly related, One of the 'good' house rules of Champs Mush was no power could exceed 50 build points (or 10d10 DMG, which incidentally was what a 50 point basic Energy Blast did), at both chargen or EVER.  Pricetag was a separate matter.  If something only 'cost' you 15 from some combination of power disadvantages and other price discounts, you still couldn't exceed 50 points in what it was 'built' from.  This worked nicely, except around the players with so much EXP they were allowed to break the various 'at chargen' caps.


  But yes, some kind of upper limit on how much can be dumped into something would be good.  If say, 25 points or whatever (if we do point based) ends up max value, then it would be harder for people to tweak past the general range.  Harder, not impossible but still something.  It would also enable more points to be put into other things if you can't dump literraly half your pool into a single combat power.  (Again, noting both Pricetag and Buildy value separately would be a helpful bit if we go that path).  I know my Champions Mush guy's raygun was 50 'build' value, but the end price-tag was like 15-20 or so from the combinations of Item, shots limit, and other bits (may have had one rank of range nerf, but as range was tied to damage dice and it was a no frills, max damage dice attack that would basically turn it into a hand held sniper weapon as opposed to 'shoot the other side of the country).
  short bit.  Reasonable range caps on skills and 'abilities' at chargen.  Said cap can be met with decent points to spare on one, maybe to abilities (I'd say... A third of your CP for a capped power at lv 1 chargen?).  Said caps can not be widely exceeded later down the line to prevent 'well this is a higher class villain so of course their attack power has a third more points than normal' or similar.  And a damage cap alongside it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:18, Fri 26 Nov 2010.

Equality without equality is going to be insanely hard. Even though that seems to be one of the aims of this system. So just a thought; Imagine this roster of characters:

Antoinette
Tom
Angel
Alexis
Pan
Matt Darkthorne
Joe Darkthorne (the... POKEMON TRAINER with a pidgey)
Mittens (FFXI)
Mittens (CoX lvl 50 fire controller)
Optimus Prime
Bumblebee
Tinkerbell
Minni Mouse

Now. Match any two characters against each other like some kind of fighting game. Who wins every time? Normally, some of those match-ups wouldn't even be a challenge. But with the concept of all being equal, Minni Mouse could beat up Optimus Prime somehow. Or Tinkerbell could defeat Alexis. Or Tom could out-punch Pan or Angel. So my proposed thought was having differing TIERS of play that allow for different amounts of points, but no player can have more or less points than the other players currently in that campaign.

First of all, we're assuming there'll be point buy or skills or stats at all.  So far I had in mind a system so simple it was "You get this many dice to roll at X level" and that's it.  All your skills, powers, stats, weapons, etc. were so far just cosmetic.  I wanted to start from the absolute simplest concept and work up to more complications, and decided if we even wanted the added complication.

Case in point: Optimus Prime.

He has silly high stats and rightly so.  One of those stats is a high courage.  And rightly so.  But do we even want to stat courage at all?  Because if we do, that means somewhere along the line, the dice will determine whether Optimus Prime runs in fear or not.

Also... all those examples given... they'd be even matches if they were the same level.  Obviously, Optimus Prime would be way too powerful to start as a level 1... Unless you wanted to play him as a protoform.  So first we need to determine how we want to go about making characters unique.  By statting out every last detail?  Or going with something super simple such as "level X= you roll X dice" or somewhere in between.  My vote of course is super simple.

I'm going to say this now and get it out of the way: Do not stat or dice roll personality traits. If someone wants to flip a coin to decide what they wanna do in a given situation, that's on them.

But yes. We will need more than "level X = X number of dice" because then, to put it in CoX terms, the Tanker has the same HP as the controller. So why be a tanker. What makes you feel tough? Yes, I'm all for flavor text deciding a lot. But if this is an honest-to-goodness system we intend to try on others, they will, garunteed, want something more than rolling the same amount of dice to resist damage as the next shmuck.

I like simple, but if all we're going for is SO simple all we do is roll one die to determine everything and only if you're trained in it, then may as well just freeform RP. Because I've freeformed on SMT and we occasionally roll dice just to let fate decide if one of us hits something or not. Which, at that point, is still just freeform RP. Not an actual tabletop system.

I think World of Darkness came close to having it right. But that aside, I understand we're only STARTING at square one. Just making sure we don't end there.

OK so we do want statted skills and such, but nothing that'll determine a personality choice.  So any PC who wants to go toe-to-toe with and Elder Dragon will not be forced to shake in their boots by magic.  If the player chooses to say "my guy is just that brave" they can do so.

So what DO we want statted and how do we want it statted?  You mentioned WoD, but they had "presence" as a stat.  Vs. Willpower if I recall.  Here's another question.  How severe of an increase in power is it from 1 level to the next.  In Marvel, 10 levels was the difference between Aunt May and the beyonder.  DnD follows a much more linear progression.

But a lvl 30 gnome wizard can out arm-wrestle a lvl 1 goliath fighter.

We don't want character points being min/max spent into combat stats / skills for survival / nominal competence, but we do want character points spent in one specific focus to make a noticeable difference from one character to the next.  Smart character is smart.  Will have a better chance at figuring out brainy puzzle thing than strong character.  Strong character is strong, and will have a better chance of lifting heavy thing.  But how much stronger?

So... level alone will count for at least (half?) of the equation for lifing heavy thing.  Strength mod will count for (one quarter?), and lifting heavy things skill will count for another quarter?

  Different Tiers could work (both in how much you get to work with, and what my crazy and vague 'cap' idea goes up to), but I think we'll go insane if we try to focus on building Faction Cannon Angel Bard or Optimus prime, Semi-Phenomenal Nearly Cosmic Dark Power Edition Darkthorne, etc, let alone trying to figure out the mechanics balance.  Seriously we'd end up with a tier where we're beating planets to death with other planets and stealing Jesus's wallet at the same time.  As a take-five.

  Definitely agree to no stat based personality (duh).

  Also agree on Tim's end that there needs to be something to separate each character, but that in itself can be a headache even if a desired intention.   Also remember kids!  While the lv 30 Wizard dropkicks the lv 1 Fighter into the atmosphere is true, Race isn't that huge a factor considering there are no racial penalties in 4th ed.  Only bonuses ;D (It only feels like a penalty because your not perfect efficiency min/maxed.  Which the designers base lowest estimates on a lot).
  This is part of why I feel, if building goes into enough detail there, that some form of 'cap' on areas is a good thing.  Makes it a goal obtainable out the gate if you so desire, but also hopefully doesn't put that sort of thing so far beyond everything else that there is no contest.
  It would also hopefully encourage a lack of challenge DC's wildly escalating to match PC skill.  What's that GM?  Every lock we're running into is just slightly more complex than my lockpicking skill can handle?  We may as well turn around then because lockpicking can't go any higher right now.  The enemies have 13d6 fire DoT causing Greatswords when only up to 10d6 if it has no frills attacks exist? Hire someone else to save the princess.  Etc.

  As for Level=Results in the pure sense in DnD... I've never really got that in DnD.  Shortish version, oh wow you're a lv 30 unkillable semi-god warrior... You still cant walk across a freaking balance beam according to the DC of the area you are in.  Those gigantic burning lava golems are harder for you to notice with a passive perc than a goblin skulk for... some, reason.  While there IS a sense of advancement with your powers (and gear granting powers), there sure as hell isn't skill wise.
  It makes it tricky to show improvement by level outside of 'I have new abilities' IF your the kind that uses em.  DnD wise if you stripped out ENH bonus and Level+, then the To-Hit in DnD would be a very slowly advancing thing.  You WOULD be a good chunk better at it than a lower level person (considering your primary stat would +1 eight times from levels alone, which would double your mod+ if you started with an 18).  It would be a notable difference, with a clear reason as opposed to 'well, this goblin fireball shooting mage is a lower level than this here cave bear'.
  Even Shorter version. 'higher level' being the only reason something is better than a lower lv whatever annoys me.  It's not necessarily a bad mechanic, it's just one that bugs me.  Especially when combined with all things that require skill use being jacked up to make your gains inconsequential.

Meaningless skill gains are annoying, yes.  Climbing a 10' dungeon ledge should always be a DC 10 whether you're a level 1 character or a level 30.  This is why I facepalm over the Dark Sun escalating sun sickness attack.  The sun hates you more the higher your level.  >.<

So if level were entirely arbitrary and made no difference, then yes, I would hate level too.  I'm coming more from the perspective of video game level.  Where leveling up makes a huge difference.  Even in Legend of Zelda where numerical "levels" don't exist, you're way more powerful at the end of the game than at the start.  The beginning monsters didn't get any stronger, but they'll still kill you if you sit around doing nothing.

As for rules limiting the GM's access to higher level stuff... in video games, if your level 1 character walks into a level 10 dungeon, the character is going to be slaughtered.  At which point, the player sends a flame mail to the developers saying that their game is unfair?  No.  Sane players would know that they blundered, will load their game from the last save point, and be determined to level up and get revenge on that level 10 dungeon.  Which will still be a level 10 dungeon by the time they do.  And two months later it will still be a level 10 dungeon.

Then CoH came up with the brilliant idea of player selectable difficulty.  They can choose if they want to enter a dungeon that's several levels above them or a level below.  On top of that they can basically pull a dungeon out of their butts using /newspaper.  But this is a situation where there's no GM.  Ooooh!  No GM needed PnP game system!  Now there's an idea.

Aaaanyway.  Back to original topic.  If a GM throws a +5 level encounter at the players, it's obviously because "this is the part of the story where you RUN AWAY!"  If the players choose to stand and fight, the GM can let them know, "these guys con purple.  Are you sure?"  If they insist on staying they'll likely get creamed.  This is player stupidity.

On the other hand, if the players have to take a boat to an island in order to save the day, and the lake has an abolith in it, this is the GM being a nimrod and the players quitted.  Game over.  Never played another game with that person as GM again.

So what am I saying?  I'm saying that DnD adventure writers are nimrods.  A 10' wall should always be a DC 10 regardless of what the level of the players is.  Just because the DC table says "very difficult" DC for a level 10 lock is 20something doesn't mean that the storage closet's lock is going to be a level 10 very difficult DC just because this is a level 10 adventure.  Or even a level 10 VERY EASY.  It's a friggin storage closet!  The lock would be a level 1 difficult at most.  DnD's DC chart would be fine, in all it's incarnations, if the people who made the adventures were sane and had some perspective.

