Favorite Mechanics?

I like classless skill based systems like Shadowrun has. It allows for greater customization of characters without the straitjacket of classes. It makes every character feel unique.

>>49995931
Put in some way to limit magic, so you don't get the DnD problem of Magic being able to solve everything, replace virtually every skill in the game, and generally make non-magic characters completely worthless past the first few levels.

This is currently my biggest problem with DnD as a whole. No single class should have access to every school of at once. Hell, no class should have access to more than one or two schools of magic at the same time, except for maybe the minor cantrip spells.

The physical and mental energy resource system in Numenera. Makes me wish I had thought of it. You'll have to look it up, if you don't know it

>>49996144
Hmm.

I'm leaning strongly towards an auto-scaling point-buy model of sorts.

You'd buy your skill/power, and as you raised your core attributes or whatever, with your level, the relevant abilities would scale with you to continue to be level appropriate.

You could buy it at a sub-par rating, and you'd get it at a discount, and it would always be sub-par, unless you paid the point-difference at a later level.

As for ability access? I'm planning on going more or less classless. The closest thing to classes would be like GURPS lenses (just preselected lists to save you the time of sorting through all the options).

You would pick the relevant abilities for what you're trying to play.

So for instance (using D&D for examples).

A Druid would have the ability to turn into animals (level appropriate), a variety of nature themed spells/powers, middling combat skills and durability, and a combat pet, in addition to whichever skills the player chose.

But if they wanted to, they could drop the spells and (maybe) pet, pick up ki powers and better combat skills, and make a wildshaping wuxia hero.

There will be no class with access to all the magic or class with access to none of the magic, I'm definitely going for a "trade points for powers" option, and not making them pay extra to advance those powers as the'r character gains experience.

>>49996244
I will look into it. Sounds potentially interesting.

Is it more than just two different MP pools?

>>49995931
Ghosts of Albion Spellcasting Resources.

Rather than MP or spell slots or something, it's more like Shadowrun's strain.

Only the penalties don't apply to everything (only spellcasting), and if the spell you're casting is weak enough in comparison to your skill, you don't have to "roll to resist strain".

>>49995931
Shadowrun Hanging Spells Penalties
Spells, like buffs and debuffs, don't have fixed durations. Instead, you have to keep them active.

Keeping them active either requires you concentrating on them (and taking penalties on other spellcastings based on the number of effects you're currently maintaining) or requires you shunt their maintenance into expensive spell focus type items that have a limited capacity, and which IIRC you can only use one of at a time.

So maybe I debuff your ability to shoot stuff. And I've got a bunch of active defensive spells.

I can maintain all of them indefinitely. But after a certain point, good luck successfully casting anything else.

I really like Advantage/Disadvantage system in DnD 5e. Lots of people complain about it but it is just so efficient

>>49995931
Shadowrun Style Spellcasting Rolls.

>>49996456
I'm not such a fan of that. You see efficiency, I see inaccuracy.
There's nothing that makes a check more or less hard, just hard or easy. No granularity there at all.

That's not saying you need to turn it into a game of stacking bonuses from a thousand sources, either.

But *SOME* granularity would be helpful.

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>>49996456
This x100. Sure it's not as involved as autismally stacking bonuses from 2 dozen different source, but it makes the game run soooo much smoother and more quickly.

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physic phenomena and perils of the warp as a way to limit casters

not that it is a really balanced thing, but it is indeed fucking hilarious

>>49996548
I feel like Wild Magic sorcerer tried to do this in DnD 5e. It seems cool on paper, but in practice it always results in a bunch of WTF RANDUMB being injected into the game and only serves as a source of distraction rather than contributing anything useful to the game.

>>49996244
>liking that
My disgust can't be expressed with words and pictures alone

>>49995931
I love the charactercreation from classic traveller

>>49996647
Sorry man.

I really like the gunplay of Dark Heresy, it factors in hit location, hit chance and number of hits all with a single roll, after playing it I can't stand games now where you roll to hit and then roll to see where you hit (or worse, systems with called shots but no hit location). That being said, 2nd place goes to games where they don't worry about hit locations at all and let that come down to specific situations in the game

>>49996743
The least you can do is apologize for bringing up that abomination of a mechanic in /tg/

>>49995931
Simplicity.

You need a really good justification why I'd need to roll more than 1, maybe 2 dice for an action.

Also explain why you are using a % system instead of a simple d10/20 when 90%/95% of the results are the same.

>>49996803
>t. FATE player

>>49996835
FATE uses like 4 dice.

And they are not even simple dice, they are FATE dice.

I mean, if you are doing special dice, you may as well make one that has the same distribution as your resolution mechanic.

>>49995931
A system where you can trade exp for sexual favors from the other players.

i like the archetype system pathfinder has; it's a decent way to enable loads of characters variations in a class based crunchfull enviroment.
it's pretty good when you can combine multiple "feature swaps".

>>49996803
>t. Numenera player
Mah nigga

>>49996794
Damn. Let me just look up 3 things in the books and roll 4 die and add some modifiers by way of apology, the way all roleplaying should be

>>49996874
Tracts from Legend are a massively improved version of the archetype system.

>>49996456
>>49996513
>>49996512

Advantage/disadvantage could easily gain granularity if you use more than one dice:

example: the game uses the sum of 3d6 as its standard roll for attacks, skill checks, everything.
Having advantage would be throwing one extra dice and picking the top 3, having disadvantage would be throwing one extra dice and picking the lower 3.
This way you could have more than one advantage and more than one disadvantage easily, you could let the DM decide a particular situation is worth a twice as big advantage/disadvantage, without ever having to open the book.

Stats from 1 to 10
Skills from 1 to 10

Add two together and roll k20 under to see if you succeed.
In combat it goes to who rolled higher while still within limit of their total score.

Half of success is your natural ability and the other is experience.

Also, advantages and disadvantages.

>>49996930
The same works for a d20, doofus. You just keep rolling more dice and pick one. They gain about the same amount of granularity.

>>49995931
I like systems that have a vive/virtue (CoD) advantage/disadvantage (Kult) edge/disadvantage? (Savage Worlds) thing going on. It's more characterization/rp than crunchy/a mechanic, but a good GM can and should incorporate them into the game imo.

