Yesterday we completed the initial playtest of the DRAG%N game system I've been working on.  As many of you who have created games or done playtesting can attest, the initial playtest version can be...a bit choppy  Ideas that looked great on paper don't work so well in implementation.

Overview of the system: % based, both for skill resolution and combat resolution.  Each character has a Core Dice (CD) determined at generation: d6, d8, d10, or d12.  The CD is used when rolling for damage, when rolling for hit points, and when rolling to see how many hp you are healed through various means.  Think of the CD as the first "theme" you choose for your character (d12 = brute brawler, d6=skill monkey, etc)  That means weapons don't have different damage, and is instead based upon this choice.  Someone with a background of a brawler is probably more skilled at doing more damage with a sword than someone who hasn't spent a lot of time fighting with it for example.  It also means when things like healing spells are cast on a character, the spell does the same proportionate amount of healing regardless of character type.

To balance these choices, the lower the CD type, the more starting skills and faster skill progression the character has.  E.g., a d6 CD character would gain a +5% bonus to all skills as he levels up, while a d10 CD character would only get a +2% bonus.

There are also not traditionally classes.  There are a bunch of themes, each with 10 levels of abilities.  Some examples are Slay (having abilities that increase damage, sneak attack, etc), Control (focusing on abilities like crippling, taunting, charging, multi-target attack, shield wall, etc), etc.  When a character is created, they chose two of these themes and note the 10 abilities in each theme.  At level 1, and each level thereafter, the player chooses one of these abilities to learn.

Playtest Result:  We used L1 Secret of Bone Hill as the adventure to use, since it was a straight forward dungeon crawl with options for wilderness adventuring and dungeon exploration.

The good: We went up to level 4 by the end of the session, and the player's really liked the way the themes and abilities worked.  It was simple, yet offered plenty of customization for character creation and advancement.

The OK, but some tweaking is needed: The % is not a roll under system, which is a bit non intuitive.  Everything has a difficulty rating (DR), and the players roll the % dice, add their bonuses, and need to get higher than that rating.  Mechanically it works well, but one of the players mentioned how it seems more familiar to have a roll under system instead (You're Aijm% is x%, roll under it and it's a hit).  I need to think of a way to be able to do that while at the same time factoring in opponents that would be harder to hit without making the math overly involved.

The not-so good: While the players loved the CD concept (only needing to remember one die type for pretty much everything), there are significant balance issues needing to be worked out.  Even with the significant bonuses in skills with a d6 CD as opposed to a d12 CD, the number of times you were rolling for damage far outweighed the number of times you were rolling for a skill.  So the d6 CD seemed really ineffective in combat compared to the d12.  I need to find a way to increase the incentive of using a d6 or even d8.

Overall, it worked well, especially for an initial playtest.  Time to do some brainstorming for addressing the other issues.

The d6 core die will always be 'weak'

I suggest jacking up the skill advantages of the lower core dice. perhaps a higher base value?

Sounds like a classic 'my thief wants to be as bad assed as a fighter despite having better skills'




The 'roll under' / enemy difficulty:

If enemies had a very round number for defense, like 10, 20, 30, etc...it would be somewhat easy to subtract that when you roll to hit them.

Just realized that characters in the system must have some defense value.

It would be easier if they also had round numbers for that, unless the core system makes that problematic.


One thing to keep in mind is that most games feel clunkier than they really are until people get used to it.

Quote from: Bill;634428The d6 core die will always be 'weak'

I suggest jacking up the skill advantages of the lower core dice. perhaps a higher base value?

Sounds like a classic 'my thief wants to be as bad assed as a fighter despite having better skills'

The d6 CD classes did have a significant bonus over the higher die types.  They would gain a +5% bonus to skills per level and start out with 5 skills while the d12 CD types would only get a +1% bonus per level and start with only 2 skills.  However, the difference in actual game play was a lot more distinct than the difference between a thief and a fighter in AD&D for example.  Since armor absorbs damage instead of helping to avoid being hit, the d6 CD folks were largely ineffectual.

One solution I'm toying with is to give the lower CD types bonus abilities from the ability trees.  Say a d12 CD type gets one ability from a chosen tree at level 1 (let's say Improved Parry/Disarm from the Control theme).  The d6 CD character would start with two abilities from the trees (say "reroll 1s for damage" and "sneak attack").  That would help make up for the disparity in combat damage.  At the end game (level 20), the d6 CD character would have a total of 25 abilities compared to the d12 CD character who has 20.

QuoteThe 'roll under' / enemy difficulty:

If enemies had a very round number for defense, like 10, 20, 30, etc...it would be somewhat easy to subtract that when you roll to hit them.

I would definitely go in increments of 5% for this very reason.  An alternate way of doing it would be to have the character roll as normal and not need to worry about defense.  Then if the attack hits, the defender rolls the % dice and if the result is <= his defense rating, he avoids the attack.  I did a system with Altus Advenum where attackers and defenders both rolled dice, and it went over pretty well because it kept players engaged more when they were rolling when it wasn't their turn.  It also avoids having to do additional math.  The net result would be the same.

I.e. a character with a 50% Aim attacking 100 times would hit 50 times.  If they suffer a -10% penalty for the target's defense, that is 40 times.  With the other way, the character hits 50 times and then the defender rolls and succeeds 10 times (10%), resulting in 40 actual hits.

The DR could be a tricky problem.

Even though I like armor as dr, the system seems to demand armor add to defense instead.