On the other hand, SHOULD we have a level 30 barbarian easily able to pick a level 5 lock with no training or experience ever?  The reason we might say "yes" is so that players won't feel useless in a dungeon full of locks.  Or maybe the barbarian can't pick locks and just smashes the door.  The more I think about it, the more I don't want to keep level 30 whatever being able to easily do level 1 whatever just because.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:03, Fri 26 Nov 2010.

  Yeah, no.  I'm not talking about 'oh boo hoo my lv 2 character cant handle a lv 30 dungeon'.  I'm talking about 'Oh hey, this enemy has a +8, 1d20 Greatsword... wait what.' When we all know that's fooking impossible with what the 'cap' for Greatswords and Enchant bonus are.  And skill challenges higher than you can EVER match decently because you are already at 'cap' in the area you're supposed to be in.  Come back later when your rogue's lockpicking skill gets higher? It CANT get higher.

  The usual 'GM scales Difficulty to meet Party' is the best case scenario (even the DnD Mags suggest jacking up your skill challenges if somebody went to the effort to raise their skills, basically punishing the party for trying to improve their skill challenge odds) in intent, with poor results.  Usual scenario is the difficulty is that high by default because people expect you to super min/max.  We're not that crazy, but also need a way to point out to others 'hey, you.  Don't be that crazy'.

  There's 'you're not high enough level for this you crybaby' and then there's 'Oh Hai, your enemies have stuff better than your the possible gear and abilities of the specialists.  You may all now beat up Lucky for having the nerve to raise his Dodge skill so much, if I want to shoot him of COURSE I'm gonna need to murder the rest of you easily as well'

  My vague 'cap' gig is to try and prevent that sort of thing that frequently cited as awesome Star Wars GM makes party death threats over (as well as one of the common facepalms of Champions Mush).  If a PC hits it then nice they're awesome at that, but it won't completly overshadow the party, nor outright screw the party if the GM also uses 'capped' things (in a few places)...  Not so much if the GM breaks Limitations over their knee again (*cough*Enemy = Darkthorne translating to Extra powers and exceeding MAX cap value in all ability categories*cough* High/med/med/med? High/low/high/med? Try Higher x4).  The reminder of the 'uh, your supposed to run away from my out of nowhere difficult encounter guys' compared to 'lol Abolith' thing fills in the ramble bit that'd go here nicely.  Granted, unlike Non MMO RPG's running away is a touch harder than 'select run'.

  Well party, in your travels you have come across a pack of Dragons.  you know, enemies that can fly and have ranged attacks.  Maybe you should try running.  From the things that fly faster than your double move that want you dead.  Out on the open road/cliff sides/etc.  I think a lot of party wipes from 'you were supposed to run you morons' encounters is because PC's expect that you can't, or you REALLY can't realistically escape them.  Oh*sensored* Drow.  Maybe they'll get bored if we run for a few rounds?

  Of course, the whole 'cap' thing cause a failure in Solo enemies being a threat if the whole party are combat monsters.  But I figure if PC's can't exceed certain points, then it'd lessen the giant gaps between PC's (if any even DO opt to reach caps).  As well as lessen the odds of 'oh, I have to jack up the enemies and challenges to a ridiculous point that will murder the entire party just to Hit Lucky's Dodge skill'.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:11, Fri 26 Nov 2010.

Yes.  Player caps make sense, especially when taking into account the potential for a GM feeling like he has to escalate in order to keep things challenging for all the players.  Will also have to have minimums or the player who insists on keeping 1d in Dodge "because dodging isn't his thing" will wind up dead when all the other players have 4-6D.

More discussion over topic of stats, skills, and combat during thanksgiving trip.  Tim and I agreed that IF base stats were allowed to matter in combat, they shouldn't matter more than skill.  And the more we talked about it, the more we agreed that level shouldn't matter more than skill either.  Let's look at a generic level 30 character in DnD:

To-hit.  STR mod: +8.  1/2 level mod: +15.  Magic weapon mod: +6.  Feat mod: +3.  Skill mod from training with the darned weapon for months and months to become a fighter in the first place?  +2.

Athletics.  STR mod: +8.  1/2 level mod: +15.  Skill mod from training for months and months to become a fighter in the first place?  +5.

Even in D6, you have to spend gobs of character points in blaster rifle skill before your actual skill matters more than your starting stat of 4D DEX.  Trump system same problem.  Much better to buy ranks in the base stat than raise skill except for maybe strength.  >.>

So yeah.  In our system, the gnome wizard will only beat the NPC goliath fighter because his dice are big.  Not because his default athletics is +15.  The PC fighter will get slightly stronger over time, but his skill will improve far more and matter far more.

On stats:
Since we're still in brainstorm mode, I'll just list up a bunch of base stats from various systems.  I will say this:  I like the concept in BESM where a certain skill was a combination of the three stats.  I say "a certain skill" to avoid confusion.  The basic concept of "when you do a kung-fu PUNCH, it's more than just strength.  It's more than just using your wits to ferret an opening.  It's more than just putting your heart into it.  It's all three combined."  Turning that into a game mechanic is another story.



Out of time, but you can see how base stats can be very >.>
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:04, Sun 28 Nov 2010.

  Yeah, skill mattering is good (of course, needing a giant stack of them for redundant purposes, or to merely survive bad).  Admittedly, I don't want to make direct combat skill involved because how widely different that can end up.  There are SIX different offense skills alone in BESM, 3 different defense skills (melee defense being of questionable use when there is unarmed defense, depending on how neurotic your GM is).
  even as Meh skill challenges can be in 4th ed, at least in 4th ed some competence in swimming and survival are packaged in automatically. (mechanics wise, that child that fell into the water was in no risk of drowning for at least several hours)

  I'm... not a fan of multi stats needed for a skill.  I can see what you intend, but we saw how that worked on that Star wars Muck rick pointed out.  Combined with the fact you needed high skill, AND high stats in multiple, often conflicting areas to be good enough at something for good chances of success (in fact, unless stats got to a certain point you couldn't raise skills past a certain amount due to the adjusted down value being a good chunk lower, even if you had 100 cap in a skill).
  Even if you are average, or above average in most stats with one or two strong areas, you will still end up likely sucking with a skill you WANT to focus on.  Average+good=meh.  Worst of all, it would mean more MATH.  Direct stat to skill relation is one thing.  having to average multiple stats off a skill? meep.

  Incidentally, NO 'you can take more turns than others with this' stuff.  Unless its something universally built in and finite like AP.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:25, Mon 29 Nov 2010.

Thoughts Chris and I had on a phone conversation.

-Keep it simple. So stick with one type of die.
-Have a primary and secondary "stat". These are generic and are renamed according to character / setting.

More to come.

The example I gave Tim for the primary/secondary stat concept was Naruto.  There's two main things in that system.  Martial arts and ninjutsu.  Saske would be high in the ninjutsu where Rock Lee would be high on the Martial Arts end.  Sakura would be low-ish on both fighting stats, but highly skilled in healing.  Shikamaru too is low on the two primary combat stats, but he's super high in tactics.  And so on.

The idea is that many settings revolve around a few simple concepts that's critical to the story where most everything else is a given, and a character is unique for their one special skill.  The main character tends to be really good at the main concept of the setting.

Shaman King: "He's go so much Furioku!"
Naruto: "Wow!  He's got so much chakra you can see it!"
DBZ: "It's over 9,000!"
Star Wars: "Strong in the force, he is."
Etc.

So examples abound that point to: "A game system's stats may as well be: Primary story focus stat, secondary story focus stat, maaaybe a third stat, and Everything else."

All that changes from story to story is what you name those first two stats.  What if you were to make a game based off The Matrix where you spend 99% of your character's time sitting in a chair plugged into the network?  The STR score wouldn't amount to squat in the Matrix.  Nor your DEX.  So having a concrete set of stats like D&D doesn't translate well into a flexible game system intended to be useful for all RP situations.

Philip.  He is 2 things.  Tough, and stubborn.  What he isn't?  Intelligent.  Put him into the D6 Star Wars system, and he breaks the system because Willpower is under the Knowledge stat.  Put him in D&D and he breaks the system because willpower is a result of how charming Philip is (NOT!) and/or how wise he is (NOT!).  And who's idea was it that being wise makes you perceptive?  And that because Timothius is diplomatic he's also more intimidating than a goliath fighter?

Aaanyway.  Here's the generic character sheet thing I'm aiming at:
Primary Combat Stat:
Secondary Combat Stat:
Skill List:

This makes things open ended.  There would be a minimum and a maximum you can put into each of those 3 major categories.  The name of the primary and secondary stats would be determined by the setting.  I'm also considering ignoring this 2-stat system entirely and just put everything under skills.  "Skill: Strength.  4D.  Through rigorous training, Snake can bench 300 lbs.
Skill: Gardening.  4D.  Most of his free time is spent weeding.
Skill: Willpower.  Wait... this isn't World of Darkness, so don't need this skill statted.  I'll just mention in his char description that he's strong willed."

Keep forgetting to mention: linear level progression vs. exponential.  The HP granted to a char in 4e is linear, but the gold granted is exponential.  XP granted and required to level are both exponential, so may as well be linear.  So for the sake of comparison, let's take a DBZ approach: starting at power level 100 at level 1, each level gains either +10 power level or 10%

power level at Level 2.  linear +10: 110.  exponential +10%: 110.
power level at Level 3.  linear +10: 120.  exponential +10%: 121.
power level at Level 11.  linear +10: 200.  exponential +10%: 259.
power level at Level 21.  linear +10: 300.  exponential +10%: 672.
power level at Level 31.  linear +10: 400.  exponential +10%: 1745.

As we can see, even with only a 10% exponent, level progression out paces linear faster the higher the level.  I vote for a set % increase in power / level so higher levels don't feel sluggish in progression.  (At level 31, a +10 in power is only a 2.5% increase in power.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:59, Thu 02 Dec 2010.

Sure beats rolling dice to see how powerful you get each time you level.

Fer realz.  Hate 3.5's HP system with a passion.  More than anything else about that system.

Next point.  Was hit with a little inspiration.  Namely the elements of CoX and how they overlap with other games.

HP, MP, and Time are the three main resources.  In CoX the element of Time is covered by recharge and animation time.  Snipes take a long time to fire off.  As do a lot of big alpha strikes.  They also drain lots of endurance(MP).  And they tend to take a long time to recharge..

Chars with lot of defense to losing HP (Tankers and such) tend to have less aptitude for taking away enemy HP and enemy time.  In other words, Tankers have high HP.  Blasters have high aptitude for removing enemy HP.  Controllers are great for dealing with the time resource, mainly by stealing enemy time.  And Defenders have high aptitude for protecting allie's resources such as HP, Endurance, and Time.

