Wardrobe (working title)

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Wardrobe is a relatively universal role play game that focuses on overcoming your short comings by covering them up with what you continue to learn. It also provides shortcoming mechanics to represent the imperfection in everyone and how it all some times drags us down keeping us from success.

Character Creation:
Note: decide on a concept before creation begins and sick with it the entire point of the game is to overcome your failing points and become what you truly desire. To make your players stick to it have them write their concept down on a paper and hand it to you so that hey must stick with it.

    The Ugly truth: This section of character creation shows the hand that fate dealt us and what we have to work with. The first set of attributes will dice pool sizes to be used in task resolution.  You will need to randomly (which ever way you choose) distribute the following numerical values to the below stats, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2.

Brawn: Physical strength of the character.
Build: The actually physical bulk of the character which he/she utilises to resist physical wear and tear.
Agility: The quickness of a character.
Brains: The amount of book natural smarts the character has.
Cunning: Your ability to deduce situations quickly.
Presence: Your ability to project your existence in a situation.

The above attributes are used to create the following secondary attributes.
Health=Build+3
Reaction= Agility+3
Ego=Presence+3

The following attributes represent the characters ability to turn away from morally harmful situations in which may appeal to them. Keep in mind that if a character chooses to he may opt to simply engage in the actions.

Pride: An excessively high opinion of oneself.
Envy: A desire to have that which is not your own.
Lust: A desire to engage in undesirable activities.
Wrath: The act of engaging in vengeful activities.
Greed: A desire to keep what is yours to yourself without sharing with those in need.
Sloth: Choosing not to act in a situation to avoid "excesses" work.

    Masks: Like a constant hair style, or repetitive use of the same make ups people often tend to create an image for themselves that every one identifies them with. You have three differant major components to the mask, legend, field, and actions. You will be able to choose one legend, two fields, and three actions to compose your mask descriptions of function are below.

(Note: The following stats are meant to provide nothing more than bonuses and should not be used against a player)
Legend: The major overriding concept behind opinions of you may be used as field or actions.
  Example: Lone Gunner, Empty Killer, or even heart breaker.
Field: These are things or traits that you have and may you to add 1 bonus die to your pool.
  Example: Charming eyes, always finds a meal, good timing.
Actions: Actions are things which a character has accomplished in the past which will provide bonuses to social rolls in which the opposition may be swayed by the action, as well as possible recognition hooks.

After having chosen the first half of your mask you must you must again choose the same amount of the above stats, legend, field, and actions but instead these will be negatives used only to detriment a character. When making rolls using your moral attributes roll a d6 and subtract it from the result of the player the same way you would add a dice for positive mask attributes.

Alfet: Your alfet is one of the most important keys to your wardrobe it is the collective of things which you can use to further yourself at things you are good at as well as aid those areas you are lacking in. Total there are 28 skills that compose your differant alfet choices and you must rank them most to least important. You will be able to assign one skill at rank 6, two at rank 5, three at rank 4, four at rank 3, five at rank 2, and 6 at rank 1. The remaining 7 attributes will at the moment remain at rank 0. The choice of skill placement will be important in advancement as you will only be able to advance each skill by four rank from its current as the game progresses.

Accessories:
Items: You will have 15 points in item ranks to distribute amongst as many items as you choose having no more than a rank 3 in any item. Items provide bonuses to actions that they relate to in the form of added dice to a dice pool. In exchange for on dice added a weapon may have the following traits.
Ranged: The weapon may be used from far away.
Slashing: The weapon does one extra wound to those not protected appropriately.
Piercing: The weapon does one extra wound to those not protected properly.
Flexible: You may grapple an opponent with a flexible weapon.
Reach: You may trip opponents with or attack at opponents further than five feet from yourself.

That is all the character creation any comments would be much appreciated I will post the mechanics as soon as I have the time. Once the entire thing is up I will be able to ask more precise questions until then like I said any comments will help.
Regards, Seth

[TonyLB]

Seth, I see a really cool focused system, plus some stuff I'm not sure you need at all.

Brawn?  Build?  Agility?

Special rules for when an item is a weapon?  Ranged?  Piercing?

