Here's a thought experiment. I've been thinking about the differences between older game systems and the more current "universal game system" approach - where you have a single resolution system that goes through everything (whether its "roll a d20" or "roll a bucket of d10s and count successes" or whatever). I have alot of trouble picking just one system to use for everything - always so many pros and cons for any choice - so have been wondering if I should try building something in line with Ye Olde School format, where different tasks roll different dice. This thread is to explore that.

I can see a benefit would be that since different subsystems are separated, the normal cascade of changes that happens when designing (where modifying a basic rule to fix one case leads to other changes throughout the system) doesn't happen, and character abilities are less likely to have unintended side effects.
However, I suppose it may also mean designing a lot of spot rules for specific instances, and giving up some degree of elegance in the final design.


Since the design for any given mechanic would do exactly what I want it to, I'd also need to figure out what properties I want each subsystem to have, before picking a system for each. In that sense, an old school setup is like building a whole bunch of different game systems at once. Here is where I could use some thought from other people on what's the best approach for each task.

My current thoughts for chunks are:

*Combat -limited effect from attribute scores; must be able to roll alot of checks at once; able to resolve critical hits. Possibly d20 roll; roll under or over a target number (rather than d20+bonuses) would speed up multiple rolls.

*skill checks -mechanics might actually differ for different skills. Ideally want easy rolls to become 'automatic' from bonuses to the chance, without using a kludge like Take-10. Speed of resolution not so important, though I don't like d% so much since it tends to lead to everything evolving into a separate skill (a la RuneQuest). May want multiple attributes to modify a skill - possibly by varying amounts depending on the stat's relevance.

*class features - could differ by class. Minor mods from attributes only, to prevent characters being overly stereotyped by prime requisite.

*magic - here I'm leaning toward a "roll bucket of dice, count successes" method - the reason being that if you need X successes to cast a spell (depending on spell level), the level of spell a character can cast is strongly based on character level, while still letting an apprentice maybe attempt a powerful spell in an emergency.

*damage rolls - roll here needs to give varying amounts rather than pass/fail result. Either multiple dice count successes, or the usual D&D type step-die system is workable (roll d4/d6/d8/etc depending on weapon).

OR...

*injury/death checks - for effects of serious wounds. The HarnMaster system is an interesting model - in HarnMaster the injury level (1-5) is the number of dice rolled and compared to CON, so a character is very unlikely to be dropped by minor wounds but doesn't need to track 'hit points'. Something that works very badly in d20 variants like Mutants and Masterminds.

*luck rolls e.g. for gambling or random events - need a mechanic with a fair degree of transparency for setting the odds (i.e. White Wolf Luck rolls are bad) - possibly a flat d% roll. It could be modified by a Luck attribute, or that could just allow a number of rerolls on any check/session.

*ability checks - need to be more strongly influenced by stat than skill checks (usually, opposed rolls on raw abilities will favour whoever is stronger/faster, without technique or the chance they won't know some aspect of a skill). Need rules for 'pushing' normal limits. Might want to avoid use of tables for modifiers since an ability score might change due to poison, fatigue, damage, or what have you during the game - though I suppose these ability changes would flow through to skills, as well.

*saving throws - again may need to roll alot of these quickly. Needs fairly constrained range of results (unlike skills, I wouldn't usually want characters to need an impossible roll to succeed, or to fail only 5% of the time). However, I wouldn't want the base chance to be totally fixed.

Any thoughts welcome - anything from further thoughts on my criteria here, to specific rules people like from any system that would be neat and influence what I should use, to "no don't do it! Universal systems are better!" to neat ways to tie different methods of rolling stuff together and justify using different mechanics in the same framework.

Your magic system sounds fun. I'm only wary because unless there is a big drawback to trying, people can just keep trying to cast bigger spells. I'd give it something like (suffer manaburn when a spell fails equal to spell level) or something.

I enjoy having multiple systems as long as each one is easy. Shadowrun and spy craft irritated me with there computer rules because they were about as involved as building a real computer.

The multiple mini-game/sub-system concept is interesting.  

I suggest using different dice.  AKA, you use D20s for combat, D12s for stats, D8s for skills, D6s for magic, etc.   Then the players would have a different tangible tactile feel for each sub-system.

Quote from: Cranewings;413974Your magic system sounds fun. I'm only wary because unless there is a big drawback to trying, people can just keep trying to cast bigger spells. I'd give it something like (suffer manaburn when a spell fails equal to spell level) or something.

