A Design Challenge from RPG.net

Posted by Simon on July 4, 2011 No comments

So, I was reading on the Game Design and Development boards at RPG.net, and someone gave a challenge.

Design Challenge

This is just a general challenge going out to everyone who likes designing games… just for fun.

Here’s the challenge:  Design the most basic fantasy heartbreaker you can conceive of.  By “basic”… I mean simple enough to post on this thread in a few short paragraphs.  Make it as simple as possible, then I’ll try it out with some buddies.

Since it’s a fantasy heartbreaker challenge, you may include:

  • Setting (basic setting if you like)
  • Races (you choose how many)
  • Combat/Armor/Weapons rules
  • Magic, perhaps
  • Creatures (or how to create them).

Super short… I’m interested to see if anyone will try this.

Here’s what I wrote.  I know… it’s broken and incomplete, but it was fun, and only took about an hour.

In Fivefold Fantasy Heartbreaker, there are five basic races.

  • Hume – Humes are pretty much average in every way. (Plural: Humes)
  • Dorf – A Dorf is about four feet tall, has a foreign accent (note: no matter where the campaign is being held, even in Dorf lands, the accent is always foreign), and enjoys golf. Dorfs get a +1 to Survive and a -1 to Charm. (Plural: Dorves)
  • Alf – An Alf stands at either five feet or seven feet tall, depending on who is writing the story, has pointed ears, and loves trees. An Alf gets +1 to Fight when using a bow, and -1 to Survive. (Plural: Alves)
  • Half-Fork – A Half-Fork is (usually) the bastard child of a Fork, a tremendous green-skinned creature with a pronged head, and a Hume. A Half-Fork gets +2 to Fight and -1 to Duck and Charm.  A Half-Fork may also attack with the prongs on its head, which function as a medium weapon. (Plural: Half-Forks)
  • Nome – A Nome is cute and tiny and mischievous and usually from someplace cold. A Nome is pretty good with magic, too – especially fire, since it helps keep things toasty warm. A Nome gets +1 to Think and Duck and +1 Success to Think rolls when casting spells, but -1 to Fight and Survive.

Each character can be one of five classes.

  • Bruiser – A Bruiser is a melee fighting, up-in-your-face sort of individual. Most Bruisers have biceps for brains, and would rather rush in than think things through. Bruisers do +1 damage on all attacks made with melee weapons or when unarmed. A Bruiser also takes -1 Damage from melee attacks.
  • Plucker – Pluckers prefer to fight from a distance – bows, crossbows, slingshots, and spitballs. That’s usually because they’re skinny little Alves who’d break a bone is someone spit on ‘em. A Plucker gets +1 Success when fighting with a ranged weapon. Pluckers can also aim for one round to get an additional +1 Success when making a ranged shot in the next round.
  • Wizzer – A Wizzer throws fireballs, lightning bolts, and random volleys of protoplasmic goo. They can also control storms, small fur-bearing animals, and the regularity of a target’s bowels. In each encounter, Wizzers can use a number of spells equal to their Think. More on magick later.
  • Sneakthief – Sneakthieves are just what they sound like. They’re sneaky. And they steal stuff. A Sneakthief gets a +1 Success to Duck rolls when sneaking and stealing and can make a surprise attack at the beginning of every encounter. A Sneakthief also only takes half damage (round up!) from area of effect attacks normally, and no damage at all on a successful Duck check. (The difficulty of the a Duck check is the damage of the spell.)
  • Rector – (Damn near killed her!) A Rector is a traveling priest, a person in touch with his or her ambiguous deity of choice. Rectors can heal a number of points equal to their Survive up to a number of times equal to their Charm each day. A Rector can also redeadify a number of ranks of undead Mooks equal to its Survive a number of times equal to its Charm each day.

Each character in Fivefold Fantasy Heartbreaker starts with fifteen points, allocated into five traits:

  • Fight – Any mundane fighting uses the Fight trait. That includes swords, maces, bows, slings, and even throwing useless Nome Wizzers who have used up all their spells. Also used to block melee weapons.
  • Duck – Sneaking, Dodging attacks and spells, and Hiding are all under the Duck trait.
  • Survive – Survive is just what it says it is, the character’s ability to survive. A character has Hit Points equal to its Survive times two. Survive is also used to resist the effects of magick that does physical damage.
  • Think – Think is about reason, about figuring stuff out, but also about magick. It’s also used in skills that deal with knowledge and comprehension.
  • Charm – How well a character is liked, how well a character can convince or seduce another, is the character’s Charm score. (Seduce? That does make it odd that a Rector relies so much on Charm, doesn’t it?)