Most powers are defined by how they affect these 3 resources: Damage/Healing, Time to use/time to reuse, Endurance cost.

Interestingly, HP aspects shift as levels go up, but time and Endurance do not.  A level 1 power costs just as much time and endurance at level 50.  Unless you use enhancements.  But that lowbie power does way more damage at level 50.  That, and access to lots of other powers, is all it takes for a char to feel wildly more powerful at level 50 than they did at level 1.

So...  I'm thinking of making the system grant chargen points that can then be spent on being adept on differing levels of the 3 different resources.  Spend chargen points on HP and you'll be tank-like.  Spend chargen points on messing up enemy speed and such and you're more like a troller.  And so on.  Balance comes by giving the same amount of dice to all players.

Joe mentioned "Char 1 punches. does damage.  Char 2 shoots web, takes enemy out of fight."  The trick is that in CoX, web shooter doesn't take enemy out forever.  Enemy will break free.  So another tricky balance issue is making sure powers aren't over powered.

So.  In short.  Thinking of trying to make a dice system that emulates CoX as simply as possible.

Tried to start working on comparing CoX powers to have a starting point for determining how to make a PnP system that balances time, hp, mp, and whatnot...  Figured I'd use Brawl as the basic starting point.  But I found that powers are confusing as all heck.  Brawl is a different power depending on your powerset.  As are the prestige staff powers.  And the regular level 1 powers.  Here's what I found so far:

https://spreadsheets.google.co...amp;authkey=CJfunaAM

  Right, so.  We like the min/max caps that ironically help sideline min/maxing.  Let's hear it for having provided help that wasn't just elaborate nitpicking.

  Snag with trying to direct compare to CoX besides the fact it's a class style game, is it's also a combat style game first and foremost.  Though the primary/secondary angle does have some potential.  As does the HP/MP(endurance) equivalent/time resource thing even if I cant really place a way to apply them.

  I completely sympathize with the 'how to translate mindset to mechanics' thing Phillip goes through.

  Seems at the moment primary sticking point as ever is actual chargen itself, as a play mechanics it seems we can just pick up a bare bones one and just go with it.

And Tim suggested a different pool of points for combat attributes/skills and out of combat skill.  This idea would kinda force a minimum aptitude in combat and out-of-combat skill.  The trick is in defining combat and non-combat.  Because a sharp eye is useful in and out of combat.  As is first aid, strength, speed, etc, etc.

One thought I had was making player pay twice for the same skill if they want it in and out of combat.  Say you get 100 combat points and 100 non combat points at level 10.  If you want a character that's super strong in combat (Hulk), but wimpy out of combat (Bruce Banner), you can do that by not buying out of combat strength.  But somebody like Wolverine has super senses and regen in and out of combat and must pay for that stuff on both sides.

Problem with that is the min/maxers will instantly go for the Hulk build so they can have Bruce Banner's brains out of combat... 'cause who needs advanced calculus in combat?

Soo... I'm thinking of having all skills be just skills, but players must select one of those skills as their primary combat skill.  For example.  Player wants a dancer who's very good at dancing.  They're also kinda good at poetry, botany, teaching, and so on.  They must select a skill among their list of skills as their combat skill that meets the minimum for that level.  In this example, the only skills that meet the minimum is dancing and poetry.  The player chooses poetry.  So in combat, they use rhyme to annoy and confuse enemies, causing psychic damage.

Silly, perhaps, but it makes the point that you don't have to be fast/strong/DEX/dodge/initiative/perception monkeys to survive in a fight.  Be creative.  Sword mages and wizards dodge with their INT.  Sorcerers smile their enemies to death.  It's been done in other systems.

I can't help but think about how Byron will have people roll piloting every time just to start a ship. Or get it off the ground. Or land. You know... BASIC stuff any pilot who so much as has the skill would be able to pull off 999 times out of a thousand. NOPE! Try 5 out of 6 chance! 1 out of 6, you have the chance of ruining the controls, the ship, or even semi-crashing into the ground. Silly. So here's the point I'm getting at:

When Byron has us roll piloting just to start a ship, it makes me want to do one of two things: 1) Never pilot so it isn't my problem. 2) Raise piloting skill so dang high I might only fail 1 out of 24 times instead. So to prevent THIS, I propose the following: Have "inherent" abilities. The rules will cover "Everyone can do this, this and this" (namely the GOD stats such as dodge, etc). Anything BEYOND said base skill will be impressive feats such as your mentioned running up walls and backflipping while shooting at two guys. Want to dodge bullets while tightrope walking? Fine. Up your dodge. Want to dodge a punch? Don't worry about it... everyone can do that.

The goal I want to shoot for is a combat system that's FAST.  And by fast I mean a minion will take 1 round for the striker to defeat.  A leutennant might take 2 rounds.  And a boss 3-4 rounds.  Super powerful elite solo monster final fight of the story might take 6 rounds!  *Gasp!*

You have to figure at any given time there is going to be 4 to 6 players at ANY tabletop game. That said, as I was reading what Mittens last typed, I was remembering Warhammer and how the HP was like, just these 10 dots. So along the lines of what you're talking about:

Wimp: 1 HP
Minion: 4 HP
Lieutenant: 8 to 10 HP
Boss: 25 to 40 HP

These HP levels are substantially lower than in DnD, but the point is that HP is not a gauge of how hard you have to hit, but rather how many times they must BE hit. The players would take off 1 HP on a successful hit. That means any player can take out a wimp with 1 hit. Any GROUP can take out a Minion in one round. And the boss has 25 HP so that even a group of 6 hitting him every round will take 24 of his hit points off in 4 rounds. He'll still have 1 more HP and thus, 1 more turn to do something before taken out.

Now even as all this was occurring to me, so was the fact that SOMEONE will want to be the damage dealer. I'm thinking a DD could, depending on how broken we want this, either do 2 HP of damage in his turn, or has what amounts to a special ability that allows him to hurt higher level enemies (like bosses and lieutenants) more while he hurts lower levels just as much.

SIDE NOTE:
Don't forget, we will want people to feel special in their respective rolls. The downside of having 2 clerics isn't that it's redundant (nobody minds being healed more), it's that the ones playing those clerics may start getting competitive or just plain feel less special. I hate to say it, but one of the angles I'm coming from is psychology of the players. If your players aren't having fun, the game is a failure.

After quick brainstorm with Yayvid and Tim about these things, we fell in love with the Champions Online's system, where characters can change their roles on the fly.  Solo?  Click the "balanced" button.  In a team with no defender?  Click the defender button.  Team needs more damage dealers?  Click the DD button.  And so on.

But how do tank players feel like they're special when anyone can tank?  Champions already answers this.  You can optimize your build for tanking.  Sure someone optimized for DD can tank in a pinch, but not as well as the person focused on tanking.

So how does this translate into a game mechanic?  Suppose you start your turn with 10 dice.  You're a healer, but no one's hurt.  So you choose to spend all 10 dice on attack.  WHAM!  You hit.  Now the bad guys want to kill you.  So next round you spend all 10 on tanking!  WHAM!  You survive the attack!  But your allies are hurt too!  So next round you spend your dice on healing.  Well since you're doing what you're good at, you get BONUS dice for healing!

Ingenious.  Talked with the local game store owner about our ideas, and he said, "I know what you mean about initiative being a pain.  I developed a 2 player pirate game, but new players wanted to play so I adapted to system for multiplayer.  But keeping track of initiative was time consuming.  Then I came up with a system of dealing out cards for initiative.  Higher the card, higher the initiative.  Then it evolved to where face cards had extra effects.  Queen of diamonds was nature, so you'd have some natural event happen on your turn like clear waters.  Aces got to go again at the bottom of the round.  And so forth."

Playing cards!  Visible initiative markers that can be easily handled.  So if you want to trade up initiative every round to keep things interesting, it's not a huge chore it's very simple.

"Builds allow you to specialize your character by selecting different roles and by equipping different Upgrades, Block replacers, Slotted Passives, and Devices. For each character, you unlock 6 roles during the level progression. Regardless of the number of builds you use, you can still select from the same 14 powers. In other words, you will not be able to choose entirely new powers for another build."

What that all means escapes me, but there's an idea of how Champs deals with the different roles.  I don't recall if you can change roles mid combat, but in FFXI you had to go to a city and talk to an NPC to change jobs.  Technically this ability exists in our current D&D games, where you can go from rogue to bard and back after every fight if you wanted to...

Downside: complexity.  The champs system adds 2 layers of complexity.  Roles, and optimizing those roles.  In PnP terms, you'd have to make 5 character sheets per character, and update each of those 5 every time you level.  Unless there's some super simple way of applying roles without a lot of during-play math which slows down play.  Perhaps a level specific quick reference sheet for each aspect a role changes?  For example, a level 10 sentinel sheet might say "minus 3 HP dice, minus 3 damage dice, plus 4 healing dice."  and a level 20 sentinel cheat sheet might say "minus 6 HP dice...." and so forth.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:50, Wed 08 Dec 2010.

Tim and I had a long conversation... well mostly a monologue from Tim... but the jist of it was about a game called Gamma that has super simple character generation.  You pick a race such as "half roach" and that's it!  You get a list of powers, now let's play!

"But what if I want to play something off the wall that isn't on the race list?  Like a could with tree limbs?  A lot of people say that the more character customization you allow, the more complicated character creation and game system becomes.  Take D&D for instance.  I used to think that 'only' 4 encounters and dailies wasn't enough.  But that was when only PHB 1 was out.  Now I know better.  That's a LOT of customization.  And it spans a library of books."

Me: "City of Heroes: 'Race?  What race?  Your appearance has no effect whatsoever on your power.  Big guy?  Could be a glass cannon.  Or a healer.  Little girl?  Could be a rock solid tanker or a raging brute.  So far, no one seems to have a problem suspending disbelief with that part of CoX.  You don't have to have big muscles to punch hard."

Other things we covered were: deadline for fully functional game: November 2011.  Theme of game system by that time: RL heroes!  Firemen, Police, etc.

We also discussed open-ended powersets.  Suppose you have the power "teleportation."  In D&D 3.5 it would give a description like "you open a portal 3' wide that leads to an exit of your choosing" then let the player decide how to use the power.

Tim: "I was playing Emmy as a rogue in 3.5.  I told the GM 'I'm gunna slice his achilles tendon to knock him down.  The DM said 'sure go for it.  It won't be easy, but give it a try.'  I made the DC and the guy went down and was unable to stand for the rest of the encounter...  In 4e, that's a DAILY, and it's a save ends."