See, you've got a game that could work well for (say) fashion photographers and models trying to make it in a cut-throat and often abusive business.  And then you've got a poor man's D&D tacked on to it.  So now I can't play Pietro, sexy but clueless Italian photography savant ... at least not without thinking about what combat qualities his camera possesses.  Ranged?  Clearly.  But is it Piercing?  Flexible?

So I'm not convinced you need any of that stuff.  But I don't know the entirety of what you plan for the game system, so I am open to becoming convinced.  What do you need it for?

[Seth M. Drebitko]

I apologize I had the weaponstuff scribbled onto the bottom of the paper that I was typing up I added it by mistake. I am in the process of typing up the rest of what I have hand written, slow at typeing sorry.

The weapon properties will be used at some other point I am in the process of creating various rule modules that fit seamlessly into the rules to provide a differant genre feel.

As for the reason for brawn, build, and agility I have added these because at its heart the the system is generic and it provides the ability for people to act in physical manors. Well off to type or these rules are not going to make it up to be seen lol.
Regards, Seth

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

My thoughts are in line with Tony's.  Let me ask, about this:

As for the reason for brawn, build, and agility I have added these because at its heart the the system is generic and it provides the ability for people to act in physical manors.

-I don't see how adding in very stereotypical stats makes a game more generic.  Could you explain your reasoning?  Also, you have this:

play game that focuses on overcoming your short comings by covering them up with what you continue to learn. It also provides shortcoming mechanics to represent the imperfection in everyone and how it all some times drags us down keeping us from success.

-Which is TOTALLY awesome, but you also have this:

Brawn: Physical strength of the character.
Build: The actually physical bulk of the character which he/she utilises to resist physical wear and tear.
Agility: The quickness of a character.
Brains: The amount of book natural smarts the character has.
Cunning: Your ability to deduce situations quickly.
Presence: Your ability to project your existence in a situation.

The above attributes are used to create the following secondary attributes.
Health=Build+3
Reaction= Agility+3
Ego=Presence+3

-Which is not as much Awesome.  You seem to be wanting to go in a really new and exciting direction, but holding on to what you think a RPG "has to have" in order for it to be a RPG.  What would happen if you lost this stuff and went with something else?

Peace,

-Troy

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Originally when I came up with the idea of short
comings it was to represent the physical and mental
Short comings we may have and the fact that we learn
"skills" to supplement them. I will keep looking into
the idea of diverting from more standard attributes.
Any way the rules for playing the game are listed
below.

(The game uses all d6's)

Basic Task Resolution:

Any time an action in game can not be settled through
discussion and compromise a roll is required and plays
out as follows.
-Player describes action to Game master
-Game master sets difficulty
-Player rolls
Attribute+skill+equipment+legend/field/action+bonus of
0-3 awarded by game master for good dramatic
description.
-After rolling the players score will be the highest
die he rolled. Any 6's rolled may be rolled again
adding whatever is rolled on the new die to the last
roll of 6, this continues until you do not roll any
more 6's.

Example: Tony attempts to scale the side of a building
the gm decides the task is going to be tough as it is
raining  and so gives a 9 difficulty rating. Tony
gathers his dice pool up and has a total of 9 dice the
gm was impressed with the creative description of how
tony planned to overcome the rain and adds 2 dice to
the pool. After rolling his 11 dice he rolls three 6's
after rolling again he rolls another 6 as his next
highest roll followed by a 3. His total score was a 15
well over what the gm had set and so his success is
described by the gm.

Difficulty and success levels:
Difficulty ratings are all increments of three and are
decided on by the gm when taking into effect all the
factors working against he character.
very easy-3
easy-6
moderate-9
difficult-12
very difficult-15

A players success level is determined by how many
difficulty levels above normal success he has scored.
0-the character just brakes even and succeeds at his
task in a less than spectacular way.
1-the character managed to pull the action off with
relative ease while still there was nothing special
about his performance.
2-the character was able to pull off his task in a
relatively impressive manner
3-the task was obviously far below the character and
could have been done in his sleep.