>>49995931
I'm in love with the dogs in the vineyard conflict system.
Look it up, I don't want to describe it here. But its somewhat quick, easy to pick up, dramatic and dangerous.

Its only problem is that the more people you add, the worse it gets.

>>49997041
It does work best if you run it as between two characters with other people providing support via the aid rule

>>49995931
Mine would probably be the strings and conditions from monsterhearts, it's relatively simple but you can manage some pretty interesting social situations using them

>>49996611
I think that's easily fixed by rewriting the table for it. As a DM I'd probably rewrite some parts to be better in line with both the theme of my setting and the level of seriousness (In fact in my setting I already had made sorcerers into the Psyker of the setting, dangerous until trained)

>>49995931
Why are you even making a system if you don't even have a basic idea of what you want?

>>49996993
You are retarded anon. He said re-rolling one of the 3d6, not all of them. That way you are substitution just a part of the roll, which allows for different degrees of advantage.

Re-rolling d20s and picking the higher substitutes the entirety of the roll as there's one one part of it (The single d20).

You sure can add granularity that way, but it's too overblown: The problem anon had is that there's an abysmal step from a normal roll and one with advantage.

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>>49995931
The magic system from Barbarians of Lemuria.

It's meant to reflect sword-and-sorcery fiction rather than the high fantasy default of D&D, so instead of casting a specific spell you describe what you want the effect to be (eg. 'I want to distract the guard by conjuring an illusion of a citizen crying out for help at the other side of the market square').

The GM than determines what 'Magnitude' of spell it is (Cantrip, First, Second, or Third) which determines its difficulty (against which you roll your Mind attribute and your Magician career rank, eg. 2d6 + 3 Mind + 2 Magician) and its cost in Arcane Power. You can reduce a spell's arcane power cost by imposing restrictive conditions (eg. can only be cast at night, requires a certain component) on it, making it chaper to cast but less often available.

It suits that particular system because magic isn't meant to be a science in the way it is with D&D, and reflects the speed and spontaneity of Sword and Sorcery fiction.

If I was going to run a Star Wars game, I've always thought I'd adapt this system rather than using lists of 'force powers' you often see in Star Wars game adaptations.

>>49997833
I really like the way that sounds.
Although it imposes more responsibility on the GM to maintain consistency with what magnitude he determines the spells to be, (and in the interest of fairness, a player WILL eventually draw complaint with what magnitude his/her spell was in comparison to another player's), encouraging more creative applications of magic and abilities from the players seems like a worthy trade-off.

>>49997233
Projects can be fun, brajj.

>>49995931

General d100 stat test mechanics with difficulity/skill/item induced modifiers from Warhammer Fantasy and later 40k rpgs. Fast, reliable, easy to muster and tweak/houserule if you find a part of it not-fitting.

I like a lot of the stuff New New WoD does (and by extension, older editions)

Virtue & Vice, Integrity/Humanity, Willpower, and the way they handle experience (beats into exp points) are the main things I can think of right now

>>49996803
>Also explain why you are using a % system instead of a simple d10/20 when 90%/95% of the results are the same.
we could inform you but it's more fun to see you continuing to post in ignorance.

Metacurrency.

>>49995931
Lack of skill in one thing limiting the skill in another if both are immediately applicable to the current situation. You might be a hella good swordsmen but if you're on a horse your ability to ride factors into how well you hit.

Allows you to keep skill ranks smaller and easier to handle quickly, and add additional 0 math difficulty options.

Turns have less than one second.
Stats and skills dictates the amount of time you use to do the action.

You tell you will do an action and after X turns you do it.
Every player/npc..... act at same time

>>49996803
>Simplicity.
>Also explain why you are using a % system instead of a simple d10/20 when 90%/95% of the results are the same.


Pick one.
% is the simplest one ever

>>49997233
I do have a decent idea what I want, and some rough plans written down.

I just figured I would ask about good mechanics people like in different games, so I could check them out and see if I find any ideas I want to incorporate into what I'm making.

>>49999626
>>49995931
Shadowrun 5e style bonuses.

"Does it raise your actual bonus to the roll, or increase the maxmum on the actual bonus to the roll"?

>>49995931
Rolemaster:
The species you're born as, and culture grew up in, as separate things you choose during chargen.

Rolemaster/GURPS/RuneQuest: Profession packages, that define minimum training in different areas to be trained in a given profession.

You might (depending on if your game has a steep power curve) have multiple levels of each package.

>>49995931

The light side/dark side point system from Star Wars: Edge of the Empire.

Basically, there is a pool of two sided (dark and light) tokens in the center of the table. You determine how many of these there are, and what side is up for each, via a dice roll at the beginning of the session.

Basically, at any time, a player can flip a light side token to gain some advantage to a roll, and the GM can flip a dark side token to give some kind of advantage to an enemy. Since they're dual sided, every time a player uses one it's giving it back for the GM to use against the party, whereas every time the GM uses one, it's giving back that advantage to the players.

There's other things they can do that I won't get into here, but that's the gist of it. It's a really neat system. It's also the only thing I actually like about that game

>>49996930
This is how Open Legend works.

>>50002932
I had forgotten about that. That is almost only "actions points" system that I really like.

Shadowrun's Luck system is also good though, having it be its own stat, and how you have to permanently reduce it if you're using it to cheat death.

>>49996289
It's three different mp pools, and they double up as HP so that powering abilities lowers your health.

>>50000254
Mechanics heavily flavor the game, so, really, you should say what type of gane you want to make before soliciting mechanics.

>>50003282
>Physical and Mental
>3 Pools
>Combined, they're your HP.
What's the third pool?

>>50003293
Might, Speed, and Intellect.

>>50003292
I'm not going to use all of the ideas here, merely read over and consider them.

But if you really want to know, I'm working on a a classless, level-based, point-buy character creation & advancement, heavily tactical skirmish combat, fantasy superpowers RPG.

It'll be a "SortOfLikeD&D" type game like FantasyCraft or d20Conan, but It's going to be less like D&D than either of those two are, and I'll be drawing inspiration from mechanics I liked from a wide variety of other games I've played, and the design will have a focus on numerical and effects balance that will be closer to 4e than to 5e or Pathfinder.

As for why?

I'm not nearly satisfied with the existing high powered fantasy supers RPGs I've tried (2e/3e/3.5/PF/4e/5e/FC/M&M3e/SW) and therefore want to make something that fills the same niche but is different.