Five races, five classes, five traits. Are we seeing a trend, yet?

When performing any action, roll a number of dice equal to the appropriate trait. Swinging a sword? Fight. Picking a lock? Think. Hitting on a bar wench? Charm. The idea is to get fives. Each five counts as a success. Each six counts as a five plus a chance to reroll that die. The number of fives indicates how successful you are.

There are two kinds of opponents: Mooks and Bads. Mooks are ranked either 1 or 2, with the weakest being 1 and the toughest being 2. A Mook’s rank is the number of dice rolled when it performs any action, as well as the difficulty a player needs to beat when rolling for any action against it and the number of Hit Points it has.

Bads, on the other hand, are designed like characters. The GM assigns their number of starting points, but, in general, normal Hume, Dorf, Alf, Half-Fork, or Nome Bads will start with 15 points. Others (Big Bads, Bigger Bads, and Monster Bads) start with more. Big Bads start with 17 points, Bigger Bads start with 19, and Monster Bads can start with anything from 20 to 25, depending on just how monstrous and bad the GM wants it to be.

When rolling for an action against a Big Bad, Bigger Bad, Monster Bad, or another character, rolls are always opposed. Duck resists Fight. (Fight can also resist Fight, but only in melee.) Think and Charm oppose Think and Charm, respectively, for mental or social contests. Survive resists any type of magic that weakens the body, while Think resists spells that target the mind. The attacker must always defeat the defender’s roll in order to succeed.

There are five schools of magic, and one must be a Wizzer to use them. A Wizzer can use one school of magick for each point of Think.

  • Fire – Any spells that deal with fire.
  • Nature – Spells that deal with trees, plants, the ground, and animals (including people!).
  • Metal – Any spells that affect metal.
  • Air – Magic that deals with air and weather.
  • Water – Spells that control or use water (including rain).

To use magick, decide what it is you want to accomplish and haggle with the GM to determine difficulty. Really hard spells have a difficulty of 5, while terribly easy spells have a difficult of 1. Increase the difficulty of the magick by one point for every two points of damage you want to inflict. (That means if you want to cast an area of effect fireball that does two points of damage to each of five targets, you have to beat a difficulty of six on your Think roll – one for a fireball (a relatively easy spell), and five for the amount of damage done (two points times five targets).) Targeted and area of effect spells that do damage hit automatically, but their damage can be resisted, but their damage can be resisted. A successful Survive roll (difficulty equals spell damage) cuts the damage of the spell in half.

If a Wizzer casts a spell but does not make a successful roll, that character takes blowback. If it’s a damage spell, the Wizzer takes half the damage the spell was supposed to do (rounded up!). If the spell is not a damage spell, the Wizzer is put out of commission for a number of rounds equal to the spell difficulty.

Weapons add to damage. Small weapons add one point, medium weapons add two points, and large weapons add three points. Magic weapons, which can range from +1 to +5, add their bonus to either Success or Damage (decided when the GM awards the weapon), but not to both.

Just a Quick Explanation…

Posted by Simon on July 3, 2011 No comments

All of this had been kept at knozzle.com until today (that is, July 2nd). A friend compelled me to believe that knozzle.com actually has a better future as something else, and so we’re starting to work on just that.  In the meantime, this site is going to be both more and less than a game company. The first thing that’s going to happen here is that I’m going to stop pretending I’m a game publisher. What I am is an amateur who enjoys games and game design.

This site, bigsimon.com, used to be my blog – has been off and on for years – for personal stuff like health and weight loss. Well, and general weirdness. And spirituality. And fun. And… well, you get the idea. All of that is going to be starting up again, but not here. Instead, I’m going to be teaming with my wonderful wife to produce a new site, The Simon Project. If you’re interested in what we’re doing to live a healthier, happier lifestyle, then that site is where you want to go.

So what’s going to happen here? Game stuff, mostly. Well, totally. Of course that’s going to include design notes from RPG projects I’ve got cooking somewhere in my gray matter, but you will also see reviews and actual play – and not just from role-playing games. No, this site is going to be for anything game-related. Expect reviews of board, card, and dice games. Expect PDF downloads. Expect me to get lazy and not post here for weeks at a time!

Or something.

Just expect this to be about games, one way or another.

The Edge of Momentum

Posted by Simon on June 28, 2011 No comments

Okay… finished up the basic concept of both the Momentum Pool and Edge Dice.

Momentum Pool

As mentioned earlier, one option for excess matched sets is to bank them in your Momentum Pool. Momentum provides the means for your character to perform astounding, heroic tasks. How does it work? When you make a roll that includes unused matched sets and you want to put them in your Momentum Pool, you have three options.

