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My Game base mechanic idea?

Started by thadrine, August 25, 2009, 06:18:33 AM

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thadrine

Alright so it always helps me to understand a game by first looking at the character sheet, so here is what I have thus far.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7734a53848fb7b97391d7d881749d3a7e04e75f6e8ebb871

The concept is not meant to be overly simple I am looking for a game that does a lot of different things, and fixes some problems that I have in some of my much loved games. It is based heavily upon the mechanical bits of several games that I enjoy, but no one of these games has everything that I am looking for. The concepts come heavily from Dogs in the Vineyard, Houses of the Blooded, Wilderness of Mirrors, and Mutants and Masterminds. It is meant to have the narrative control of Houses, the back and forth in a conflict of Dogs, and the party "Trust" of Wilderness of Mirrors. And since a part of me is still a huge fan of the tactile, and tactical, minis combat, that is included in as well.

Base Mechanic
Roll a pool of Dice and resolve a conflict the same way you would with Dogs in the Vineyard.
Determine your Pool
You gain a number of d10s equal to your base stat; you can set a number of these to the side as wagers for things like additional successes if you succeed on the roll. You also gain effect dice. These are little mechanical perks that you can purchase that give you a number of d6's, or higher die value if you pay extra, that you may also roll as part of your pool, you can only wager stat dice. Effect dice also give an effect, such as increased movement, particular types of damage, and other status conditions (i.e. mechanical effects similar to the powers you would find in Mutants and Masterminds, Speed, Deflection, Fire Blast, etc). Once you have your pool, and wagers, determined you roll your pool. You then use that pool to go back and forth making challenges against each other. You choose two dice to make a challenge with. Your opponent has to come up with two dice or less to meet that challenge, or they lose the conflict. If your opponent loses the conflict you may distribute your Wagers amongst the effect you brought into the conflict. So if you used Fire Blast (damage), and Fear, you may spend your wagered dice on those effects.
Going Further
As a method to limit what a character can actually do and what effects he may call upon during a conflict we are using an Action Point (AP) tracker. A bead is moved back and forth across the first page to help with this. The first page of the character sheet is laid down in front of you and never lifted up. The third and fourth pages contain the rest of your characters info and several rules summaries.  All effects that player's wishes to pull into a scene have an AP cost, as do particular types of actions.
Example: Player A is attacking player B with his "Fathers Pistol". He pays 4 AP to initiate an attack; this means he gets to use his base Prowess in the pool (4d10s). He also wants to use the effect of "Fathers Pistol," so he pays the 2 AP for that effect. This effect adds a range that he can affect the target up to, and the ability to do the Paralyze effect that the gun offers, as well as adding dice to the pool (4d6). The player chooses Wager 2 so there final roll is (2d10, 4d6).  If this player wins he can spend any combination of 2 points in either physical damage or Paralyze.

Overall
This is the basic conflict mechanic that can apply to all situations. There is still much more to detail, such as the very extensive Plot Currency mechanic.  So far what I have outlined is simply a very broad conflict mechanic, one that is barely my own (thank you Vincent Baker for changing the way I look at games), but it is the basic foundation I am starting with. What do you think?

Adam Dray

The sheet is nice. I don't know anything about your game, but any game with traits like "shame," "honor," and "anger" gets my attention. You misspelled "belief" though.

Hey, didn't I respond to this post somewhere else? Is this a duplicate or did I dream about replying?
Adam Dray / adam@legendary.org
Verge -- cyberpunk role-playing on the brink
FoundryMUSH - indie chat and play at foundry.legendary.org 7777