I'll play many of the games on that list, and I do like some other games for other genres (d20 Conan or GURPS or RQ for Sword and Sorcery, Shadowrun for Medium Powered Urban Fantasy, GURPS for SciFi or Modern Superheroes, EotE (with minor houserules) for SciFi and StarWars.

>>49995931
A minimalist number of actual stats, with everything else being abilities (possibly tiered/ranked abilities, in some cases).

Consider FFT.
>PA/MA/SP/HP/MP/M.Ev/P.Ev
And then everything uses one of those.

If you have a stat, it should be for meaningful mechanical reasons, not merely for fluff differences, like Dex vs Con vs Str.

Just have a "Physical" stat, and if they want anything specialized on top of that, make it an ability they can take or not take.

>>50003292
But your question should more or less be answered between
>>50003394
and
>>49996276

Do you have any suggestions for me, now that I've spelled out where I'm leaning?

At this point, I've got a bunch of ideas I intend to draw from a variety of D&D editions, as well as other RPGs, from Ghosts of Albion, Shadowrun, Rolemaster, GURPS, EotE, True20, and d20 Conan; and many things I'm going to be considering from a wide variety of other games.

I love morality systems that are based around a character's personal values, like Scion's Virtues and Sufficiently Advanced's Core Values.

>My Values are Efficiency 2, Teamwork 1, and Justice 4.
>Modest bonus when acting efficiently, small bonus when working as part of a team, large bonus when enforcing justice.
>Corresponding penalties when acting in a way that opposes them.
>Opponents who know your Values can take advantage of them, and vice versa against recurring antagonists.
>Discourages murderhoboing by making it mechanically beneficial to play a character with a clear and reasonable moral code.

>>50003394
>But if you really want to know, I'm working on a a classless, level-based, point-buy character creation & advancement, heavily tactical skirmish combat, fantasy superpowers RPG.

you just used a lot words to give me no information on what your RPG is like. You described the tools you'll use to run it but you need to make sure they match the FLAVOR your going for

Is it about dungeon delving, sandbox open world, city building. Is it high lethality? low? is it Swords and Sandals or Swords and Sorcery? Is it Dark Fantasy? Noblebright?

if you have no idea what kind of game your trying to run I would suggest starting with that before choosing what mechanics you're going to use otherwise you're going to get 25% of the way into playtesting before you realize your game foundations don't feel right.

>>50003632
I thought you were asking about the kind of mechanical feel I'm going for, so that's what I focused on.

It's high-powered fantasy, with tactical combat. Will be more or less sandbox open world, not a ton of delving. Maybe a guilds & factions subgame focus. Not high lethality, but death will be possible.

"Fantasy Superpowers" covered the tone, I thought.

Not Sword and Sorcery, Not Sword & Sandals. Not Dark or Noblebright.

High Powered - The PCs will be capable of big effects, but they're hardly special or unique in that regard. The way they'll fit into the setting will be more like how shadowrunners fit in shadowrunners than like in the average D&D campaign where they're worlds above the power level of the city guard and military and whatnot.
Fantasy - There will be magic, fantasy creatures, etc.
Low-Tech - Aside from the magic stuff (which I'm working out, but will be widespread), tech is going to be mostly, 14th-15th Century stuff.
Society - Going to vary from country to country, but the political landscape will likely be more like the 18th century than the 11th century.
Religion - There will be religions, and there will be magic, but there will be no *Gods* in the D&D sense. The closest thing to gods will be like D&D style archdevils in terms of power. They exist - and in theory they can be beaten or killed.

There may be planar shenanigans or airships or something of that sort involved.

But I'm going to use this as my go-to replacement for campaign concepts where I would otherwise use D&D to run the game.

Does that answer your questions?

>>50003774
The idea of characters who are "mundane" and can proceed beyond the lower levels without learning abilities well beyond what people can do in real life, will simply be unsupported.

Everyone will get some kind of social/utility/knowledge abilities in addition to combat abilities; bought using a separate pool of points to guarantee some degree of roundedness rather than allowing you to build a guy who can only do one thing.

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Since there is no /gdg/ and this seems to be the closest thing, I think I will ask here.
Basically, I want to make magic noticeably different than mundane action in my setting. I want to shy away from vancian casting if possible.

I've thought about making it more random. Maybe doing a wild magic/perils of the warp type thing. Possibly an increased chance of crits and fumbles. Or maybe it could use 1d20 instead of 3d6, or something upon these lines. Being more random would make it possibly more potent than any mundane solution, but at greater risk.

Another Idea is that you could effectively charge your spells. So if a weapon attack did d8 damage, then a spell would do d6 damage if uncharged, 2d6 if charged for a turn and maybe 3d6 if charged for even longer. This would likely be in tandem with more prevalent flat damage reduction, so that the higher potential would be worth the rounds spent casting the spell.

Or I could have magic be less controlled and more of some aid you ask for, where you would basically try to convince a magical being (possibly magical spirits that are just in everything) to intervene for you. It would help (or not) it whatever way it saw fit.

I'm also looking for more suggestions, since I'm sure their must be some better ideas floating out there.

>>50003856
>characters who are "mundane" and can proceed beyond the lower levels without learning abilities well beyond what people can do in real life, will simply be unsupported.
Because there's no way the Punisher (impressive though he may be) is of much use to the avengers fighting off alien hordes, or is the equal of Dr. Strange for fighting Dormammu.

>>50003897
Look at GURPS Thaumatology, Ghosts of Albion, Buffy, or (to a much lesser extent) Shadowrun.

Why not just make a gdg, if you want one?

>>50003930
Since OP would presumably also benefit from this information.
Although it might be better to just go make a /gdg/

>slapping random crap together without thinking of rule synergy or ease of use

Congrats OP this game is shaping up to be a real turd

>>50003774
Do you want it to have the resource management focus of DnD? You said it wont be big on dungeon delving, so, do you want less fights/day?

>>49995931
The health rules in Fate Core are pretty interesting.
Characters have stress boxes and consequence boxes, each of which is worth a certain amount of damage but not divisible, so they cannot survive more hits than they have boxes even if it's 1 damage per hit.

How do you handle character advancement?

I don't like just magically levelling up or just buying new abilities with new build points.