I enjoy having multiple systems as long as each one is easy. Shadowrun and spy craft irritated me with there computer rules because they were about as involved as building a real computer.

Thanks Cranewings. The magic subsystem at least is one I have used before, though only in an online game. It seemed to work fairly well at the level it ran at - the 2nd level wizard rolled 2d10, target 6 and he could usually get off a 1st level spell (1 success, by my reckoning expected success chance 75%) but not a 2nd level spell (2 successes, or only a 25% success chance. There was one botch (no successes and a 1, followed by a "botch confirmation" roll) resulting in a randomly glowing monkey he was attempting to explode. I was still charging magic points for attempted spellcasting.

I picked up a copy of Spycraft in the recent (Pakistan I think) disaster relief download, which also had Dragon Warriors (an inspiration for what I'm doing here actually, I love that game) and Harnmaster. I'll have a look at the computer rules as a "what not to do" I guess, though I found spycraft in general to be a little hard to read - perhaps since basic concepts to do things (action dice?) seem to only be explained later in the book which somewhat cheesed me off. Probably fine as a reference after you've learned it, but a bit of a hump for beginners.  

Anyway yes, I wouldn't want to make individual systems any more complex than they have to be - there may be some simplification possible just since a given system doesn't need to be have a lot of caveats to deal with other situations.

Quote from: Spinachcat;414140The multiple mini-game/sub-system concept is interesting.  

I suggest using different dice.  AKA, you use D20s for combat, D12s for stats, D8s for skills, D6s for magic, etc.   Then the players would have a different tangible tactile feel for each sub-system.

Thanks Spinachcat. Probably doable to an extent though I may have more subsystems than dice types !
Also that triggers another weird thought - reminds me of the Greek elements, where air atoms were supposed to be icosahedrons, fire atoms were tetrahedrons, earth atoms were cubes and water atoms were octahedrons. You could have a magic system where you roll the sort of dice that matches the element. Apparently I can't resist tangents even on my own thread.

Nice magic system.

Are you writing up a bunch of spells or are you going to let wizards invent spells on the fly?

As for what not to do, the 30+ pages of power suit construction rules I wrote for my game I don't recommend copying. I had to write a bunch of stock ones for the equipment list.

At the time, I thought the rules and writing were so good, everyone interested in playing one would love to make one, like having a second character. Turns out, most people just want something badass handed to them so they can get on with it.

Thanks!
Well, last time I did that, I wrote out a number of spells though only as far as the lower level spells - something to get a PC started, anyway. I could have let wizards invent spells on the fly though - I'd basically created a super powers system and used that for magic indirectly - each spell worked by taking a basic Power, and usually adding an Advantage and Disadvantage to it to customize the effect.
May as well post that, though its hard to fully understand without seeing the super powers chapter this builds off. If you're curious, I can send you the whole system.  

The Spell Book

1st Level
Magic Missile
Generates a force missile doing 3 points of damage/success (if effect roll succeeds)
Augmentable - if cast at higher level, the spell generates additional missiles (1 per success). Missiles cannot be Dodged.

Entangle- Knockout 10: Dexterity (Area, Limitation: also Affects Allies)
Holds fast opponents in the area as if they were Grabbed. Opponents may  Dodge; if not they are held unless they can pass a Str effect roll (vs. spell’s effect dice)

Faerie Fare (Illusion): [Matter Creation- High Effect, Misc limitation]. Conjures illusionary food for up to 6 people. It temporarily replaces aggravated fatigue damage from starvation but the nourishment isn’t real- a dispel cast on a character causes them to become starving or in extreme cases (0 Strength) vanish.

Spell Shape (specific advantage; choose when spell learn)-
Bestow- one advantage (Immediate, Backlash)
Metamagic - this spell adds another advantage to a spell of its level or lower cast immediately afterward, without needing to Push to spell but at a cost of spending additional energy (MP cost for this spell is doubled i.e. /level...Backlash). As an immediate action, no multitasking penalties apply. Each version of Spell Shape a character knows can be used only once per day.
Advantages which versions of Spell Shape could duplicate could include Non-lethal, Useable on Others, Reversible, Burning, Extended, Hidden, Area.
It can be heightened & cast at higher levels. No effect roll required.

Feather fall – Flight 10 (Immediate cast, Limitation: Flight special ability slows descent only). Cannot be Mastered.
No roll required.

Moonglow : Light Generation 5 (Misc. Advantage: acts as normal moonlight for all effects e.g. exposing lycanthropy).

Protection from nonmagical weapons- Armour (Hidden e.g. no spell penalties; Limitation- not effective against magical weapons) Gives armour rating of 10 (AR 6), cumulative with any other armour worn.
 