Me: "Joe would flip out if we allow open-ended powers like that.  'If players can do that, then monsters can!'  So I've been thinking of having a 4e limited powerset for monsters, and 3.5 style open-ended powers for players.  Nothing says the monsters HAVE to be allowed exactly everything the players."

Tim: "Which follows your 'players have top billing' concept.  I like."

Today we visited the game store and asked the owner to demo D&D Gamma World for us.  Inside the box is: a rule booklet.  A couple steno-pad page size character sheets.  A deck of cards.

Character generation is:  Roll dice to determine powerset, or choose from a list.  Put an 18 in your primary stat, 16 in your secondary stat, then roll 3d6 for each of your other stats.  Pick gear and get dealt a couple cards, and you're ready to play!

The system is a marriage of traditional PnP RPG and a trading card game.  You make your own deck of 12 or so cards with bonus item cards granted by the GM for successful play.  Expansion packs have 1 rare card, two uncommons, and several commons.  Presumably you can play without ever buying an expansion pack... but we all know better.

So the advantages of this system are: Simple character sheet / character creation.  Quick and easy to learn the rules.  Can create a random character without a computer.

Then I mentioned our musings about an RPG that doesn't need a GM.  He told us that describes Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game perfectly.  So he demo'd that game for us too.  FUN!  It's everything I as a DM wished D&D were.  There's one d-20 that everyone shares.  Each player is given a character card describing their class and such.  Then they get a couple power cards that match up with that class.  We were each also given a cheet-sheet card that explained how to play the game.  One card is all it took to know the rules of the game!  Well... mostly because we were familiar with D&D, but still...  Cheat card described a turn:

Turn part 1: Hero Phase.  Move and attack; or attack and move; or double move.

Part 2: Exploration phase.  If you're standing at the edge of your map tile, draw a tile from the tile pile and add it to the edge you're standing at.  Randomly generated maps!  Under certain circumstances you'll draw and play and encounter card.  Which is usually a trap of some kind that attacks everyone.  My rogue character had a bonus to disarming traps.

Part 3: Villain phase.  Here's the genius of the game.  Under certain circumstances you draw and play a monster card.  Which is a monster.  Place the monster fig on the map where it tells you.  The monster card tells the player the monster's tactics.  "If the wolf is adjacent to a hero, it bites them.  If it is within 1 tile, it uses pounces the nearest hero.  If two or more tiles away from a hero, it moves it's move speed to the nearest hero."  My rogue char had a stealth card for immediately discarding a monster card I spawn if I choose.

You get xp and treasure for defeating monsters.  Very very simple, and no GM needed!  We literally learned to play the game in like 5 minutes.  There's a time limit of sorts where a powerful monster spawns if you don't escape the dungeon in a certain number of turns.

Disadvantage of this game course is the lack of roleplay and story, but those are relatively easily added.  The basic mechanic is just that.  A mechanic for fun dungeon crawling.  It spread out the chore of being a DM among the players.  Very very awesome.  If a group of players wanted to, they could assign a storyteller that gave plot behind the goal of the board game.  Or the game designers could have expansion packs that are a self-contained adventure with map tiles, monsters, and story.

If you prefer a less fig-focused style of play like a lot of 3.5 players fuss over, you could play with just the cards and dice, but I like drawing and adding random dungeon tiles and moving figs on said tiles.  I will admit that the lack of figs and dice tends to force me to use my imagination and thus forces me into more of a roleplay mindset.  Playing D&D 4e, I'll move my fig across a board and say "Kitau moves 5 then charges 4 more squares using brawl encounter power in place of a basic melee..."  Playing any game without figs I'll say, "I rush toward the troopers and do a leaping screw attack body-slam!"

Ravenloft turns out to be not as simple as Tim and I had hoped.  Explore, map expands, encounter card drawn.  Card: "Now whenever you discard a treasure card, you take 1hp in damage."  Monster spawns and attacks.  Next round.  Attack monster, but it survives.  More map is revealed, another monster, another encounter card.  "Trap!  Whenever the villain phase comes up, attack every PC in this area with a trap attack."  Monster attacks.  Next round.  Kill monster!  Get treasure card!  "Discard this card when you make an attack.  You get a +1 attack bonus for every hero within 1 tile of you."  Next hero uses a power with a lasting effect.  Another has an interrupt power.  And so on.  Modifiers, effects, zones, temporary buffs and enfeebles, Monster HP to track, treasure cards, xp, conditions, etc., etc.  It piles up fast.

By the end we were all like "someone found the exit.  good enough.  don't care if technically we'd have to trudge through another round.  we win.  yay."  Tim had gotten bored.  Even with most of the team about to die.  Info overload from a seemingly simple game has me thinking of avoiding conditions, effects, modifiers, zones, interrupts, etc. like the plague.  D6 SW is reasonable enough to play when it's just blasters and grenades.  Add on a few dozen force powers and it begins to get overwhelming.

After pondering Ravenloft's complications came up with a rule to help keep things simple.

There can be no more than 1 buff and 1 de-buff on any individual at at a time.

Suppose for example, your character is given the effect "hasten" where they can move faster than normal.  Then you use your power "Bane strength" where you sacrifice a few HP to raise your STR mod for the rest of the encounter.  The player chooses which effect to keep, but cannot keep both.

Suppose the enemy throws a flash-bang grenade.  Very loud, very bright.  The attack hits!  The hero is now EITHER blinded OR disoriented.  Bad-guy's choice.  Not both.

Also, the flash-bang grenade cannot hurt good-guys if thrown by good-guys.  This is a very needful hand-wave employed by MMOs that's seriously lacking in PnPs.

The yet-to-be-named game system so far.

Your Charsheet will look thus:

DAMAGE: [value from 1 to 6]
DEFENSE: [value from 1 to 6]
HP: [value from ? to ?]

Skill List.


Thus far, there is no point buy.  Now to explain what that all means.
Attack attribute.  A value of 6 means you must roll a 6 (or better) on your d6's to "wound" (i.e. deal 1 HP damage) to a standard target from standard range with a standard attack.  The meaning of "standard" has yet to be determined.  If the value here is 3, you must roll 3 or better to wound.  A value of 1 means you must roll 1 or better.

Defense attribute.  The value the bad-guys must roll to wound you under "standard" conditions.

HP = number of wounds before you're KO.

Minion NPCs have very few HP.  Leutennants much more.  And bosses about as much as a PC.  Solo bosses have as much HP as X number PCs combined.
Number of dice given to perform actions yet to be determined.

Skills are skills and powers and feats etc all combined.

Looking at that charsheet I spoke briefly with Tim and we agree on this point:

ALL attributes, damage, defense, hp; are determined by your CLASS.  Players CANNOT point-buy them.  The only things they can point-buy are powers, skills, feats, etc. under the skill list.

Examples:
TANK CLASS would have High HP, High Defense, Lowish Damage, and Lowish skill points to spend.

HEALER CLASS would have low stats but lots of skill points to spend.

BLASTER CLASS would be ye olde glass cannon with high damage, low hp and defense.  probably moderate skill points.

And so on.

By working up this example I came to realize that damage rolls are out.  Damage is static.

Two PCs walk into the arena, and 3 monsters approach!

"We're monsters.  Let's fight."

Monster stats:
DMG: 1
DEF: 2
HP: 2
1 Dice

Hero stats:
DMG: 2
DEF: 3
HP: 10
2 Dice

Round 1!
Monster 1 and 3 target hero 1.  Monster 2 vs hero 2.
Hero 1 targets monster 1 and 2.  Hero 2 targets Monster 2
Monsters: 1, 4, 1
Hero 1: 4, 1
Hero 2: 3, 5

This means that Monster 1 and 3 fail mc fail.  Would have failed vs even the frailest of PCs.  However, since Monster 2 rolled better than the PC defenses, he hits his target and deals 1 wound!

Hero 1 hits Monster 1, deals 2 damage, killing it.

Hero 2 hits both his targets, killing them both.

After much brain-wracking, I've come to the conclusion that some form of turn-taking is needed after all.  While dice rolling, math, mechanics, and such could be done simultaneously, 5 players worth of narrative can't happen all at once.  But dice and initiative can be evil partners.  I've seen it happen.  Table full of 3D initiative characters.  One player, rolling the same dice as all the others, never gets to go first.  Almost always goes last.  And thus their combat focused character gets the table scraps of combat because minions die so fast.

So to make initiative a stat?  Yeah.  I think it should be reflected by game mechanic if one character is quick and eager to fight compared to another who's reluctant or physically slow.  Allow dice to be part of it?  Sure.  But not always always always the dice must always rule.  Here's an example of what I'm thinking.

Player 1: init mod = +4
Player 2: init mod = +3
.
.
.
Player 5: init mod = +0
Monster: init mod = +2

All three roll a d-6.  All three get a result of 3.  This means that player 1 goes first.  The second to go isn't necessarily the one with the next highest total.  No.  It would be to player 1's left (clockwise) in keeping with most any other table top game ever.  This order continues until encounter is over.  Then when encounter 2 comes along, everyone rolls just like before, except for player 1!  Player 1 has already had a turn at being 1st.  It's now someone else's turn.  In this way, eventually, everyone will get a chance at going 1st.  And tracking initiative every combat round isn't an exercise in "who's turn is it anyway?"

Of course, this mechanic is geared mainly toward live RP, but that's what I'm aiming at for this game system.  To make my life easier when I GM the next anime convention.

Next thought.  Tracking damage.  I envisioned a table top full of empty glasses.  Each glass represents a character or a monster.  Whenever a PC injures a monster, for every HP of damage they deal, they put 1 walnut into that monster's glass.  When the glass is full, the monster is defeated.  Healing powers of course takes walnuts out of your glass.  Scale can be adjusted, and specific method as well.  But I'm heavily leaning toward a visual representation of damage rather than numbers on a page.  Hope this will help healers know who to heal.  Defenders to know who to defend.  Players to know which monster looks most injured.  Etc.

Thinking about strikers vs. controllers...  D&D's approach just doesn't sit right with me.  Striker: Roll once, maaaybe twice to hit something and do 1dX+Y  damage plus 1d6 to one, maaaybe two monsters.  Most broken striker ever, avenger, get's two chances for each target of an attack.  Controller, roll for each monster targeted.  Which is often 3+.  Sometimes 9.  That's a lot of energy.  Think about the force needed to penetrate AC20.  Now think of the force needed to penetrate multiple targets simultaneously.  Damage total wise, controllers can out-shine strikers relatively easily, except for the rare solo boss fight.  Number of times the dice are rolled... they're the indisputable champions.  I like the idea of giving players 5 or so dice to use against 1 to 5 enemies of their choice (with certain limitations like "you can't stab that enemy from where you're standing without a reach weapon" or some such.)

