My game [Aegri Somnia]

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Ok I will begin posting on my system, this post will explain some points about it, the next will be how to make a character, following that will be how to play the game, and lastly will come how items function.

Ok just to clear some things up first the system resembles pool in that:
-it uses a set number of dice that must be rationed.
-a characters special abilities, skills and every thing else but stats and items are phrases drawn from your background.
Alright folks that's about it other than that the system is to my knowledge of my own making.
I will when I have the time post up a basic set of rules with examples but I lost the saved files I had so I will have to write it back up. Thanks for any interest.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Stats:
Each character has 6 main stats each starts at 8 and you may lower one in order to raise another at a one for one rate. The stats are brawn, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, personality, and willpower. A 7th stat exists called fate which is rated by adding the highest stat and the lowest stat.

Species:
Each player gets 50 words to describe their species. If they do not use all of these words they spill over into background.

Negatives:
You get as many words as you want to describe some of your characters short fallings. The gm will award you extra words for your background dependent on how bad they are.

Background:
You get 250 words to describe your characters background and such plus any extra you picked up along the way.

Phrases:
For every 25 words in your background, or species you can add a phrase explaining something important to the character. By sacrificing one of your phrases you can make one other one start a point higher than the others.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Beginning of session:
When each game starts you get to bring your pool back up to its regular amount, or if you have more than your normal amount keep them in the pool.
EXAMPLE: Joe ended his last session with 2 less dice in brawn then he started with he will gain those two back. Jessica ended the game with 3 more int than she did last game she will get to Cary those over to the next session.

Actions:
When taking an action decide what stat relates to the task. Gamble a number of dice from that pool that you wish and add the value of any phrase that might relate to the action. It is important that you keep the extra dice from your phrase separate from the normal pool. After rolling your dice discard any even numbers and subtract 1 from every odd, add them all together and you will get your total score.
EXAMPLE:Ja rolls to jump he uses 4 of his 7 normal dice in his dex pool. He will also add a die from a phrase he has. he rolls his 4 dice and scores 3,6,5,4. His phrase die ends up being a 3. He will drop the 4, and 6, and take one from the odd numbers and then adding them together, his total will be 8.

Action resolution:
After rolling and finding your total you lose all the dice you gambled, however you will gain what ever your total roll score was (aside from what you phrase dice rolled) added back to your pool. Now it may seem tedious to do this but it keeps the players aware and paying attention to the game and it does not take long at all to figure out the total.
EXAMPLE:Ja loses the 4 dice he gambled however aside from the phrase die he added he scored a 6 which means he will add those to his pool and in the end gained dice.

Initiative:
So first thing is first take a number of cards equal to your dex number them from 1 to what ever your dex score is. Shuffle the deck and keep it next to you, when combat starts up every one flips a card. Who ever has the highest card value gets to take an action. If a tie comes up who ever is willing to flip another card to get a higher value they get to go. If neither player will flip another card neither gets to take an action
EXAMPLE:Combat starts player "a" ,"b", and "c" flip their cards player "a" flips a 1, player "b" flips a 3, player "c" also flips a 3. Player "b" and "c" flip one more card each flips a 1 they are tied again. Player "b" flips another card but player "c" is not willing to lose another card. The turn would go as follows, initiative 3 would come up then player "b" would take his turn, player "c" right after. Last initiative 1 would come up and player "a" would act.

Opposed actions:
Each character rolls as if the action were a nomral action but they compare their rolls to each others who ever scores more wins.

Fate dice:
You may use fate dice for any roll but if those dice roll successes you add them to the related stat. (It is a good idea to save fate dice for times when a pool is really low)

Damage:
When doing damage you add as many dice as you wish from the related pool generally hand to hand weapons go to brawn, and ranged goes to dex. Also you may add related phrases to damage rolls. For example our mage is casting a fire spell, he adds 3 dice from will, and 1 from his phrase.

Dying:
All damage you take will be recorded as minor damage after taking damage you must make a brawn check. If you roll under the amount of damage you take a lethal wound, for every 6 that you fail by you take another lethal. You may take a number of lethal equal to your brawn before dying.

Advancing:
If you end a game and one of your stat pools has twice its value in dice you gain a point permanently in that stat to show that you pushed your self to the next level. Your pool is then reset back to its normal level.
At the end of each session players are rewarded a number of words to add to their species, background or use to buy off negatives. Like in the beginning of character creation for every 25 pts you add on you gain a phrase.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Stats:
Each character has 6 main stats each starts at 8 and you may lower one in order to raise another at a one for one rate. The stats are brawn, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, personality, and willpower. A 7th stat exists called fate which is rated by adding the highest stat and the lowest stat. Only have attributes if they match cars would have a dex, and brawn but probably not any of the others.

Appearance:
Just like species, the GM will tell you how many words you can have.

Negatives:
Same as negatives.

Background:
You can tell how the character came across the item, what they have been through and what not.