  1. If you have no dice in your Momentum Pool, just let the Narrator know you are going to be banking the matched set, and put the dice aside.
  2. If you have dice in your Momentum Pool, and they match the number on the face of the dice you want to bank, let the Narrator know you are going to be banking the matched set, and place the dice with the others already in your Pool.
  3. If you have dice in your Momentum Pool already, but they do not match the number on the face of the dice you want to bank, let the Narrator know you are going to be banking the new matched set, and replace the dice currently in your Momentum Pool with the new set. (This is useful if you want to bank a new set of either a greater Style or Force.)

Any time you make a roll, you can opt – after rolling the dice – to draw from your Momentum Pool to enhance your roll. There are some rules, however.

  • You may only have dice with one Force rating in the pool at a time – a pair of sixes, four threes, etc.
  • You can draw from the Pool, at no cost, up to a number of dice equal to the Magnitude of the ability score rolled.
  • For each die drawn from the Pool beyond the Magnitude of the appropriate ability score, there is a cost of one Edge Die. These Edge Dice can belong to you, to any character assisting you in the task, or to your League.
  • Dice from the Momentum Pool can be used to modify any single die or matched set in your roll.
  • Mag Dice can be banked to the Momentum Pool and still count as Mag Dice drawn from the pool, even if they’re being drawn for use with another ability score.

Example: You make a Clever roll with 3 Action Dice and 2 Mag Dice. The result is [6], 5, 5, 5, [1]. Your current Momentum Pool is four sixes, and two of them are Mag Dice. You decide to draw all four sixes from the Pool, but only have a Clever Magnitude of two. You pay two Edge Dice and draw your four sixes, making your final roll [6], [6], [6], 6, 6 – or 5:9(3).

Edge Dice

Edge Dice are sort of the multipurpose tool of Excelsior! At the beginning of each game session, you (as a player) set aside a number of dice equal to your Edge score – the number you purchased at character creation and during character advancement, plus one. If you happen to be playing the Narrator, however, you start with none. But don’t give up hope! Every time a player uses an Edge Die, it is passed to the Narrator, who can make use of it as the game progresses. So what can they do? How can you use them? Well…

  • They can be added to any roll – as many Edge Dice as you have available – and have the same effects as Mag Dice. When you used Edge Dice in this manner, you must add them before the roll is made.
  • Edge Dice can be spent to evoke Inspirations in your character or your allies, provoke an opponent through Complications, or to invoke a Situation, each of which provides certain benefits discussed in later chapters.
  • A player can spend Edge Dice to add twists or changes to the story and the game world. The amount of change you can create depends on the number of Edge Dice you spend. (More on player narration later!)
  • Edge Dice can be used to reduce Stress.

There are only two limitations on the use of Edge Dice:

  1. There can never be more or less Edge Dice in play than the total of all the characters Edge scores, combined.
  2. Edge Dice can never be made part of your Momentum Pool.


Bone Rolling

Posted by Simon on June 26, 2011 No comments

Excelsior! makes use of normal six-sided dice.  Each player will need access to three main pools of dice, one for Action Dice (which represent stats and skills), another for Mag Dice (which denote Magnitude), and a third pool of Edge Dice (which are used as tokens to represent Edge).  Perhaps the easiest way to do this would be to have two bowls of dice on the table, one with a couple dozen plain white dice, the other with a couple dozen dice of another color.  Each player (but not the Narrator) will also need five Edge Dice, which should be a different color than either Action or Mag Dice.  (More on Edge Dice later!)

When you roll the dice – whether it’s a regular roll or opposed – you will most often be using two or more dice, though there may be circumstances in which you will only roll one die.  The number of dice you will roll is equal to the appropriate ability score (like Strong or Clever) and any dice provided by a skill appropriate to the task.  You will also add a number Mag Dice equal to the magnitude appropriate ability score.  There are potentially other ways to increase (or decrease) the pool of dice you roll, but most rolls will use this basic formula: Roll = Ability + Skill + Magnitude.  It is possible at the extreme end, to roll as many as fifteen dice at once.  However, not every roll will make use of magnitude, and some may not even have an associated skill.  Your average roll will be between three and eight dice.

Success in Excelsior! is based on matched sets.  Once you have rolled the dice, looking for matching numbers (or pips, depending on what dice you use).  Sets determine success, and each matched set provides two measurements: Style and Force.  The number of matching dice is the Style of the roll, and the value shown on the matching dice is its Force.  Under normal circumstances, Style, which measures how well an action was performed, is used to determine success, while Force determines power and speed; rolls with a higher Force are resolved first.

