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Endless Frontier - A space fantasy RPG

Started by endlessfrontier, October 11, 2016, 05:57:08 PM

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endlessfrontier

Hey theRPGsite! I have been working on a space fantasy RPG for the last year or so, and I think it has some neat mechanics that I wanted to share with anyone who is interested. The rules are meant to be simple and straight forward to help facilitate complex game-play if players want it. All of it is totally free on my website. So if you have stories you want to tell and need a platform, consider checking it out. Feedback is appreciated, I am running a weekly home session that I'm always looking to improve.

//www.endlessfrontier.squarespace.com
Thanks

Bloody Stupid Johnson

I had a quick look. Speaking for myself, I think maybe I would've liked more of a mechanics explanation up front before races etc (what a lot of racial abilities mean isn't immediately understandeable, and additionally I would've liked to know what the main mechanic is earlier, perhaps explained in an introduction - I think a lot of people have a preference toward some particular system of rolling that will lead them to read on and/or choose to bin something quickly depending on their tolerance for dice pools etc.
Other than that:
*races could really use illustrations, since as its SF its pretty unclear for most races what a thing is until you read it. (Not that I can draw either). Didn't particularly like the idea of there only being six races in the galaxy.
*delver 'regenerate armour' seems a bit dodgy. It'd probably be better to just have them not need armour (exoskeleton). I could see this as sort of a cyborg ability though (some sort of nanite sharing or somesuch). Other than that, I'd have to read it in a lot more detail to genuinely pass judgment on how good most racial abilities are though sorry.
*Interesting to see that there's no attributes, with abilities like Strength just made innate skills.
*why d100 for combat and a d6 dice pool for everything else ??
*sneaking T1 seems fairly overpowered, or, at least could use some guidelines on how this works if it just lets you incapacitate one guy.
*Quick Slash seems clunky with the extra roll - if you're going with a d100 to-hit system, you could just run this off the 1s place of your d100 (i.e. 30% = any roll ending in 1,2, or 3). Or there'd be other ways to do it (If you were instead using dice-pool, you could do something else like have 6s rolled be a second attack instead of an extra pass).
*Unclear how 'Dual Wield' is meant to operate - same way as Quick Strike? [I love TWF, so I'd always nitpicky about this).
Perks are fairly quirky. I don't know that changing gender say needs to be a perk (wouldn't you just choose to play whatever gender you want to play anyway? I don't think its balanced to charge resources for something mid-game that would be free at the start). Otherwise, largely no complaints though 'dumb luck' seems like its an extra roll - same comment as Quick Slash really.

Hope this helps. Sorry this is a bit stream-of-consciousness.
BSJ.

endlessfrontier

It's OK, the stream of conciseness still provides good insight.  There has definitely been a consensus about the character creation not being the first section, so it's good to have that confirmed.  For the intro, I didn't want to make it overly long or complex so I may have skimped to the detriment of the rule book.  I wanted to avoid the wall of text from the start; but in your opinion do you think most people mind reading, or can there be too much information in an intro?  Six races was the starting point but I could definitely consider adding more.  I tried working with the concept of Delvers not needing armor, but it became very hard to scale and balance being that there is only three tiers for any skill, maybe there is some other way to do it outside of a tier system though?  Thanks for pointing out quick slash and dual wielding not being very clear. That will be something I will try to explain better.  The concept I am using right now for quick slash is that is when you roll your accuracy for quick slash, if it is below the percentage that is needed for quick slash then you hit an enemy, then you also get the second hit.  Same would go for dual wielding.  Perks are mostly aren't meant to be purchased, but given out for fun by a GM, maybe as a reward for a mission or some random occurrence, I did not go into enough detail about them.

Thank you for taking the time to look it over and replying.  You gave me a lot of good stuff to consider moving forward.  You have my sincerest thanks.  
Paul

Bloody Stupid Johnson

You're quite welcome. :)
I don't think an intro would hurt. I think organize it and people will skip over the bits they aren't interested in (until later, hopefully).
I suppose I don't mind their being six main races, but I'd expect there to be a lot more in the galaxy as a whole, in an SF game.

With delver armor, the first thing that comes to mind to have built-in armor would perhaps let me buy some sort of surgical or alchemical improvements to their armour they buy with money, same as other characters would purchase armor, rather than a skill. Or, Come to think of it, my issue was more with how its explained as is, and I suppose I may be overthinking it, you could just as easily add in some sort of mechanical-repair abilities to delvers (e.g. they secrete some sort of resin or goo that could be used to fix armor, have some sort of innate crafting, etc.) rather than have it be regeneration.

All the best with it.