I also like the idea of "auto-hit, roll for damage only," vs "roll for both to-hit and damage" or "roll to hit, flat damage."

I want to keep things simple.  So by "damage" I'm thinking of going for a "fighting spirit" concept.

  Initiative as a stat.  Could actually work out pretty well, with the usual big fat 'If' for scaling (callback to my 'hard caps all could reach if they wanted it bad enough from chargen' outlook).

  PC A) fst mc fast. they got +5 initiative whoo!
PC rest of them) they arent as fast but they are used to this/its expected Leroy Mc Mittens is first into the fray.
  Sudden NPC ninja) +6 initiative.  You've never seen a +6 in your life. but boss goes first nananana

  Record screech sound commences at enemy.  this is a lightweight 'what could happen' example.  but initiative as a hard stat instead of roll itself could work sanely.

  unless its tied into dex or something again then branching ancient many system snags you are aware of

---

also. walnuts in glass thing.
Sux. 'needing visual representation' for Play by post? screw you text based people I want a picture with a nebulous 'how many will fit?' concept.

  RL side, still kinda meh. to vague, and 'things in cups' is way too cluttery, even if you had things that took up less space without still taking 18 million more to fill a 'cup'

I like.  Re-reading over previous musings about "class is everything" I like the idea of initiative order being tied directly to your class.  Fighters should be the first one into the fray.  All too often I've seen a rogue or ranger get eviscerated because they ran into combat first.  That said, that's based on the idea of turn-based combat.  I want everyone rolling dice at the same time.  In a "real fight" everything's happening all at once.  The monsters don't stand around and wait their turn.  So initiative will determine which player narrates what they want to do first.

GM: "The monsters saw you coming.  No surprise round.  'Foolish heroes!' the boss says, 'You'll die here just like your friend did!'"
Player 1: "My character is going after the boss monster!  'This one's mine!' he says.  Charge forward and stab him in the gut!"
Player 2: "My character is smarter than to allow his allies to fall for that.  'It's a trap!' he says, 'Do NOT charge in there or you'll fall into a pit!'"
GM: "Changing your action for this round, Player 1?"
Player 1: "Are there any traps?"
GM: "None that your character sees."
Player 1: "Nah.  Player 2's character is just being paranoid.  And my character's insubordinate and brash.  He's still charging in head long."
GM: "So what's your character doing besides barking orders, Player 2?"
Player 2: "Well he was going to huck a grenade in there, but if Player 1 is charging in..."
GM: "Your character notices that Player 1's isn't following orders."
Player 2: "In that case never mind the grenade.  Uh... I guess I'll... take out my rope for when he falls into the pit."
Player 3: "I was gunna grenade them too.  Hmm...  I guess instead I'll go with smoke grenade."
(( Other players all declare actions.  Two target the same minion with sniper attacks. ))
GM: "OK, everyone, roll 'em!"
Results: Player 1 would have hit... had he not fallen into the pit trap.  Player 2 is ready with the rope to pull him out.  Player 3's smoke grenade blinds the enemy.  Players 4 and 5 both crit, killing the minion two times over.

On the topic of making live RP easier for the GM, such as visual representations of HP, remember that such devices do not HAVE to be employed for forum RP.

  More 'could work with extra effort in RL, fail for the play by post' with your intentions for 'everybody acts at once even if they act in a row'.  You seem to love the idea though, has it worked out for you in another game?

  But Play by Post wise The GM having to give results between every. single. PC post.
  Fast player posts. Wait for GM.  regular player gets around to posting.  wait for GM. 'Takes near a month between every post' player finally posts.... Wait for GM.  Not QUITE that far gone with 'everyone declares actions at once', but can get up there, or get even worse.  More time sink with the fact you can/will need to post twice or more for any given turn.  Post once for intentions (wait for everyone).  Anything changes things? Wait more as everyone who needs to change their actions makes a new post.  Wait for GM.  Things change even more?  Again, wait for everyone who needs to change their actions. repeat.

  And considering how we play, I have to admit some facepalm bias over 'RL playing will work out fine so who cares, big shrug and we'll just think up new rules for PbP'.  Though I still think the 'things in cups' method wouldn't work out so great in RL either.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:56, Fri 25 Feb 2011.

Idea for visual representation:

On your character sheet, you have 4 pictures. One shows a normal face. Two shows a beat up face. Three shows a VERY beat up face. Then four shows a dead face. Here are some pictures to show what I mean:

(insert graphic image here)

The GM will have a whole sheet of paper that shows nothing but faces in rows. He puts enemy names next to each row and when people ask "how beat up does (insert enemy here) look?", the GM can hold up the paper with his finger pointing at how beat up that specific enemy looks. A single piece of paper doesn't take up much room.

Or you could just have the GM describe to you how bad off the enemy is. Like Byron does without us even asking.

Again, the GM is what makes or breaks a game, more so than the players. If there is a bad player, it is the GM's responsibility to kick them out. If the GM is a douche, it is the players' responsibility to kick HIM out and find a new GM.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:24, Sat 26 Feb 2011.

Thoughts on damage mitigation aka survivability.

D&D has several different defenses to represent a PC or monster being strong in 1 method of self-defense and weak in another.  High AC, low will for example.  Then, there's also Resistances to certain types of damage to further drive home this concept.  Then on top of that, there's high hp vs low, vulnerabilities, regeneration, defensive and healing powers, etc. etc. etc.  Layers upon layers of complexity to emulate "you're this tough vs this, and this weak vs. that."

Does it really add to the fun to have so many hard-coded conditional survivability rates?  Trump and similar game systems only have HP and 2 types of defense.  I'd point to warhammer being simple, but sadly, it's not.

Well my musings today included the fact that AC is similar to damage resist.  If AC 10 gives the player with a +0 attack score a 50/50 chance to-hit, it has almost the same effect as someone with AC 0 and resist half.  Or no resist and double HP.  Same survival time.

CoX has several methods for living longer, some more potent than others.  Is it right that fire shield tankers are made of paper compared to rock types?  Why not make the "flavor" of how you're a tank mean nothing like costumes mean nothing mechanically?

So here's the idea.  You have 3 in-combat survivability mechanics.  HP,  resistance, and healing.  If I roll a 6 vs an enemy with resist 1, they take 5 damage.  How this RPs out is "my tough guy's thick hide takes some of the brunt of the blow..."  or  "my guy with fast reflexes turns in such a way to keep the hit from hitting full force"  or  "the bullet is slowed slightly as it passes through my force field."  and so on.  The flavor can be anything you want it.  One mechanic to rule them all.  Also, this way to-hit and damage are dealt with in 1 roll, and there's no need for a bazillion layers of complexity.

  I've never used Stone Armor personally.  And you know I don't trust Defensey sets those due to my workbenchy ways.  Fire armor is a resist set.  I won't delve into CoX specific ramble.  Though I will say, form my casual gamer experience, that Regeneration with a side of light protection (and vs status) is low effort 'keeps you in the fight' WAAAAAY easier than 'resists nigh half of all damage but no regeneration'.
  I still don't trust 'you either take no damage if you're lucky, or get one shotted'. dodgery <.<

  I suppose your outlook on AC could apply to all four DnD defenses.  Though there seems to be a much heavier emphasis on Vs. Wills thrown around like candy for high end enemies.  AC as doesn't feel as relevant for the 'big' stuff.
  For the most part, the only thing AC will protect against are Melee basics, with the occasional non magical Ranged basic.

  Venca? Orcus? Zero vs AC attacks.  Though to my surprise Venca is one Vs Will and the rest are Vs Reflex... So.  Not only is 'I'm a fighter/paladin so I have good AC!' meaningless, so is Fort defense.
  Quick sum up of a stack of Big Name Gods, no Vs AC at all except for a basic melee(with extras).
  They got Vanca, Lolth, Bahamut and Orcus.  But no Entry for say, Kord or Bane or Grummsh.  I would imagine if they did, they would have a surprising abundance of not vs AC 'weapon' attacks ;D

  Meanwhile, Ye Fighter is with only a few exceptions, nothing BUT vs AC.  And even the high end enemies of Squishy Wizardlyness will have AC that makes yours look like a Joke, if your bathrobe wearing Party members haven't done that already. Yeah,  get what you were trying to go for, but still had the burning need to point out 'AC is basically a Joke defense in the end for PC's. Relevant NPC's will still get AC high enough to deal with Weapon people.'

---

  On to some attempts at practicality.  The 'this is the mechanic, same for everyone.  apply looks as desired' is always a good thing.  One of the good points (in theory listed) of HERO.  It can gets tricky when element compared to physical damages start getting involved on some level.  Best to keep things simple as possible for what 'kinds' of damage there are.

  I'm still unsure what 'harder to kill' method would be 'best' to identify a character as a 'tank' type in the mechanical sense.  'Harder to hit' can be a joke if the bit of you that's hard to hit is never around (part of my obsession with balanced defenses + quirky methods protection. for all my issues and flaws compared to the min/maxers, the GM's of Champions mush had no option to take me down but raw, unbalanced FIREPOWER that would have vaporized their lv 30 equivalent GMPC's if it hit them... I got so good at that mindset it's why they GM opinion shot down my ninja speed, normal damage tank).
  Meanwhile, having good damage resistance can still lead you just getting hammered by guns brought out to hurt the tanks.  Which reduce non tanks to a fine mist.

  And with TRUMP/etc Defenses where Damage and hit are the same thing and your only hit with the leftover numbers... Well, refer to the stomping of the party tanks in Metro. 25/25 defenses, hit for 34ish damage.  That needed an attack total of 59.  The high points of offense +(Doc Occult and Dirt Demon) are +25's Trumped.  IG is +16 Trumped.  If that bug had +25 offense total, Drawing three kings (assuming trump and lucking out in a suit bonus) still wouldn't be enough to cause that much damage. Aces are 1's, Jokers are 0s.  This means it was physically impossible to do that much damage unless the boss bug had better Ability+Skill than the best of the PC's. Even if the "Drew really well".
  I'm gonna point that out next time they ask about combat balance in that game or say 'oh, we just drew REALLY well'.

  One point, which will be tricky but also important.  Tanks vs Tanks.  Their capabilities need to land at a point where they are strong enough to actual do damage, or otherwise inconvenience eachother.
  Otherwise, you'd just have Tanks ignoring any and all attempts at drawing aggro by Tanks.  Oh, your SS/WP tank is Jabbing the Mechwalker? That's nice, I'll just goosh your teamates while I ignore you now.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:30, Wed 02 Mar 2011.