Example:  You have a pool of six Action Dice and roll 6, 4, 4, 4, 2, 1.  Of those six dice, three match – a trio of fours.  That roll has an Style of 3 (three matching dice) and a Force of 4 (the number showing on the matching dice).  It can be written as 3|4 or 0(3|4), with the zero showing that there was no Magnitude in play.

Now let’s throw Magnitude into the mix.

Any time you roll the dice, if the ability score used in the roll has an attached magnitude, you will add that number of Mag Dice – remember the bowl of dice of colors other than plain white? – to your pool of Action Dice.  Mag Dice do nothing unless they are part of a successful roll.  In a successful roll, however, they add a third dimension to that roll.  What do they do?  First, matched sets containing Mag Dice are resolved first – meaning a matched set of three fives, one of them being a Mag Die, is resolved before (or, in the case of an opposed or competing roll, defeats) a matched set of three fives with no Mag Dice, but a similar success with two Mag Dice would be resolved before the roll containing only one.  Second, a matched set containing Mag Dice overcomes any challenge with a difficulty below its magnitude.  (We’ll talk about challenges and difficulties later.)  Finally, every Mag Die in a succeeding matched set provides +1 Force to the roll.

Example:  You have a pool if nine dice – four from an ability score, two from a skill, and three from the ability score’s magnitude.  You roll [6], [6], 6, 6, 4, 4, [3], 2, 1.  (Mag Dice are represented with brackets.)  Though you have two matched successes, your best is the four sixes, which you choose to use.  Because two of the dice in the matched set of sixes are Mag Dice, you add two additional points to the Force of the roll.  This roll can be written as 2(4|6).

Sometimes, however, the dice will simply turn out to be too stubborn, and you will fail to come up with any matched sets at all.  In this case, a run – a series of dice whose numbers are in consecutive order – can be counted as a roll with a Style of one and a Force equal to the number of dice in the run.  Mag Dice as part of a run act normally, providing +1 to the Force of the roll.

Example:  You roll four dice with the result of 6, 4, [3], 2.  The dice with numbers 2 through four are a run with a Style of one and a Force of three, so the resulting roll is 3(1|3).

What happens when you have more than one matched set in a roll?  There are a few options.  The only free option available is to bank unused matched sets in your Momentum pool for future use.  (More on Momentum later!)  Alternately, by spending one Edge Point, you can perform a second action action at the speed of an additional matched set.  Each action past your first costs one Edge point, though there are some powers that mitigate this cost.  Finally, you could spend an Edge Point merge the successes; each pair of matched dice merged to a set provides a one point bonus to the Style of your roll.

Example:  You roll ten dice, getting a roll of 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 1, 1.  You can opt to take three actions that round, or merge the two additional matched pairs for a +2 bonus to Style.  Or you could bank the two fours in your Momentum pool for future use, then either merge the pair of 1s to boost the Style of the four 5s or use them for a second action.

Additional dice with a Style of one, including runs, cannot be used for multiple actions.

Effects-Based Balancing

Posted by Simon on June 23, 2011 No comments

One of the most important goals I have with Excelsior! is making a rules medium-lite supers game with an effects-based powers system. That’s going to be difficult, if only because effects-based systems tend to gum up the creative juices of some players, bogging down character creation with excessive (even if basic) math. This, of course, is something I would like to avoid. In order to do so, I’m going to blow off the idea of points balancing and just assign each effect at one point per rank.

So let’s say someone wants a single power that does damage based on touch and heals the character in the process. The power could be called something like “Life Drain” and have the following effects: Damage – Strike (2 ranks) and Heal (4 ranks) and give it a limitation of “Target must be living” (-1). This means the power would cost five points to create, and would do X damage (whatever “2″ allows) and heal X amount (whatever “4″ allows) for every successful strike against a living target.

As a result, whatever game balance I strike with Excelsior! will be a result of actually balancing the effects themselves, rather than point costs.  That way, there isn’t as much juggling to figure out power costs, just one point per level of each effect.

A list of effects to come soon!

Welcome to the New Big Simon

Posted by Simon on June 23, 2011 No comments

Obviously there isn’t much here right now.  I’ve got stuff going on mostly in the background, but it’s coming along.  The big project right now?  Excelsior! Keeping in mind, of course, that it’s just a working title, since I’m still trying to figure out of Stan Lee can (or will) litigate me into nothingness if I publish using that word.

Here’s the logo…

Expect a lot more, though.  This site is going to be for news, reviews, designs, and ideas for games.  What kind of games? Board games, card games, dice games, role-playing games. We’re going to be talking about games, games, and more games here at bigsimon.com!

More to come soon!