Wild Surge – Creates a random surge of magic; player rolls randomly among spells of the same level twice and selects the desired effect (Random, Double).
This spell can be Heightened to higher levels; it cannot be Mastered.

Mists of Slumber –. Damage (Wis)(Adv -Area; Dis-Nonlethal) Targets suffers 3 points of Wis damage (mental fatigue); Saving roll resists, targets collapses from mental fatigue at 0 Wis.  Damage continues each round the target remains in the cloud.
May be cast surreptitiously (Hidden) as a level 2 spell (if so, damage unchanged).

Dispel Magic ( Knockout- opponent spell) (Adv: Area, Dis: Tactical Limitations). Roll an effect roll vs. caster’s spell with the target spell cancelled if successful. May be cast at higher level if desired.
Tactical Limitation - only one try per spell per caster is possible (until spellcasting dice pool improves).

2nd Level
Acid Arrow- (Repeating, Low Effect)
Conjures bolt of acid  (7 damage) -spell resistance doesn’t help but normal armour is effective. Targets hit suffer the same damage on the next round, unless the acid is somehow neutralized.

Glamour -Enhances sex appeal, giving the caster Good Looks (+2) and a +2 bonus to Diplomacy rating, (+2 /additional level). (Adv - Extended; Limitation - other mages see through automatically).


3rd Level
Fireball – level 3. (Damage; Area, Repeating; Disadvantage – double cost)
Damaging spell – deals 3 damage per success in a 30’ area. Targets must Dodge to avoid. Immolated targets continue to burn, taking continuing damage on the next round.
Fireball can be heightened to increase damage.
Casting Fireball is unusually energy intensive and costs 6 Magic Points (twice normal cost).

Spell Trap (3rd level) – stores another power until discharged.

Yeah man, that would be cool. I'll trade you, on the magical day my homebrew is marketable, you can have a copy.

Cranestrike@gmail.com

Cheers
OK have sent through from my hotmail. Hopefully gmail will be friendly and not decide that its spam.

Another Hybrid-style brain dump for today!

Here's some more thoughts on getting systems that are different to 'interface' - so there's a rationale to justify using different mechanics, without the whole looking inconsistent.

1. Same sort of roll, different odds. On one system we roll under with d20, another is roll under with 3d6. This can be justified by supposing that some tasks are just more predictable than others.

2. A system with separate rolls for 'success' and 'effect' - like how D&D separates hit and damage rolls. A more general version of this might be that you (say) roll d20 to see if you succeed in a task, then a number of d10s to see how well. Some tasks don't need the 'hit roll' or the 'effect roll', so they become either 1d20 or bucket-of-d10s. This would be a way of bridging between a Storyteller-type system and conventional d20 system, for example.

The only similar example I can think of conventionally for this is in HERO, where Grabbing actually uses an opposed damage roll [additive multiple d6s] rather than the usual 3d6-under.

3. Shifting die types by difficulty. Use a different dice based on the difficulty of a task e.g.
a) for an additive system, shift between d10 and d20 e.g. Talislanta 'untrained' rolls use d10, rather than d20 like most tests. A conventional 'attribute check' in Tal just uses d20+ [2x stat] but you could instead say all attribute checks are 'untrained', so they would use[d10+stat] instead of [d20+stat+skill level].
Note that the shift from d10 to d20 means you need two different difficulty scales, but you're effectively halving the impact of a bonus on some rolls without needing to actually /2.

b) For a roll-under system, roll bigger dice based on difficulty. A stat check could be d20 under stat, while a skill check is d100 under stat, but can get bonus percentiles from training.

c) In what's a step-die system like Savage Worlds or Earthdawn where you roll d6, d8, d10, etc. depending on ability, some stats might default to a given die type for almost all characters, perhaps with most modifiers just for advantages.

One thought for a step die effect would be various resistances. Like if a magic user casts a spell at his target the damage die step would be rolled based on how well the target resisted. A poorly resisted magic missile might do 1d10 damage, while a well resisted one might only do 1d6 or 1d4. Could also be used to simulate the effect of armor or blocks from weapons.

Thanks IceBlink. Interesting, though I don't know how to use that to do exactly what I'm trying to do i.e. find an excuse to switch from one mechanic in one place to another in another place elegantly. But I'll ponder and hopefully it may lead somewhere weird

A couple of systems use similar mechanics to what you described, that I know of:

*Alternity uses different dice for damage (as well as a type of damage: wound/stun/mortal) based on whether a character hits on an attack with an Ordinary, Good or Amazing success. The amount of damage is arbitrarily defined individually by weapon. A defender can resist to add extra penalties to the attacker's roll in hopes of shifting their success level and dropping damage, or spend a "Last Resort Point" to drop an opponent's success level by one.