Many good points.

-No single enemy should ever have the firepower to 1-shot the glass cannon PC, much less the TANK!
-Tanks should be able to do good enough damage to matter.  I'm reminded of a Star Wars Minis fight I once played.  Yzong Vong boss tank guy vs another Yzong Vong boss tank guy.  They punched and punched and punched.  HP hardly ever budged.  Opponent player: "Screw this.  You win.  I don't care.  This is boring.  It's like they're fighting with feather dusters!"
-Never build into a game system a defense score that doesn't matter.

I approve of all these points.

One thing I disapprove of as far as game systems go is the "spike damage" concept of criticals / trump draws / extra dice with 6 on the wild.  No game should allow you to blow up the death star with a blaster pistol.  So criticals are out.

One system I'm thinking of is "wounds" where you have 3 "wounds" you can take, but you can receive no more than 1 wound in a round ever.  A damage loss cap if you will.

As an example: The "superminions" from Dark Visions.  Didn't matter if you critted or did a million damage to them, they still take 2 hits to take out.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:57, Wed 02 Mar 2011.

Tim: "No point to striker types then"
Chris: "This is an *exaggerated* example."

Conversation ensues, I don't remember it readily enough to type it while distracted by TV, but suffice it to say, I'm posting this to keep Joe from wasting his breath on that particular argument.

A couple of options came up.  One was an ouch "cap" meaning "after taking 25 hp damage, you become invulnerable for the remainder of the round."  This means if two slayer type monsters are gunning for you, and one does 20hp damage to you, the other can do at most 5 damage, no matter how well he rolls.  By way of reminder, nothing says monsters have to have all the fancy powers that PCs do.  (Example, most lvl 2+ monsters don't do +1d6 damage on a critical like most lvl 2+ PCs do)

Another idea was inspired by the deathpledged gnoll:

Claws of Yeenoghu (healing)  Encounter

Trigger: The gnoll first drops to 0 hit points.

Effect (No Action): The gnoll regains 5 hit points, gains 1 action point, and gains resist 15 to all damage. At the end of its next turn, the gnoll drops to 0 hit points.

Last monster in the fight got a moment of glory.  The entire party focusing fire on this bad boy, but the most we could do is 3 damage.  Of course it's counter attack missed just before it dropped, but the point was still made.  A mechanic that nearly guaranteed that this gnoll cannot be 1-shotted.

Another option considered was: normal hp mechanics till a person would be dropped to 0 hp.  Once per encounter, if an attack would take a player to 0 hp or fewer, the player will instead be at 1 hp.  This gives them the chance to pull a Terdisas.

There's probably other ways of dealing with the issue, such as simply giving players so much HP that there's no way they can be 1-shotted.  (Standard FS in Trump is way too few.)  Just need to decide which would be the most fun.  Player's choice?  Build all of the above into the mechanic?  Get 1 of the above by spending a feat on it?

What does "easy" mean?  Here's a scenario that came to mind.

Jim is a high school grad that lives on his own.  He didn't to well in algebra, but he aced P.E.  He enjoys hanging out with friends, watching basketball.  Well he also has a guilty pleasure: anime.  His buddies think anime is dumb.  Especially stuff like Totoro.  And tonight at the same time as the Celtics vs the Tarheels game is the cartoon network's showing of Totoro.  Fortunately, his buddies invited him over for the game, so he can record the anime at home.  But he's never actually programmed the darn thing.  He gets home at 5:30 and the game starts at 6.  He's got 20 minutes if he doesn't want to miss tip-off.

DC challenge: 6.

Jim has an INT score of 10 (+0 mod) has no training in VCR programming.  Problem is, this isn't D&D, and he's rolling a d6.  So he has a 1 in 6 chance of success.  Time to read the manual.

It's a VCR manual.  It may be slightly helpful, but... it's a VCR manual.  After 5 minutes of skimming, he's now got a temporary +1 bonus, doubling his chances to 1 in 3.

Each attempt costs him 5 minutes of time.  For each attempt, he gains an additional +1 bonus for a maximum of +3.  Decent chances of success, but judging from the frustration people brag, a 50/50 chance for a first timer in a hurry after only 2 previous tries is generous.

Someone with previous experience would have a +5 mod.  Meaning it's impossible for them to fail.  Even in a rush.  So is a DC 6 considered "very easy?" "easy?" "moderate?" or "hard?"  Depends on who you ask.

We want a simple game system. Simple will mean less realistic. Period. More realistic will mean complicated game mechanics. Period.

For VCR Jim, VCR is not easy. Period. Therefor the DC should be high for him.

Chris believes thus: Joe believes "easy" means "guaranteed success."

Here's another example, but from my own personal experience: Singing skill.

My mom has an *average* singing voice. Meaning she sings on key well enough for people to not wince, but not awesome enough for people to say "wow, you can sing". However, her ability to pick up on a song is also what I suspect is average. Meaning, she has to hear a song about two dozen times before she can START to sing it correctly.

Me? I sing well enough, that people actually demand to hear me sing, invite me to the choir, tell me "i hate you" because of jealousy. My ability to pick up on a song is pretty good. I hear a song not even once and can pick up on it mid-song. Lyrical memorization is hard for me, though. (My friend Josh could memorize lyrics after hearing them once. But his singing is below par to an almost annoying level.)

I can go to choir practice once and if the song is an easy one, I'm ready to sing it. Choir songs are more difficult than most songs, though, because you have to harmonize, learn your part while hearing other people learn their parts.

Given the above info, here is a real example of testing said skills. I ask my mom to sing a line from "Still Alive" from the game Portal. The line is "And the science gets done and you make a neat gun for the people who are still alive."

All I wanted my mom to do was sing that line. Just that single line. It took a dozen takes for her to sing it. And that's AFTER I went over it with her a few times. She kept singing it wrong, forgetting words, etc. Not ragging on my mom, but it goes to show how things go in real life. To me, I thought it such an easy thing to do that I thought just about anyone with a tolerable voice could do it with little to no practice.

Easy is not auto-success. People in real life after a lifetime of walking still trip over their own feet.

"But this is a game. Not real life." That's true. But when we are talking about "Succeeds picking a moderate lock every time without so much as a dice roll", we are entering the realm of "why is there a DC at all?" Why bother calling it moderate or even call it easy? Why not just call it unlocked?

I know the feeling. I would like Emerald to auto-succeed in stealing the watch off someone's wrist whenever she feels like it. But sadly, that enters the realm of auto posing. Which is what these stats are for, isn't it? What if Eli HAD won that fight with Mittens by simply putting her to sleep?

When Emerald stole Mittens' sword from her while she was busy threatening Bridget's life, I pointed to my thievery check and the fact I even picked up the "Fast Hands" power to reflect Emerald's awesome thieving skills. But even though my skill would have defeated Mittens' perception easily, and with a take-ten would have defeated an epic tier DC. Yet, after the fact, Chris says something to the effect of "technically, by the rules of "no pvp without consent", I could have had Mittens notice and keep Emerald from doing that." Which initially pissed me off to no end because to me it was like saying "technically, Mittens could withstand a punch from Unicron if Unicron was a player character", but he was right. At any point, I could have had my characters NOT fight. But RP didn't let me prevent them.

But that's PvP. What about Player v GM? The reason for dice and mechanics is to allow auto-posing. "My character kicks the butt of an army of ninjas" *roll dice* "....or not."

So what counts as "easy"? In my estimation, here is what should happen:

Emerald is hit with a poison that takes an "easy" DC 6 to get over it. Emerald takes 10. Doesn't matter that her skill is 0, that will cure her. But she needs time to rest to do this.

Next example: Emerald is in combat! Her bluff skill is 7, but it takes a DC 10 to gain combat advantage. She can't take-ten. So she rolls the d20. It comes up 2. She didn't succeed. Sorry about her luck. It was not really an "easy" check, partly because it's in combat and partly because Emmy didn't specialize in that skill. But outside combat, Emmy could pull some nice bluffing.

To summarize, in my opinion, "under 10" IS easy since you can do it without fail as long as you aren't mid-battle.

Always able to do, no matter what the circumstances means you are AWESOME at what you do. Yet Chris gets the impression from Will that anything less than AWESOME is "a retard who can't tie his shoes". How you two deal with that is up to you. I have spammed this post way more than I should have.

  Yeeaaaah.  But 'easy' is WAY more wonky in TRUMP than DND.
According to trump, Easy is '10'.  10 is also MAX HUMAN Ability. you would need to be the smartest of Humanity to be guaranteed to figure out something 'easy' from smarts alone.  And easy is the second tick on their difficulry chart (below that being Trivial.  Requiring 5 Ability for guarantee, when 2 is average human.)  'average' is 15. Challenging is 20.

  So, we have come to something actually considred a 'challenge'.  To be guaranteed on a challenge you either need twice the Ability of Max Human, or be Max Human plus over twice 'average training' in the relevant skill. 'best in the planet' skill is listed as 20.  Hmmmm, 4 is average training, 20 it best in planet. and 15 is 'average' DC?
  25 is Difficult. 30 is extremely difficult.  You were already in the realms of Hypercompetenc acording to stats way back at 'average'.

  Incidentally? 'superhuman' is 40.  You enter 'superhuman' with an ability of 11... but no, you need to be Four times 'max human' to qualify for that kid of challenge on ability.

  DnD it's a bit more clear cut with 'easy/medium/hard'.  Ignoring my oft ranted about scaling with level situation/mismatched DC to level stuff (lol, High paragon DC's on a level 2 trap).  That's WAY more clear cut, and it's more clears its for 'challenges'.

  My more vauge outlook there is like this.
  Easy: someone untrained has good odds, Party will not be screwed if nobody picked up the training or has a high enough relevant stat'.
  Medium: someone with training or equivalent relevant stat has good odds'
  Hard: Someone with training on top of natural ability should have good odds.  This can fall apart with less 'active' skills.  High Dexterity along with high acro to cross that wire thin tightrope? duh.
  ...But to find there is an intelligence barrier to how much of a Monster Manual your character could have read?  Doesn't seem as reasonable.
  Tim gave a good example as well.  7 on a d20 when in a rush for something 'easy' you are not trained in?  Yes, that is easy.

  TRUMP 'easy' IS assuming training, in this case a relevant 'trump' bonus that lets you 'roll' two d13's instead of a single one.
  Remember 'normal' human is 2 stat, 'normal training' is 4 skill.  Even when you are twice the ability of an average human on top of average training, you STILL can't autosucceed an 'easy' challenge. Or, you could auto 'easy' if you were an average human with twice the average training...