>>50006453
What do you like?

>>50006611
I'm a fan of point buy systems rather than class based things, though I would like to try the narrative system FATE uses. Though I'll probably never get any of my players to try it.
>>50006406
If I recall, if you've already ticked off the highest Shift box and take a 1 Shift attack you get taken out right?

>>50006611
I don't have a better idea which is why I'm asking for advice.

>>49999056

Came here to say this. My two favorite examples of it done well are Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Barbarians of Lemuria. They're obviously designed from the ground up with their respective meta-currencies in mind, and it's implemented fantastically.

>>49996930
I ran it through AnyDice and this is what I got:

http://anydice.com/program/9b6e

It's pretty nice, actually. You definitely get diminishing returns after a certain number of d6es added to the roll, but I kind of like that.

Why would I need your system when all of my desires are covered between FATE and GUMSHOE? Don't stitch together a Frankensystem out of good pieces, pick an end goal and build towards it.

The mechanics I like most in horror games do fuck-all when I want to play collaborative drama.

>>49995931
all opposed action being some form of contested check on two dice, both you and opponent roll a dice and add "skill" in the thing you are opposing each other in, the difference between them is the amount one does better than the other or the damage in combat

so you roll 2d10 + 1 for having a good sword + 2 for practicing swords, they roll 2d10 + 4 for being very good at swords, you get 6, they get 5, you deal 1 damage (+1 from your good sword)

so archery becomes archery skill vs enemy dodge, with bonus damage from how strong your bow is (so long as you have sufficient strength to use it fully), magic blasting becomes magic vs dodging OR counter magic etc etc

>>49995931
Rifts attack/parry combat. It's opposed rolls to hit (for melee). Gives a sense of actually fighting someone in combat.

>>50007002
Point buy systems where sticking to a theme tends to be cheaper then branching out.

The 40k systems are a good example of this, where players start with a handful of 'attributes'. Skills and feats that belong to these attributes are cheaper to level up.
Cypher(Numenera) is similar but different. You pick a 'type'(class) which gives you access to a broad pool from which you can pick. You have spend experience points on a few different things as you level up. Alongside this you have a 'focus' which is a pre-determined theme that gives you set powers. The selection of a focus is completely agnostic to the type you picked.

Basically, it's cool when a levelling system allows you to do a lot, but it's best to have some way to keep characters distinct.

>>50007454
Don't do this. Rolling against a static target allows for much faster resolution.

>>49995931
all actions happen in initiative order, but all actions at the same initiative happen at the same time

you can choose to delay your action (even till next turn to go before someone with more initiative) and spend some form of "Points" to react to an incoming action before it happens even without delaying (but points are limited, dont regenerate in combat and more are required to react to actions with initiative higher than your own)

>>50007510

What about Red Markets' system, where the target number is on one of the two dice you roll?

>>49995931
Defense scales much slower than offense.

So your lvl 20 can kill an army on their own, but a mook they dont see could stab them and kill them if they were sufficiantly distracted/didnt have any reactions left/were tied down or unable to move and dodge

Gives a real good low magic feeling while allowing high magic effects commonly.

Makes high level play tense as shit and dependent on reactions to dodge/deflect/reduce enemy attacks, wizards all need counterspells and damage controll out the wazoo because even a small fireball can kill the smartest oldest human easily.

>>50007535
Not familiar with that, could you go into more depth?

>>50007609

Every roll is 2d10, one black, one red. If black is higher than red, you win! Skills are pools of points to be spent pre-emptively to add to your black. Crit successes are even doubles, crit fails are odd doubles.

>>50007510
It works so long as not all actions are opposed actions. So like, you have to "spend" an action in the action economy to turn an action into an opposed action, otherwise it hits your static defense.

So you are attacked by two people much weaker than yourself. You spend your action to turn one of the attacks into an opposed check, beating it by a lot (knocking the attack out the way and dealing massive damage to the attacker), while you cant turn the second into an opposed check, so it just goes against your static "armour" and deals damage to you.

It could be social attacks, being on the end of multiple people arguing against you and not being able to reply to them all, martial attacks and knocking away the first spearpoint with your sword and killing the attacker only for the second to go straight through your side, magic attacks where you turn one spell back on its user but the second they had hidden behind it hits you full in the face.

Its pretty good but only for low density or highly abstracted encounters, and still slows things down a bit.

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>>49995931
Failing Forward. Basically, rolling below the Difficulty isn't just a boring failure, it moves the adventure along, creates some new obstacle, or costs the character a meaningful resource. Missing with an attack doesn't just mean you do nothing, it leaves you open for a counter-attack. Failing a knowledge check doesn't mean you know nothing, maybe you're misinformed about a subject and should act accordingly. Failing to pick a lock doesn't just waste time, you might break your lockpicks, trigger an alarm, or draw unwanted attention to yourself.

In a similar vein, Degrees of Success. Matching the Difficulty should be a narrow success with limited gains, while exceeding it by a huge margin should have spectacular results. Maybe your attack hit a vital point, or you know something incredibly useful that could help you with your current problem, or you pick the lock in a third the time you'd normally have to.

Basically, don't just have a binary pass/fail situation. Reward players for exceptionally good rolls, and make their lives more difficult for exceptionally poor rolls. This is probably the only thing I actually like about Dungeon World.

>>50007383
If you don't mind me asking what do you find good about FATE?

If I'm reading the rules right to invoke the aspect of the "Pit of Sharks" and toss someone in it I'd need to spend a fate point which seems completely bonkers to me. IMO solving a problem should be more about being clever than simply spending fate points.

Gotten to the point I cant be fucked to care.

If I get a chance to play, I will strap on my big boy britches and get down to business if I do not have to worry about people bitching about mechanics again.

>>50007743
That's not really how Fate works, at all. You don't need to spend a point to interact with the environment, but you can spend a point to get a bonus for interacting with a relevant piece of it. You could even get a bonus for free if it seems obvious that the element should be a benefit.

>>50004878
Since it's obvious that you've never made a game, let me explain something to you.

A well designed game is one where the creator threw random shit against a wall until something stuck and they figured out what they wanted their game to be.

Then after numerous trials and rewrites, then you'll get a CRB that is good enough to show others.

>>49996910
>Legend
My nigga

Still sad that game's development is essentially dead. It had a lot of cool bits going on with it.