Quote from: Bill;634455The DR could be a tricky problem.

Even though I like armor as dr, the system seems to demand armor add to defense instead.

As it stands now, shields help defense.  Armor reduces damage.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;634459As it stands now, shields help defense.  Armor reduces damage.

That is my prefered way to do that.

But, those poor d6's vs DR....

Quote from: Bill;634521That is my prefered way to do that.

But, those poor d6's vs DR....

What I'm hoping, is that players who want the more combat type of character will go for the d10s and d12 as CD, and the mages will go for the d6 (and d8).  Because the d6 gets 5 bonus abilities that he can learn, that means an extra style of magic to learn, which can offset the DA problem.  I mean, why go into combat and try to beat a DA with a lowly d6 when you can instead cast spells that affect the battle in other ways.

For example, a d12 wizard could learn channeling magic as one theme, and Wizardry as the other.  But the d6 wizard could learn both of those ability trees, as well as the first five abilities from Rune or Totem magic that the d12 wizard doesn't have access to.  The types of magic are pretty narrowly defined, so having that extra type to draw from might (I hope) make up the difference in raw HP and damage potential between a d6 and a d12 character.  And of course, the d6 character is also a whole lot better at skill checks (which include the game's version of saving throws) than a d12 character would be, and at max level, also has one more action the the d12 character per round.

Only playtesting will tell for sure.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;634537What I'm hoping, is that players who want the more combat type of character will go for the d10s and d12 as CD, and the mages will go for the d6 (and d8).  Because the d6 gets 5 bonus abilities that he can learn, that means an extra style of magic to learn, which can offset the DA problem.  I mean, why go into combat and try to beat a DA with a lowly d6 when you can instead cast spells that affect the battle in other ways.

For example, a d12 wizard could learn channeling magic as one theme, and Wizardry as the other.  But the d6 wizard could learn both of those ability trees, as well as the first five abilities from Rune or Totem magic that the d12 wizard doesn't have access to.  The types of magic are pretty narrowly defined, so having that extra type to draw from might (I hope) make up the difference in raw HP and damage potential between a d6 and a d12 character.  And of course, the d6 character is also a whole lot better at skill checks (which include the game's version of saving throws) than a d12 character would be, and at max level, also has one more action the the d12 character per round.

Only playtesting will tell for sure.

A wizard choosing between broader magic and raw power works for me.

Quote from: Bill;636600A wizard choosing between broader magic and raw power works for me.

So far, after the revisions, the players seem to have the hardest problem choosing which ability theme trees to choose  There is a lot of, "Oh, I want Brawler and Meat shield, but man, Control looks good too!  Or what about Slay.  Agh, too many choices!"

I'll take that as a good thing, as it was a design goal of mine to make sure no one or two combinations of ability trees break the game from a balance perspective.  And by having up to 5 extra abilities by using the d6, it's looking like the incentive is there to have that as a viable choice.  Especially with the other change I made.  CD is still there, and now only affects damage and how much you heal.  Everyone now rolls 1d10 (or take 5) for HP gained each level.

Not to toot my own horn, but I am very glad that it seems for someone familiar with the system and what trees include what abilities, can create a character in minutes.  Well, so can a novice technically, if they don't want to spend the time going over every ability tree theme.

Here's how the newly revised character would appear

I hate the name. I hate it so much, that I wouldn't look at it twice if I saw it at a store. Beyond that, I have nothing to say about it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;637762So far, after the revisions, the players seem to have the hardest problem choosing which ability theme trees to choose  There is a lot of, "Oh, I want Brawler and Meat shield, but man, Control looks good too!  Or what about Slay.  Agh, too many choices!"

I'll take that as a good thing, as it was a design goal of mine to make sure no one or two combinations of ability trees break the game from a balance perspective.  And by having up to 5 extra abilities by using the d6, it's looking like the incentive is there to have that as a viable choice.  Especially with the other change I made.  CD is still there, and now only affects damage and how much you heal.  Everyone now rolls 1d10 (or take 5) for HP gained each level.

Not to toot my own horn, but I am very glad that it seems for someone familiar with the system and what trees include what abilities, can create a character in minutes.  Well, so can a novice technically, if they don't want to spend the time going over every ability tree theme.

Here's how the newly revised character would appear

This looks great to me.

I would explore the possibility of taking abilities from more than two trees.
Not as a core rule but as an optional rule. Kinda like multiclassing.

Quote from: Bill;638641This looks great to me.

I would explore the possibility of taking abilities from more than two trees.
Not as a core rule but as an optional rule. Kinda like multiclassing.

That is absolutely in the works.  The idea, as it stands now, is that ability trees will be in blocks of 5 abilities.

So you can have a character with:
* level 1-10 abilities from the Slay tree
* level 1-5 abilities from the Stealth tree
* level 1-5 abilities from the Channeling tree
* bonus abilities depending on CD type chosen.

The only restriction is that you cannot choose abilities level 6-10 unless you have the 1-5 block first.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;638659That is absolutely in the works.  The idea, as it stands now, is that ability trees will be in blocks of 5 abilities.

So you can have a character with:
* level 1-10 abilities from the Slay tree
* level 1-5 abilities from the Stealth tree
* level 1-5 abilities from the Channeling tree
* bonus abilities depending on CD type chosen.

The only restriction is that you cannot choose abilities level 6-10 unless you have the 1-5 block first.

That sounds versatile and good; level 6-10 abilities being a reward for a more focused character. Nice.