  So yes. to me, 'Easy' does NOT mean 'stacks of requirements to pull off'  When 'Easy' requires you to be have extensive training, it makes any higher DC even more outlandish.
  And TRUMP is a leveleless, improvements cost craploads due to multipliers game.  Your 'best' skills Stats will rarely to never see improvement because of the cost (22 CP for Emmy to raise her Spades by 1)

  You also get further sidelined by the many and varied 'it doesn't matter how high your ability is, you can't do this.'.  Every time my Rogues/Hackers in video games come across Doors or Hacking bit that pops up 'you need a key to open this. A key an illiterate barbarian could get', I figure the IC rouge/hacker would want to stab the nearest person.
  Yes, I get that 'plot locks' are there so you don't find yourself unable to continue the game if you didn't make a rogue/don't have one in a party.  But when all Lockpicking does is make it so you can get a few extra common items to sell for change, and maybe a Rogue specific sidequest or two if you are lucky, it makes you wonder why you bothered.

  So yes, while I may obsess over 'competence' in my characters, You will never see me getting something like 'skill focus' (Matt's +per/insight feat I got because it lets me use Wisdom for initiative), because if you can't handle lockpicking as a Dex primary with Thievery training, you're never going to be able to handle it no matter how many feats or BG bonuses you cram in.

  My 'you are a retard who cant tie his shoes' outlooks are from the frequent, ala Trump fact that if you are the best in the planet, you will still fail something considered 'Medium/average'.
  An ace Rouge isn't an ace Rogue at all, if they are only able to accomplish Rogue things because they have bountiful magic Bling and a stack of 'raise my basic competence plz' feats.
  You ARE awesome.  But awesome isn't enough to succeed in anything significant.

  I can never find the 'New DC's chart' in the DnD articles archive.  But I know for a fact that it's endgame DC's were MUCH higher than the ones listed in the GM's guide's origional, +5 higher than what Errata says they should be numbers.
  Someone with a starting Int of 20, with Training in Arcana, at LV 30 ends up with ah +29 Arcana...  That will FAIL a take-ten against Origional 'medium' DC.  In the earlier Errata'd down DC? Medium is 28... So being 20 Base stat + training only BARELY let's you take-10 a Medium.

  And now hard DC's are higher than Origional 'whoops, too high' GM guide listings.  So, once more... Being the best in goddamned mortal existence Is only good enough to take ten something 'easy'.

  That is not *censored* easy. You are not a retard who can't tie his own shoes', you are the best across multiple planes of existence.  And you still don't cut it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:03, Fri 04 Mar 2011.

This touches again on my facepalm regarding houseplants having a 5 in 20 chance of being able to tightrope walk, bash down a door, unlock a treasure chest, etc.  The d-20 just leaves WAY too much to chance regarding skills in my opinion.  The d-20 would make a little more sense to me if PC skill modifiers STARTED at 20.  Meaning at best, luck is equally important as skill.

Back to the topic at hand.  To be clear, it is critically important to define "easy" "medium" and "hard" in terms of "compared to what?"  I'm thinking of defining everything in terms of "compared to a couch potato."  Because a couch potato can tie his own shoes.  Can fix a sandwitch.  Can change a lightbulb.  An innumerable stack of challenges that are so mundane for him that he has a 1 in a million chance of failing.  That seems like a good starting point for defining "Trivial."  If a couch potato can do it no prob, it's trivial.  No roll needed.  No mechanic needed to represent that 1 in a million chance of failing.

Dice and skill mods only need to come into play when there's a significant chance of failure.  Russian roulette would be a good starting point.  1 in 6 chance of blowing your brains out.  A significant chance.  Challenges that are this likely should be given DC 2.  You have to roll under a 2 to fail.

And on up the scale of silly impossible, being sure that such words as "moderate" aren't given to challenges like "juggling flaming sharks while tightrope walking in a hurricane."

The simplicity of the game system should be reflected in the lack of in-game math necessary to move from round 1 to round 2.  I've no problem with lots of game creation headscratching to arrive at that point.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:52, Fri 04 Mar 2011.

Made up my mind to make the game system based off 2d6.
The following are the probabilities of getting a result "or better" on 2d6
2: 100.00%
3: 97.22%
4: 91.67%
5: 83.33%
6: 72.22%
7: 58.33%
8: 41.67%
9: 27.78%
10: 16.67%
11: 8.33%
12: 2.78%

Based on this, I want to make a DC table that reflects how likely it is to succeed with a raw, untrained, untalented person relying entirely on luck to accomplish some task.

A thought occurred to me on a simple method to set DC challenges that are so astronomically impossible, that they'd be appropriate for those ridiculous flights of fancy from players such as "I blow up the Death Star with my blaster pistol fired from Endor."

DM: "Ok.  Simply roll a 12 on your 2d6 seven times in a row."

Chances of succeeding that is one in 78 billion.  For slightly more likely feats like killing a dragon with a can of peaches thrown at his head, roll 12 six times in a row.  A chance of one in 2 billion.  So on.

Believe it or not, a GM allowed the killing of a dragon with a can of peaches on a crit on a d-20.  Makes for an amusing story, sure, but...  I'm not in favor of allowing nigh impossible things happen on a mere 1 in 20 chance.

  I can understand 'you succeed vs the unwinnable' being disallowed.  Just so long as you don't have to suffer spectacular failures either.  "You botched your Perception Check.  You are blinded"  "What? Why?"  "Uh, I don't know. Maybe you had an aneurysm or something?"

  I'm less personally familiar with 2d6 based percentile chart styles, but could work?  So long as you don't go the opposite direction of 'juggling chainsaw sharks is moderate' and make every effing thing higher than your established 'chart' for what players should deal with at their level range.  And not based entirely on if someone has a 'Trump' skill or Skill Focus Feats+max stat+item bonus.
  Things keep getting listed as 'harder than hard'.  Apparently regardless of System.

  Yeah, as usual, Don't make a DC chart only to use is as a basis of 'how much HIGHER than the chart should I make this?'.  Even if the default chart is full of impossible to pull off unless you dedicate your whole existence to it DC's, if it remained consistent that's still make it a better System than 'We listed these passable DC's but decided to ignore it'.

  And this isn't even going into expectations of Setting or character potential.  Metro is a SUPER HERO game...  And being well past 'peak human' means you are only safely capable of 'Average'.  While the Average Human doesn't even have the basic built in Statistics to pull of 'Trivial' on ability alone.
  Something a touch wrong when Wombatgirl can't pull off Batgirl acrobatics, and Charles Atlas Plus can't lift barbells according to DC listings.

Yea crit fails are definitely out.  The whole reason for 2d6 instead of a, say, d12 is the probability for getting "average" results is far greater than getting "super bad" or "super good" results.  But a roll of 2 on 2d6 perception I agree shouldn't blind you.  And it shouldn't mean you miss the firetruck with sirens and flashing lights about to run you over.  A roll of 2 with no modifiers simply means that you do "as un-spectacular as possible."  Example: a kid makes an ash tray out of clay.  Rolls a 2.  Result: the ash tray looks like it was made by a kid!  *GASP!*  But if said kid rolled a 12, the ash tray wouldn't look like it was made by Michaelangelo either.  Rather, it'd be as good as an untrained kid could possibly be expected to do.  Maybe even looks like it was made by an adult with some skill.

In other words, I don't want the difference between 2 and 12 to be the difference between cripple village idiot results and god-like results like the difference between 1 and 20 is in the D&D world.  "A 20 always hits" bothers me.  It means that if you were to get enough fairies to throw peas at a dragon, the dragon would die of blunt force trauma.  >.>

Ok so for a couch potato to pick up a bow and shoot at a target 30 yards away...

A roll of 2 misses the target entirely.
3: hits the edge of the target.
4: hits the outer ring.
5-11: hits rings increasingly close to the center.
12: bulls-eye!

An Olympic archer steps up and fires.

A roll of 12 is obviously a bulls-eye.
A roll of 11 probably bulls-eye too.
Considering that 30 yards is considered one of the easiest possible targets, what kind of roll would he have to roll to not hit a bulls-eye?  WOULD a 2 be a not bulls-eye?  Would we expect a skilled archer to hit the center 99 times out of 100?

How far would the target have to be before he starts missing the target entirely?

What if Robin Hood or some other legendarily accurate archer were to compete?

Maybe the "cap" is the guy's skill level. So if he has a skill of, say, 5, then he can miss on a roll of 5 or lower? Obviously, that wouldn't be the final rule, but the idea being that the skill doesn't add to your roll, just shows what your roll results would dictate.

Mini rant about game system getting in the way of fun.

d6 space.  Team of PCs vs badguy dark jedi and his minions.  Tim's character in the first round rolls his to-hit roll.  Hits!  Then he rolls damage.  Not enough to damage to get through the badguy's damage resist roll.  20 or so minutes later, it's Tim's turn again.  Same thing happens.  20 or so minutes later, it's Tim's turn again.  Same thing happens.  AGAIN.  By then, the rest of the team takes out the badguy.  Tim's character may as well not have been in the fight at all.

Ordinarily, in the d6 system, if you roll 6 on your wild dice, you get an extra wild dice.  Roll 6 again, and you get yet another.  And so on.  Till theoretically, if you're lucky enough, you can destroy the death star with a blaster pistol.  Roll a 1 on the wild, and the GM decides whether you shot an ally, your gun blew up, or simply take the next highest dice out of your roll.

So the philosophy is to punish you MORE if you're already unlucky, and reward you MORE if you're already lucky!

AAAARRG!

I want to reverse this philosophy.  Where if you miss the bad guy, your next roll gets bonus dice.  It's very cinematic if you think about it.  Protagonists only go on a missing streak to build up to a super awesome attack.