>>50004878
>>50009050
This.

Also
>Assuming absolutely every suggested mechanic in this thread will see implementation, without any concern for rule synergy or gameplay.

I mean, really? This is called canvassing. It's simply one part of the research I'm doing for my project.

I'm looking for ideas to *CONSIDER*. Things I might not have considered if I were just brainstorming on my own; or things I wouldn't think of, for a lack of experience with the game it comes from.

>>50005986
>D&D Style Resource management?
I'm inclined to make the limited resources more easily replenished, for sure.

>>50006453
>Don't Like levels or point-buy
Those are the two real options. You can obfuscate things with tech-trees, like EotE I guess.

I'm leaning towards using both. When you level up, your numbers (which all your abilities will make use of) you will first improve your numbers, and then spend points on the new abilities you might want.

>>50007383
>Why would I want to play your game? I can do everything with FATE and GUMSHOE.
Well, neither game is to my tastes. I prefer a less narratively abstracted system.
>Don't stitch together a Frankensystem out of good pieces, pick an end goal and build towards it.
Like you can't build towards an end goal while borrowing ideas from other games that would help you accomplish that goal.

>>50007497
I will keep this in mind, as a possible approach, if it seems like the characters you would want to build in order to be effective end up being too samey through optimization.

>>50007594
That's an interesting idea, though it doesn't really fit what I'm going for with this particular project.

>>50007631
>>50007535
This sounds odd.I will hunt down a copy of Red markets and read through it to see what I think when I read it in more depth.

>>50007729
Not sure how I feel about "Failing Forward" - should really be called "Failing Onward" as forward implies progress towards your actual goal, but I had been considering Degrees of Success as a possible mechanic.

>>50007831
Who are you responding to?

Here, I'll keep on my OP hat, since it seems many of the posts could be interpreted as being by me, but are not.

>>49995931
>>49996276
>>49996289
>>50003267
>>50003293
>>50003394
>>50003494
>>50003774
>>50003856
>>50003912
>>50009284
>>50009388

These are my posts.

Many of the ideas mentioned that I haven't responded to sound interesting, but I wasn't planning to actually try to steer this thread, simply get people to discuss mechanics they liked, so I could look into the ones that seemed potentially a good fit for me, and other people could hear about good mechanics they might like as well.

But since people have asked my views, as well as stupidly implied I'm just going to grab every suggested mechanic and slap them all together (especially the alternate approaches to the same mechanic!) without any thought or design or consideration or testing; These posts are actually by me; and I guess I will just namefag for the rest of the thread.

>>50007383
As for me trying to sell other people my game?

That seems like a task for after I have something good and playable and at least mostly finished.

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I'll tell ya hwat

I'm a real fan of rock-paper-scissors and the simplicity of its balance.
On the very remote other hand, if there's anything I despise in the realm of mechanics, it's the metagame surrounding picking "correct" build options and avoiding the so-called trap options.

>>50009468
So OP, what is the game about?

>>50009493

>>50003394
>>50003774
>>50003856

It'll be designed for what I typically run with some edition of D&D these days, because I'm simply not sufficiently satisfied with any D&D for my purposes.

But to sum up:

High-Magic, High-Powered Medieval Fantasy Sandbox Adventure, with a bit more focus on the interplay between factions, rather than on delving.

>>50009489
I do agree, to some extent, that the quality of mechanics ranging between trap options and awesome options is undesirable. That's my main gripe with Pathfinder.

Not such a fan of RPS. Not enough depth for me

>>50009493
>>50009529
As for what the campaign I will run with it will be?

I'll use it for my homebrew setting, which is a shadowrun-esque D&D type setting, made up of various factions with clashing goals, some of which are run by high powered dragons, or archdevils, or beholders, or what have you.

I may also end up using it for an urban campaign focused around waterdeep, or ptolus.

>>50009529

Literally just use REIGN and abandon this fantasy heartbreaker.

>>50009640
Tried it, didn't like it.

Wouldn't be working on a "fantasy heartbreaker" at all if one of the many games I had tried had been satisfactory.

The ones closest to being satisfactory are Pathfinder and 5e, and neither one is good enough.

Last time I ran pathfinder, I had almost a hundred pages of houserules.

When I ran 5e there was less I changed, but many core elements I absolutely hated, which I couldn't change without redesigning like, everything.

>>50009640
>>50009678

So, after like 6 years of running other people's games and never being happy with them, and after several of my gamer friends and players suggesting it, I decided that it was time for me to finally give up and say fuck it and just make the game I want to run.

>>50009640
>REIGN, Cinematic Unisystem, Savage Worlds, Mutants & Masterminds, Rolemaster, AD&D2e, D&D3e, D&D 3.5e, D&D4e, D&D5e, FantasyCraft, True20, FATE, GURPS, Pathfinder, Exalted, Reskinned FFG Star Wars, RuneQuest

That's probably not an exhaustive list. I've tried out a lot of games for at least 6 months of weekly 6 hour sessions.

Wasn't satisfied with any of them for my regular campaigns (Though I did find I like some of them for when I want to run other genres, and some others I would happily play, even if they're not satisfactory for the campaigns I want to run).

In short "Try *Existing Game* for this instead" is no longer good advice.

Jesus christ google, why do I need to answer 8 captchas to post!

>>50007510
>Rolling against a static target allows for much faster resolution.
>much faster resolution.
and how much is rolling for parry going to increase the duration of your average fight, hmm? say, from 45 to 47 minutes?
the speed argument is a bullshit D&D players argument

>>50007681
>It works so long as not all actions are opposed actions.
there are countless RPGs in which you get to roll for parry. in fact, it is the norm in RPGs. if you think D&D's success has to do with AC (instead of path-dependency and branding), you're a legitimate moron.

>>50009802
What is the big benefit of rolling to parry instead of having a parry defense number of some kind?

Minimizing the randomness of a single roll?
Very slightly increasing the chance to hit very difficult targets?

>>50009913
that depends.
hard reason: it can be used to give greater variance in outcomes.
soft reasons: it can be used to give players a hand in the fate of their PCs (they get to roll for dodging the dragon's attack, so if they die it is because they failed the roll). it does convey more the attack/defense interplay, tonewise. defense isn't seen as something that "just is".

but instead of keeping you inquiring useless neckbeards with worthless opinions, let me point you to this thread instead:
> http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21479-Design-Alternatives-Analysis-Archive
enjoy

>>50010054
Whelp.