*Earthdawn has a step die system where a given Rank corresponds to a given die type (Step 3 = d4, Step 4 = d6, etc...eventually going to 2d6 then d8+d6 and so on). Sometimes a character might be able to make one roll to get a bonus to another (e.g. the Crushing Blow power gets a +3 step bonus to the damage roll if the character also makes a successful Battle Shout roll).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;413930*skill checks -mechanics might actually differ for different skills. Ideally want easy rolls to become 'automatic' from bonuses to the chance, without using a kludge like Take-10. Speed of resolution not so important, though I don't like d% so much since it tends to lead to everything evolving into a separate skill (a la RuneQuest). May want multiple attributes to modify a skill - possibly by varying amounts depending on the stat's relevance.

I've always been fond of how Bushido does its base skills. Each skill's base chance is the average of 2-3 player stats. For example Horsemanship is a combination of Will and Dexterity. I know other systems use variations on this idea (stat contributes to skill aptitude). Perhaps you might want to give the players more freedom in which stats they can use to make up the 'base' for each skill. Maybe even varying it from challenge to challenge. Like a fighter who decides he can't overcome his opponent through the use of simply Str. and Dex. so instead he switches to a combination of Int. and Dex. to derive his base skill for his attack. He would perhaps lose some damage capability, but instead pick up some other beneficial effect.

Another thought is to have the players formal training with a skill determine how many stats he can use to establish his base skill. For example someone who is only 'familiar' with a skill could only draw on one stat, while someone who is 'competent' could use two and someone who is 'highly skilled' could use three, etc. That would create a real difference between someone who dabbles and someone who has spent a large part of his life practicing the skill.

Sorry if these are too random or not helpful. The ideas you are batting around are very interesting though and wanted to chime in with what I'd been thinking about.

No probs..
I quite like systems with skills based off more than one attribute, actually.
Haven't seen Bushido itself, though for awhile I've had a free rpg called "Rope" which is apparently Bushido-derived.
http://wolf.bergenheim.net/rpg/rope

HarnMaster has the different attribute combinations for attributes too - a "skill base" is the average of three attributes, or a weighted average of two like Dex/Dex/Str. Different skills start at different multiples of the base score.
If you wanted using 2 or 3 stats to give some advantage but not too much, there are always the systems where stats use modifiers - and you could have Advantages/Feats/etc that let characters add a modifier from a second stat.

As far as choosing between different stats in combat - lots of systems have stunts that work off various attributes depending on what you're doing - 2nd Ed. D&D had a system for this in the Complete Fighter, and I've seen optional systems for it in Tunnels and Trolls (just using Saving Rolls).
Another way to do it might be to have individual skills for very specific combat manuevers like All-Out Attack, or Riposte or Appraise Enemy or Reverse Thrust, etc. each adjusted by different stats. If you're doing that, you might want to have lots of fairly narrowly defined attributes as well. A character could then switch between the various skills (& so attributes) to get different effects.


On the idea of using more than one stat, depending on capability...I've never seen that before, that I can think of. Interesting.

The nearest I've seen might be the occasional D&D 3E/4E ability that lets some characters stack on extra ability score modifiers to a roll like paladin Divine Grace, 3.0 Order of the Bow.
In 3.5 I've never thought it works that well, since relatively few characters get multiple stat bonuses and for them reaching most DCs or winning most opposed rolls is too easy. I think it could work in a system that's designed to fit, though.

Using that, you would have a lot of defining to do...each skill needs 3 different base stats. Characters might be really good as amateurs, but powerful experts are harder to make since they need 3 different attributes to be high. I don't know what system you'd use to do this easily... d100 if adding stats directly ? d20 with multiple modifiers perhaps being added ?
Or you could do it more simply by having a different complementary skill that experts develop, that they roll against after failing a roll on the first skill?

If you want a skill to build off multiple stats, you could also do it by giving out bonuses indirectly rather than by adding all the stats together. A character might always use one stat, but get some other sort of bonus once they've reached some higher number of skill ranks. For example hitting people might always be STR-based, but higher level characters might get more attacks at a penalty that's reduced by a high DEX. Or, characters might get a number of sub-specialties in a skill (weapon peoficiencies, for example) based off Intelligence.