[Team] Lucky Kitten: in an ideal game system, two players with identical characters...
[Team] Lucky Kitten: one player is a lucky player and rolls well often.
[Team] Lucky Kitten: the other notsomuch.
[Team] Kyle Crookes: Well, in that case you can only blame the unfeeling dice.  so while it sucks for player B, well, it sucks for playe rB
[Team] Lucky Kitten: how much more damage should the lucky player deal than the unlucky one.  expresed as a percentage
[Team] Kyle Crookes: if you WERE going to instal some sort of 'mercy' bonus, it would have to have a decnet enough delay to not just make a case of 'we'll just spam low to hit attacks to build up a bonus'
[Team] Lucky Kitten: should the spread between the unlucky player and lucky player be HUGE like it is in DnD?  or less huge.
[Team] Lucky Kitten: well... assuming there's no goodies built in for unlucky players yet
[Team] Kyle Crookes: honestly cant say.  hits should matter, so if 'oh, I missed, whatever' is a factor then clearly hitting isnt that great
[Team] Kyle Crookes: *minimizes so he can edit map without it wonking out*
[Team] Kyle Crookes: and opening muck
[Team] Lucky Kitten: your take, tim?
[Team] Shelly Urser: For an entirely new system or for modifying DnD?
[Team] Lucky Kitten: new system
[Team] Lucky Kitten: the "six knuckle" system
[Team] Shelly Urser: I've always been a strong supporter of "bad luck dice rolls man should not be punished for being born"
[Team] Shelly Urser: Our friend JD has horrid rolls. Maybe hits 10% of the time. Doesn't matter the game, it always happens (even a game where the lower the number, the better, he winds up rolling high). This means he is punished for being born.
[Team] Shelly Urser: This should not be
Joe says, "if we were cloning DnD, I'd say 'second miss, +1 to at-wills.  third miss, +2 at will +1 encounter.    fourth miss. +3 at will +2 encounter +1 day'"
Lucky says, "i also don't want unlucky player to feel like they may as well not even play because in 10 rounds they did 0 damage."
Shelly says, "My opinion is that Unlucky player should deal 100 dmg and Lucky player should deal 100 dmg."
Shelly says, "If you are lucky in life, fine. You pick up a $10 bill at random off the street once a week. Life is good. If you are an unlucky person, you drop your eggs onto the floor at least once a week and frequently stub your toe. That's all fine and good. Real life is not in anyone's control. But a game IS. And is meant to be fun, an escape from reality. When having fun, people shouldn't be punished for being the wrong race, the wrong gender, or the wrong level of luck. To allow bad luck to punish a player is similar to saying "you take a -10 penalty to your rolls because you're black" because unlucky people are just BORN that way."
Lucky says, "interesting"
Joe says, "This is ironically part of why I usually use 'human or bust'.  Could I please pretend being human is awesome?  I get enough 'humananity sux!' opinions heard in RL,  don't need to hear it from people pretending to be 'better' species."

Shelly says, "I am unsure if my love of auto-hit powers is purely from the "otherwise there is a chance to miss" factor. So if I played a game where I hit all the time, I don't know if that alone would make it more fun. But in my experience with Champs, I remember enjoying the auto-hits despite enemies getting the same privilage. Conversely, when I miss in CoX, no big deal until it's a "miss 4-5 times in a row" streak. So I have a very interesting idea out of nowhere..."
Shelly asks, "Namely imagine this: I auto-hit with Magic Missile. But in this game ANY power is autohit. My next turn comes up. I am not allowed to use magic missile because I used it last turn. So I use, I dunno, Cloud of Daggers. Now, next turn, I can use Magic Missile, but not Cloud of daggers. Catch my drift?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:38, Thu 18 Aug 2011.

Writing down brainstormed ideas list
-Dice decide powers available in a turn.  Con: less strategy.
-Each miss increases chance to hit.  Con: still a to-hit mechanic.
-In a system where you normally auto-hit, the player can choose to allow their attack to miss in exchange for extra character points / mechanical reward of some kind.  (perhaps a separate point pool that can later be used in combat like in dresden system)
-Fighting Spirit as a way to deal with critical existence failure.
-JD acting out being poisoned as a great example of bad stuff happening to character being a huge part of the fun in RP.
-d6 has wound levels where you take penalties after certain amounts of damage are dealt to your character.  perhaps better would be a system where said penalties are voluntary, but you gain a cp or something as a reward for taking said penalties.
-or, in order to resist status effects like stun, you can spend a cp (emulate inspiration) or have a class ability like defiance.
-perhaps encourage an NPC tag-along that doesn't get PC percs to contrast how good the PCs have it.
-perhaps system designed so PCs auto hit, but monsters have to roll to-hit.
-contrast the frequency of missing in CoX to the frequency in DnD (no matter how much you min-max)
-subtract your level from enemy level, that's your DC to-hit.
-BESM's weapon attack: a system for building a custom power.  the more damage, the more expensive the power.  also costly: aoe, doesn't target allies, immob, hold, stun, ongoing damage, short "animation time," save ends.  defects: interrupt-able, deflect-able.
-things that call for to-hit mechanic: called shot, high distance attack.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:43, Fri 19 Aug 2011.

Thoughts on redundancy.

Tim's character Raichel is a paragon level monk/sorc.  Striker/striker hybrid.  Does good damage.  My character Mittens is a paragon level mage.  Pyromancer not that it makes much difference.  Mittens does more mod damage than Rai and has much bigger blasts.  The other striker in the team, a warlock, does less damage than Rai.  So damage wise, Mits the mage is pulling most of the team's weight.  Kersploding several monsters for monsterous damage every turn.

When working on AUSA characters, I started comparing the many different kinds of defenders, leaders, strikers, and controllers.  Especially at-will powers.  One common thread among defenders was an at-will that grants the character THP.  One thread among leaders is an at-will that grants a save throw with other powers that buff allies.  Among strikers, similarities began to break down, but usually the idea was to do approximately 4 more damage to a single target than a defender or leader.  Controllers, of course, deal about 5 damage less than a striker to a single target, but they have multi target capability.  If they hit 2 targets, they're at least on par with a striker in damage, if not already better.  3 targets, and they're outclassing strikers without even trying.  And on top of that, tend to have extras built in that enfeeble foes.

So that lead to thoughts about redundancy.  Enfeeble foes?  That's more or less the same as buffing allies.  A -2 to foe attacks is the same as a +2 to all allies defenses.  And buffing allies is what leaders are supposed to do.

Defender: Survival, keep enemies off allies.
Leader: Heal allies, buff / enfeeble.
Striker: Deal about 50% more single target damage than defender.
Controller: Multi-target, dishing out about 100%+ more damage than a defender.  Also buff/enfeeble.  Also can be built to have defender like survival.

Of course, any build can dip into other roles, but... Redundancy.  This is, of course, just looking at at-wills, but still.  With the value of "keep it simple, stupid" in mind, I've decided that for AUSA anyway, I won't even give players the option to pick controller.  Instead, I'll have a Striker that can multitarget.  Ranger with twin strike, for example.  That way there won't be a possibility of a wizard racking up 100 damage in one round while the striker only did 33 on a crit.

But regarding building a game system from scratch, I want to avoid overmuch role overlap.  For example, if I were the one building the 'Ruin Staff' I would make it a "Sorcerer's Staff" and have the Property: Can only be used by a pure sorcerer.  Or something to that effect.  There will be a class for defending, dealing damage, and team support.  The damage dealer class will be the one that can do multitarget damage.  Defenders and team supporters will only mult-target with effects, not damage.

...Yes... Yes it Does make a difference.  A) Mage, so THREE At-Wills without being Human (And being a Mage, you get the entire wizard power selection to choose from instead of usual stock essentials class powers).  B) Damage bonus to Fire along with not having to worry about enemy fire protections.

  No Pyromancer is going to take the soft control powers.  Also, The Raichel that you are comparing her to is a Hybrid.  Pure Sorcerer, or at least picking the AREA Sorcerer powers for your hybrid picks would outdamage even a Pyromancer by a LOT, especially at later levels.  Secondary Mod+2 at lv 11, and Secondary Mod+4 at lv 21 for Sorc Bonus DMG (compared to flat +1 per tier bonus), plus they will ignore preferred element resistance of a good enough number to get by unless it's broken amounts of resistance.

  This isnt to say pure control with low 'damage' cant do some crazy stuff.  Just look at lv 2 Mage Shale.  But then, thats heavily because Enemy Melee Basics are broken.

  As for Warlocks, they seem to suffer a same situation as Corrupters.  They get listed as ranged damage, but are really 'sorta ranged damage but you have a bigger focus on effects'.  you can do some crazy things with a Warlock, but thats mostly CHA/Charm locks.  Ye Old Infernal 'meant for Blasting and damage' is indeed lackluster there.

  Also, if YOU are the ones writing a character sheet for other people to use at a Con, then give the controllers low damage controller powers then like Beguiling Strands (close blast 5 vs enemies, INT mod DMG, push 5).  Emphasize the 'control' over the damage.  If you hand someone a controller that outperforms the Strikers, well, YOU BUILT IT THAT WAY.

  Calling a Pyromancer a Controller, and saying it makes no difference that it's a pyromancer mage us dumb.  But the sort of dumb of 'It says Corrupters are a ranged damage focus so that means I do big damage! *does laughable damage, and overkills when one more attack would finish an enemy regardless.  More teammates scream for their speed boost and other ally buffs.*'

  Don't do 'pure sorc only' items for things like staff of ruin and such.  That's bad.  Just look at those 'Druid only gloves of +1d10 Damage when target grants CA when in beast form. by the way, we have a beast form that makes multiple enemies grant CA'.  though yes, that IS more of the trend of 'Controller labeled classes getting damage buffs above strikers'.

  If your 'role' based class thing goes through, then having a damage buff item ONLY for the 'already does most damage' class would make things even more crazy.

EDIT: Tim: I agree that saying being pyromancer makes no difference is dumb.  But you shouldn't have said Chris was stupid.
me: ...you just agreed with what I said was dumb though, the kind of dumb a game tricks you into like corrupters=Damage. what gives?
Tim: Oh, I never actually read the post. Chris just told me about it.
me: *fist through wall*
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:41, Fri 04 Nov 2011.

So you didn't get to the part where botching casting magic lowers your stats, and anything stronger than "candle flame/baby Strength/Self Range" is non instant, 1 turn cast is "Hearth/Weak Adult/Tough range", etc.

The actual casting process, as you complain, falls victim to vague and samey wording pile leaving you scratching your head what effects what, only being sure "If you fail, multiple stat damage".  I am still hazy on just what a fetish even IS (totem item? I vaguely recall the term for such used in old shadowrun book I had)

skipped that part, yeah.  go figure.  >.>

I remember the magic system was the one thing Liz said she didn't care for.

Liz: "but there was a separate thing released that makes changes to the magic system."

Byron: "Yeah. And they were changes you and I would have made anyway, so we figured we'd just go with that."

Liz: "But we don't need to worry about magic for now."

Or something like that. Also remember Liz saying it felt like the guy who wrote this really didn't care much about magic and just kinda threw rules for it in there as an afterthought.

I know it, I know it! Wait, you already said what it is:( Yeah a fetish would be a totem item, though I've also seen them be things like voodoo dolls.