That's going to give me quite a lot of stuff to think on. I'll be taking notes as I read it.

Thanks!

I really enjoy the Complication mechanics of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying System. Basically, it allows players and GMs alternate win conditions that don't involve a knock-down drag-out fight.

The example they give is Spiderman vs Wolverine. Even with Spidy's ridiculous strength, speed, and reflexes, he doesn't really have enough damage output to overcome Wolverine's regeneration. But he CAN load everyone's favorite Canucklehead up with so much web that he can't move, and then continue on his Spidy way.

>>49997028
Our group is on a huge Savage Worlds binge, and I must admit, the system is really growing on me.

Unknown Armies has an interesting mechanic: your stats and skills represent your character at their absolute worst possible level.

For example, your street-savvy Pornomancer may be able to shoot the wings off a fly at twenty paces when there's nothing at stake, but when he has to line up a shot in the middle of an urban warzone with a nose full of cocaine and a screaming hobo wrapped around his leg, that's going to be his actual skill points and stats.

On a side note, Unknown Armies is fucking weird.

>>49995931
One die roll, vs one target number, all modifiers applied to the target number

This greatly speeds up all rolling while effectively maintaining the same level of freedom in design.

Attacker has great aim and great conditions? Lower TN difficulty, Attacker has poor conditions? Defender has cover or is dodging?
Raise TN difficulty

It ultimately doesn't matter if you're rolling over or under, but this simple die mechanic can help to reduce a ton of gameplay headaches

>>49995931
I like mechanics that solve things quickly; Storytelling is actually interesting as hit, damage and defense are all rolled together

>>49995931
Most systems do this, and there's a reason for it:

No classes, no levels

XP is progression currency and you can buy whatever you want with it provided you have enough.

>>50012226
I actually do almost the opposite. The same TN for every action with difficulty modifiers applied to the roll. I find it works well for intuitively knowing if a TN was met by 1 or by 6, etc. since that's all worked out in the calculations.

>>50002932
>dat spoiler
The equipment is nice too, but the rest is terrible.

Here's my current homebrew system OP, because we seem to share some sentiments.

>Concept is everyone is a high power magic user/weaboo fightan man
>For ease I am using levels, but I may change that. Levels go -2 to 20; -2, -1, and 0 are background events - childhood, adolescent, and early adulthood fill these levels. At level 1 you gain you true magic power.
>1-20 tracks like 5e, with the vancian casting or spell points either way. Every class also has Warlock slots, a dice size tied to the level (like Bards/battlemasters), and a pool of points like monks. These are the base resources of the characters to use for their class abilities.
>Each level the characters pick from improving skills, buying abilities, etc.
>"classes" are just ability trees, and some "classes" are like prestige classes and have prerequisites.

>core mechanic is d20 roll equal to or over. 1 is always a failure, 20 is a success.
>Each skill (attack, cast a spell, etc.) has a value between 3 and 18 and a modifier between 0 and 5. The mixed success target for the skill is 20-value while a clean success is 20-modifier.
>The only modifiers to the roll are difficulty: very easy +6, easy +2, hard -2, very hard -6, Herculean -12, and impossible. Easier that very easy is automatic, harder the herculean is impossible.
>rolling above a 20 is a critical success, rolling under 1 is a fumble.
>I would also include advantage/disadvantage and a metacurrency for rerolls.

I've been doing bits and pieces, but the groundwork is as far as I got. I am headed in the direction of the DM never rolling dice like Dungeon World, XP tracks based on spending money, removing all stats but still having background derived attributes, and a few other things.

>>50004878
Not OP, but how many games have you made?

I'm in the process of making one that has been pretty well recurves so far by testers. I started out much the same way OP did: I had a very D&D-heavy background, so I wanted to explore other systems and ideas. I bought, read and ran those that interested me and asked around about what people liked of others.

This doesn't mean I used all of these, or that I ever intended to. I just wanted to better understand what was out there and how other designers had overcome problems. Nothing wrong with that.

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>>49995931
I like mechanics where you have limited uses of a special power, like a magic spell or a chi blast or a robot laser gun, but when you run out, each use beyond that number costs something or draws from a resource meant for something else.

An example of this is in D&D 5e, the evoker wizard can choose to deal maximum damage with a spell, but can only use it once without harmful effect. If they use it again before resting, they take a shitload of damage from the strain (2d12 per spell level, which adds up fast, and wizards aren't known for their durability).

Another example of this is a homebrew I made a long time ago (it was unbalanced trash but my group had fun with it) where everyone played Mega Man style robots trying to defend humanity from aliens and evil robots. One talent allowed a character to power their weapons with their own energy core instead of the weapon's energy cell, giving them extra ammo at the cost of reduced survivability (the robot's energy core determines their barrier strength, which is essentially the robot's hit points).

>>50012226
>>50012652
These are both solid suggestions. As to which works out to actually being better, I'm unsure.

You'd be able to easily see how much you succeeded or failed by either way.

>>50012290
Ah yes. NWOD Attack rolls. They were awful, because of bullet tickle, IE "Accuracy=Damage". The revised version with damage more separated out, is better. But I do see the appeal of not rolling for damage separately. I always found it very frustrating when I would say (in D&D) crit, and then roll the minimum damage. So I can see the appeal of including the quality of the hit directly in the attack roll.

>>50013014
There are some similarities there, for sure.

DM Doesn't roll (except maybe for bosses) is a decent idea I've tried, not from Dungeon World, but from Cinematic Unisystem, back in the day.

I like to give XP similar to shadowrun.
You get flat XP based on the number of hours of solid gameplay.
You then get XP for any missions you accomplished, based on the difficulty of the mission.
If you failed but survived a mission, you get XP, but less.
If you held the game together, or saved the whole party, you might get some "good job" Bonus XP.

And then, the number of XP it takes to level up doesn't change, but the value I set it at is what determines the leveling pace of the campaign.

>Removing stats
Considered doing that as well. We'll see how it ends up.

>>50013317
Pushing yourself to go farther for HP damage is indeed something I am considering. Not unlike Shadowrun's Strain mechanics.