Phrases:
Just like a normal character these are special features of the item like sharp, or blunt. If you hit someone with a sharp item and they are a viable target that could be damaged by something sharp add the value of sharpens to the damage:

Using stats:
each time the character uses the item he can choose to push the item. This usually happens in combat scenes. for example a car could spend dice from its pool to increase the characters roll, and possibly add a maneuverable or fast phrase. However these dice must be kept separate because they do not add back to any dice pool. To replenish these pools you must either in the case of a car refill the gas, or you can burn a fate dice permanently to show your caring for the car. After you have no fate dice left you must have the car and or weapon repaired.

Advancing:
Through in game acts such as adding magical effects, or technological effects, you may get more words to describe the weapon. You may then add a new phrase that relates.

So those are the basics if you want you can play test them. Me and a friend of mine are also play testing, and will eventually have a product! thanks for reading happy gaming.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

so any one have any thing to say. Things you don't like things that should stay, maybe even a you suck lol.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Please be patient. The Forge is a lot slower than other websites. People aren't responding quickly because they'd prefer to respond well and as helpfully as possible. You can respect and appreciate this best by waiting nicely.

Best,
Ron

[Seth M. Drebitko]

I apologize I am used to quicker responding sites. I see and understand what you mean though and thank you all for the time you are taking to help me.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hello. I'm not sure I'll live up to Ron's expectations, but I do have a few questions.

Are you looking for criticism of the grammar and logical construction of the sentences you posted? I realize that this may not be your working document, but there were a few things that weren't immediately apparent to me that could be cleared up I believe with a bit different wording. I however don't want to be abrasive.

Reading your example for rolling I'm making the assumption that your game is using 6 sided dice. This would mean you would only generate two results a two and four, one third of the time and zero 2/3 of the time. This means rolling 6 dice will yield an average result of 6.

Essentially this appears to be a way to organically keep characters from becoming too powerful, but still having a theoretical chance to advance. You must be allowing the keeping of "winning hands" to offset the fact that the chance to improve would basically be flat. The only problem I see, is the system seems a bit cumbersome on the rolling end, some people may be slowed down by the throwing away even's then subtract by one method.

If the goal is to preserve even odds have you considered perhaps a d2 method? Perhaps poker chips with a zero sticker and a 2 sticker, this would generate the same average but would require only the addition of two's which virtually everyone can do easily.

I'm not sure how I would feel about the capping of advancement if I was a long term player of your game. Have you considered how long it will take before advancement becomes futile, and how easy advancement is at first? I didn't feel like trying to work that out. I'm not sure I can.

I love the idea that you are basing the strength of the character on the amount of words used for the character, one of the hardest things I find is getting players to write something up. This can make it difficult to find hooks to draw that character into the game, or even understand what kind of game the player is looking for. The only problem I can see coming up here is word padding, which is really easy enough for me to handle by saying, "Sorry, no.", or only counting the unpadded words.

At this point, I'm interested enough that I'd consider joining a game.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Sorry I was in a big hurry and did not notice how bad the spelling and grammar was. I will hope to answer your questions now.

-the game will use 6 sided dice it should have been in the title of the thread but did not fit maybe.
-When rolling you will lose all the dice you rolled and gain a number of dice equal to that of your total rolled.
-The dice mechanic is pretty simple and I have tested it out with all sorts of people and after a couple rolls theory are able to understand and pick out the sum very quickly to my surprise. At first I had things set up as roll and add ones and twos, but I tried out the current mechanic quick. I discovered that in only a couple rolls most people can pick the sum out just as quick as normal rolling and it helps to focus the players more on the game they tend to not get off on as many tangents.
-I considered other methods aside from the d6 method and it fell back into the easier it was for them to pick out the total the longer and more distracted the task would be.
-Stats and such would not have to be capped, it takes a decent amount of time to raise stats depending on how you use your pool. Also it would not become futile to raise the pool just harder to show that as you get better at things you need to find other harder things to bump you up and this can become a challenge. I am starting a play test group next Monday so I will keep you posted on how stat raises go and if they jump to quick or two slow.
Again you will have to forgive me for the spelling and grammar I did not go to the best of school lol but I am trying.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

I want to say I am sorry for the bad post's. I was real tired when I wrote them up and thought I could edit them later. Any way with that doen with I have noticed that there needs to be a limit on the amount of dice you can gamble. So I have decided to keep things like rats from gambling a huge pool they earned and ripping some ones leg off you can not gamble more than your actual score in dice. Alright I think thats all I got see you guys later.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

All right I have increased the quality of the mechanics summary, I am going to have this thread deleted and start another thread where I will post each part of the game separate so I can give a good detailed look at it.

[yesala]

Hi there.  I also think the word count system sounds really interesting.  It will likely build in automatic character hooks, and get your players really thinking about who their character is, and what he/she is all about.  A good background is a fantastic tool for the GM and the player alike.

I wonder if you could explain a bit more about your dice system.  I think I understand how to use it, but it seems a little cumbersome to me.  Why do you want your players to drop evens, and then subtract one from the odds?  As another commenter pointed out, there may be a tidier way to achieve the sorts of numbers you'll get (using d6's).  If I understand correctly, the results will be either 0, 2, or 4 from one die.  Have you considered just using a d3 and skipping the dropping and subtracting part?  (I'm no math genius though, so I hope I got that right!)  

Cheers!  -j