Opposed rolls:
Function the same as normal task resolution except
that each opposing force will act as the others
difficulty rating. The gm is still responsible for
bonuses, as well as outcome narration. Any penalties
are given by the gm in the form of negative numbers to
a players roll.

Example: After scaling the wall Tony encounters a
guard who has not yet noticed him. Tony describes a
daring tumble behind the guard and into a cart of
trade goods. Tony rolls his dice pool having a total
score of 10 three success ranks but the gm has applied
a negative three to his roll causing him o lose an
entire success. The guard has scored a 9 having three
success ranks and beating tony.

Short Comings:
When taking an action if you score a number of success
levels equal to the trait level you will gain a drama
bead. Drama beads may be used to add an extra die to
the highest die rolled as if you had rolled a 6, or be
used to take reasonable narrative control over the
game. The final purpose of the drama die is to turn
into an experience point at the end of a game in which
they are not used.

Example: Tony after the guard has noticed him and
before combat wishes to hit the guard in the throat
with an apple so that he is unable to bring others to the awareness of his presence. Knowing he is unable to act outside of combat especially he is the one surprised, Tony spends a drama die. Gaining short bit of narrative control for the scene he works out with the gm that after tumbling into the cart he quickly grabbed hold of an apple and threw it striking the guard in the throat causing him to be unable to speak.

Combat:
At the beginning of combat each player rolls his reaction score as per normal, and marks down their score as well as their success rank. Beginning at success rank one and continuing forward the player with the highest initiative acts, after every one in success rank one has acted you move on too two until every one has taken all of their turns. When a player attacks it is a contested roll between themselves and the opposition for every success rank above the opponent you score you deal  a point of damage to the appropriate skill. Each time a character is attacked they are given the opportunity to defend but may sacrifice a turn later in the combat round to add plus two dice to their roll. Social combat takes place in the same manner as regular combat only dealing damage to the opponents ego instead of health.

Example:
Tony and the guard each roll their reaction the guard stunned rolls a 4, while Tony was able to roll a 15 an incredibly lucky roll. On the first turn Tony and the guard square off Tony's first action fails to connect as he swipes eagerly with his blade, the guard however connects with a strong blow and...

Damage:
When a character receives damage to his health score his reaction score for the turn is lowered by what he takes in damage. Any damage dealt to ego which may be done in combat as an attack action, causes the next action taken by the opponent to take a penalty equal to the damage taken.

Example:
... deals two points of damage causing Tony to loose an attack action. In response not realising the guard has no extra actions Tony berates the guard with a slew of witty banter dealing three ego points to the guard.

Death:
If you reach zero in your health score the opponent attacking has the option to end it and destroy you however the gm may decide that a player took such disregard in his actions that he kills a person out right no matter his intention. A complete loss in ego causes a pride check in most cases but in some another check may be needed or the character losses complete control in what ever way the gm feels needed possibly incurring negative traits to his mask.

Example:
After giving a detailed description of driving the blade deep into his enemies gut and dealing the final damage needed he decides to hold of on killing the guard but the gm decides that the damage is far to great...

Healing:
You heal one health point for every 3 hours of rest every 9 if you do not rest unless the gm decides the wounds are to horrible. Ego is gained every hour after they are able to get away from the cause of the drop.

Over the edge:
If the gm feels the characters have done an appropriately traumatizing thing, or may fall prey to temptation some thing appropriate to his character he makes a morals check. This check is done as per a normal check using your appropriate attribute to resist the drop.

Experience:
After each session drama beeads are turned into experience, as well as any experience that he gm may award. To gain ranks in a skill you add the appropriate attribute tier+skill tier+new level to determine how much experience is needed. The low cost for skills that do not come natural is low to represent the need and drive for improvement the character obviously puts more drive into advancing in things he is harder at. For every experience you spend on your character you must add 10 extra words onto your character wardrobe (background) trust me when the campaign ends and you see how far you have gone it will be pretty cool.

Any suggestions, or opinions would be great. Specifically I am trying to wonder if any one has any other ideas to emphasise the struggle to overcome your own short commin gs.

Alright this is all I have for now sorry it took me so long to gt up life happens.
Regards, Seth