>>50014050
I think whichever one you prefer (modifier TN or modify the roll) is a psychological thing.One has higher difficulties as a negative number with the other as a positive number. I've always thought of it as a modified thaco system essentially.
As far as tying to damage, either one makes it a bit easier. If it's easy to see how much you succeed or fail, it's easy to do say "+1 damage per 2 over TN" or something.

>>50013238
Nothing published. But unpublished? 3.
Plus lots of houserules to systems I've run, which work out quite well.

I have done a lot of tabletop gaming. Especially in University. Hitting 40 hours of actual gameplay in a week was surprisingly common (each session averaged 8-12 hours, Ran one weekly game and played in 3 or 4 others). I uh, probably should have spent more time on my studies. Graduated fine, but my marks weren't very impressive.

I've also reverse-engineered how game elements are balanced, so I could homebrew while ensuring it was in line with what was there - sometimes it revealed problem areas in the game I was running, and I made houserules to address them.

Example, FFG Star Wars, when you buy into a new tree, you get proficiencies, or your first force rating. Unless you already have them. Then you're charged an extra 10xp for nothing.

So I made those proficiencies optional, decreased all new tree costs by 10, and assigned point values to the things you would gain (IIRC 10 for a force rating, or 5 for 2 new trained skills of your choice) - but you could only buy stuff that a tree made available to you.

Likewise, new characters have differing amounts of XP to spend on attributes, but that's the only part of the game you can really buy them, and they're the main determiner of character ability. If you instead buy up skills and abilities, you're crippling yourself in the long run. So I give my players two separate pools. One for stats, and one as regular XP. And I separate racial bonuses into either stat or immunity-based, or skill/bonus based. Which I couldn't do if I hadn't reverse engineered the races (again, using excel, and in some instances educated guesswork).

I've also been working on a mod of FFT, which is a gameplay overhaul (without changing the story). It's not finished, but it's coming along well so far, and I've also heavily rebalanced number curves for everything, with a great deal of consideration, and lots of use of excel.

>>50014178
Yeah, for sure.

And maybe different weapons could give different bonus damage per success level, and have a different (static number) base damage.

Lots to think on.

>>50014260
And even if I'm not houseruling a system, I typically still reverse engineer it, because I'm inclined to homebrew a lot of new game elements into every game I run.

New races, new monsters, new items, new whatever.

>>50014260
I've tried several different approaches to letting players play monster characters in 3.x, for instance.

>The Savage Species approach is crap.
>The GITP Approach is marginally better, but still not good.
>The WoWd20 approach is better still.

I found I favor a combination approach, depending on what the abilities of the thing in question are: Monstrous Feats, Monstrous ACFs, Optional Class Levels, Mandatory Class levels.

Since switching to that combination approach, I've been able to (when it can fit into the campaign thematically) allow players to play everything from an Erinyes, to a Pseudodragon, to Minotaurs, to Angels and Djinn and Archons and Azata/Eladrin, allowing them to acquire everything iconic about the race, advance as a player character in a class without sucking in their class, and without the nasty power imbalances causing them to outshine or underperform in the group.

It took some trial and error to get to that point, of course, and it does require a custom player character writeup each time to come up with something satisfactory.

>>50014523
But, if I'm running Pathfinder, and someone says to me "Hey can I make a __Monster__ __Class__?" For the last 6 or 7 years, if there's not a fluff reason why I think that would be disruptive in the campaign, the answer is yes, and I tell the PC I will hammer something out for them that I'm satisfied with in order to make it happen.

Typically it takes me an afternoon or so.

>>50014571
>>50014260
So, I've tried my hand at some game design, and LOTS of homebrew and houserules.

>>50014050
>I always found it very frustrating when I would say (in D&D) crit, and then roll the minimum damage
if you want to eliminate frustrating dice rolls from roleplaying, you need to eliminate dice-rolling.

>>50014723
Har Har.

I'm inclined to disagree. Without a randomizer, there's no game.

There's only a limited number of dice roll scenarios I want to eliminate. The main one being the disconnect between the attack and damage.

It's always frustrated me that you can "just barely hit" and still roll fantastic damage, or crit and then roll terrible damage.

And yes, my dislike of this is mostly psychological. I understand that there's no in-game difference in quality between hit rolls, only in damage rolls. That is something I have seen people find un-fun more often than fun.

>>50014790
>It's always frustrated me that you can "just barely hit" and still roll fantastic damage, or crit and then roll terrible damage.
well, yes. but don't forget: to some degree strength factors in there too.

>>50014790

My personal fix to the critical hits is when you roll a natural 20, you instantly maximize your damage, and then you roll again. If that attack hits, you heal x2 maximized damage.

If you get another 20 however, you multiply the damage by x3, and so on until you get a non 20.

>>50017307
That helps for criticals, but doesn't help for the inverse scenario, and doesn't have that psychologically satisfying feeling.

I could get minimum damage on a 19, when the opponent has an AC of 11, and still get shit damage.

I just can't stop feeling like the *Quality* of the roll should be a thing, not just pass/fail.

I will be giving it thought, for sure.

>>50017412
Degrees of Success adds damage to the (damage)roll

>>50017447
Yes, that's what I'm considering.

Along with the possibility of dropping the damage roll entirely, and instead, having it be:

>Roll Attack.
>Note Degrees of Success
>Base Weapon Damage For a hit (some small number for the minimum damage the weapon would do, 1 for a dagger, maybe 4 for a greataxe).
>Add DoS Damage for the weapon (so each weapon would have some amount of damage added for each degree of success, and you'd simply multiply that number by the number of degrees of success.)
>Add Modifier (STR)
>Add any damage riders, like flaming damage or sneak attack, which could also be tied to degrees of success rather than a separate roll.
And you're done.

>Or, with an example:
I attack the orc with my greataxe and get a 24 vs the orc's AC of 14.
Thats 3 degrees of success (again, just an example).
Now I calculate damage. 4 for Greataxe, and 3 for each degree of success, for a total of 13.
Add my +4 STR, and we're at 17.
No sneak attack or flaming or the like.

I hit the orc for 17 damage and it probably dies.

No separate damage roll anywhere. If I had just barely hit (say I got a 14 and just clipped him), I would have only done the base damage (4+STR=8 in this example).

Then it's just a matter of proper calibration.

>>50017412
Dice pools can do that. See Shadowrun.

>>50017447
Yes but it dice pools handle that more smoothly.

>>50017658
are you sure that this is worth a whole new system? fantasy heartbreakers are essentially D&D variants that offer only light to medium (at best) improvement in actual fun. consequentially, nobody buys them because the improvement is not substantial enough.

>>50017658
Keep in mind, that if you are going to be using DoS, you're going to want to look at not only the maximum and minimum and average results of your dice.

You may not want to have the maximum number of degrees of success be just as likely an outcome as just barely hitting, for instance, and a flat probability distribution may not be what you want.

Something to weigh carefully

>>50017707
I'm very familiar with shadowrun, and shadowrun has degrees of success. you add them up on the dice.

I'm not sure that dice pools are inherently the best way to get degrees of success though.

And lots of other games have the concept.

oWoD. nWoD. Unisystem. Savage Worlds? (Rusty on my SW). Mutants and Masterminds.

>>50017827
I do understand that you may not want a flat curve to your DoS, and dice pools are one alternative approach to controlling that probability curve.

>>50017737
>>50017737
See >>50009746.

I'll be completely frank here.

In no way am I expecting this to be a cash cow. I'm simply dissatisfied with all the options I've tried and been shown.

It simply got to the point where my players pointed out: "Dude, you've redesigned like half the damn game. You've tried out a bunch of others, and weren't happy with any of them, either. Why don't you just make the game you actually want to play."

So that's what I'm doing. Designing a game to fit my own gaming needs, and ditch the design choices I hate, while incorporating other design ideas I like from other games and my own design, where appropriate.

If I can make some money on game sales when it's finished? Great! Otherwise? I have a swank game I will use rather than continuing to have to settle for other games I'm simply not happy with.

I'm not simply adding in DoS to D&D and claiming its a new game. I'm designing a game from the group up to fill my D&D-genre-niche, because I have too many issues with the available game lines.

>>50017976
been there, done that. we played a couple of times with my homebrew, it was fun. but then the next new shiny came along.

>>50018069
>then the next new shiny came along.
And I on the other hand, try out the new shiny thing, and (typically) lose interest in it rather quickly.

Started with 2e, went to 3.x, then 3.5.

Tried D&D 4e. D&D4e had some ideas I liked, but it didn't scratch my D&D itch. "It wasn't D&D enough" more or less. Couldn't do the high powered high-frequency high variety high utility magic, which to me, is what I'm looking for when I play D&D in the first place.

I do like also like an SRPG, though, and 4e is a much better SRPG than 2e or 3.x, but ultimately less fun for me than just going back and replaying FFT or Tactics Advance 2 or Banner Saga.

So I dropped 4e and went to PF. (more at bottom of post)

Shadowrun 4e was a new shiny that stuck around. Shadowrun 5e I like okay, but would rather play SR4e. But I often don't feel like playing shadowrun.

Tried a bunch of universal systems I didn't like, and then tried GURPS 4e. It's stuck around as my go-to for most things lower-powered things.

Tried FFG Star Wars. It's alright, I suppose, but I'd rather use GURPS for my SciFi games, even if it will take me some work to get it to do Star Wars the way I'd like, the first time I actually want to run another Star Wars Game.

Tried 5e. It's okay, I guess? But ultimately it was farther from what I wanted to run than Pathfinder was. And so I went back to (my at this point very heavily houseruled) Pathfinder. It's far from satisfactory (and again, at this point I've got 100+ pages of houserules and do tier-limiting and include DSP content and innate bonuses, and bla bla bla), but I still like it better than literally everything else I've tried that can even sortof handle the genre.

So now I'm going to homebrew it. And with my skillset (graphic design, web design, software development, some decent illustration abilities, and dabbling in publishing software), my homebrew is going to look presentable, to boot.

Will it sell? Maybe, maybe not, but if not, still worth it.

I think I have a neat idea based on Exalted's initiative.

Every hero rolls initiative as 30 - 1d20 - dexterity. Negative initiative is possible. Every hero then acts from least initiative to most. At the start of a hero's turn their initiative increases by 10. If a hero chooses to dodge an attack or perform some other reaction a hero must increase their initiative by at least 1.

Systems that use dice, and aren't just glorified games of make-believe. Gotta have G with my RP.

Systems that use damage-reduction armor rather than dodge-boosting armor.

I've always liked the bad-decent-great skill rating that emerges from SW:SE (specifically with Skill Focus being an integral part of the system). Feels so much better than the "just max everything that matters" of 3.5/PF, the "pay out the ass for highly ranked skills" of every single dice pool game, and the pathetic excuse for a skill system 5e brings to the table.

On the flip side, SW:SE was awful when it came to the relative importance of each skill.

>>50020892
>Armor as DR>Armor as Dodge Bonus
Agreed.

>>50021047
I was leaning towards something similar to what you just described, but I've not actually played SWSE, only skimmed it.

Was thinking I'd only have 4 ratings of skills, from untrained to highly trained, and then have them scale with level, and *MAYBE* have a minimum value based on level as well.

>>50021441
>>50020892
This only works out if the DR bonus actively scales with the game proportionally to how hard things can hit.
This is the primary reason it fails in 3.pf (damage can scale up to the hundreds with even minor optimizing over the course of a set of attacks, crits are still the most dangerous thing) and succeeds in something like DH/SoS (damage only scales up with more potent weaponry that designed to defeat armor or vehicles/there is a limit to armor bonus AND damage value).

>>50021505
Oh, agreed.

Your options (if you don't want it to suck) are to make it a flat percentage of all damage taken, or make it still subtract a fixed number, but scale that number based on the average per-attack damage at the appropriate level.

Otherwise it loses relevance as the game goes on.

>>50021596
Using normal d20 for an example,
+8 to AC is -40% to hit.

That *SHOULD* average out to -40% damage.

Which you might take as the raw %, or might convert into level-appropriate values.

At least, that's how I'd think you would want to do it.

Only passing by, but offhand you want a non-furry Ironclaw for your game idea.

>>50021505
>>50021596
HP bloat is to be avoided, that's a given.

>>49995931
Classless and Point buy. GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds, ect.
More character customization, less preset capabilities.
Dice Pools with target successes. Shadowrun, Storyteller, ect. Less RNG swingy, having a higher skill feels more weighty.