BONES the RPG

[andy]

I like dice. I have written a lot of homebrew RPGs over the years, most of which fall in the "not-ready-for-prime time" category. However, I have been working on one on and off for some time that I would like comments on and for which I will ultimately solicit playtesters. Following is the beginning portion:

                                    BONES
BONES is a fantasy RPG based almost entirely around customized dice. Essentially, each PC is represented by a number of d6 which have been customized with symbols either dictated by character background or chosen by the player. When faced with a task, the PC rolls his dice ('rolls his bones") and counts the number of symbols he rolled that apply to the task he is attempting. For example:
   
              Gary is attempting to climb a tree. The game master has decided that the climb is easy, which means that only one success is required. Gary rolls his 4 bones (dice), which come up with one universal success (a "+" symbol) and one maneuver success (a "balance" symbol). With two successes, Gary easily climbs the tree.

   Each normal die has one face which is marked with a "+", the symbol for universal success. The remaining five faces can be customized by the player, as he sees fit. PCs start with four dice, gain dice as they gain experience and temporarily lose dice when they are injured. Characters roll their bones (dice) once per task they are attempting and count the number of successes they have rolled to determine the results of their efforts.


In order to avoid an unbearably long post, if anyone is interested in taking a look, please drop me an email at bonesrpg@aol.com and I'll email you the draft game rules, magic section and beastiary.

Thank you

Andy

[montag]

sounds interesting. Could you provide some more information on what the game is about, what players are supposed to do and so on.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello Andy,

If you haven't seen it before, then I strongly recommend learning everything you can about the game Throwing Stones, which utilized a system very much as you describe.

The game had many, many good ideas, although it was flawed by taking a collectible approach toward selling the dice (you bought them in a blind pack) and a certain confusion about the game's agenda (fight each other? have adventures? what?).

Another game to check out is the woefully mis-managed Dragon Dice, which in my view began with a remarkably good system that was driven into the ground almost immediately by bad development and marketing (same things, in this case). It too suffered from collectible-think publishing, and I'm not sure that its use of multiply-sided dice (e.g. 6's, 8's, 10's, 20's) was a good idea, but there's a lot to learn from it.

Best,
Ron

[Bluve Oak]

I am totally fascinated and would like a few examples of how a player can customize the dice.

What sort of meaningful stuff would be represented by the symbols?

[andy]

Actually Throwing Stones was one of my inspirations, although it has the failings that Ron mentions. Probably a bigger problem with it, in my opinion, was that the players had little to do with character design (except for choosing their dice if they could manage to collect the ones that they wanted.

I'm an Old Guy (40) and my gaming group is made up of Old Guys. Most of them love to tinker with a system and tweak their characters until they're "just so"-- I wanted to design a system that would allow builders to builders and players to play.

At the risk of wasting the Forge's bandwidth, I'll post an excerpt which includes an example and my Master Skills Table--


                             Types of Actions

   There are three types of actions in Bones, universal actions, restricted actions and special actions. Universal actions can be attempted by anyone, even if they do not have the appropriate symbol on any of their dice—universal successes still count as successes without limitation. Restricted actions can only be attempted by someone with at least one appropriate symbol on one of their dice, the number of applicable universal successes is limited to (2 x number of symbols) and total successes are capped at (number of symbols x 2). Special actions can only be attempted by someone with at least one appropriate symbol on one of their dice, the number of applicable universal successes is limited to (number of symbols) and total successes are capped at (number of symbols).
         
Oversimplified example
   Gary decides that he will be a fire wizard. His first die has one universal success, to which he adds 3 fire magic symbols (special action), one earth magic symbol and one sage symbol (restricted action). His second die has one universal success symbol, to which he adds three missile combat symbols and two defense symbols. Ignoring his other two starting dice for the moment, Gary's character looks like this:

      1st Die—Universal, Fire magic, Fire magic, earth magic, Fire magic, Sage
      2nd Die—Universal, Missile combat, missile combat, missile combat, defense, defense

When Gary is rolling his bones to attempt a melee attack, he can only count universal successes because he has no melee attack symbol. However, because melee attack is a universal skill, Gary can count any and all of his universal successes as successes when he attacks. When Gary is attempting to use his sage skills, he can count not only his sage symbol as a success, but also up to two universal successes because Sage is a restricted skill. His total number of successes would be capped at 2. Finally, when Gary is attempting to use his Earth magic skill (a special action), he can only count one universal success as a success (because he has only one earth magic symbol) and he is limited to a single success when using earth magic, again because he only has one earth magic symbol.


                          MASTER SKILL TABLE

The available skills and icons that represent each skill on the dice are:

Icon                   Name    Description—applies to    
 
Circle (black)   Alchemist    Special Action--Weird and potent concoctions
   
                               Artesian    Fine and performing arts skills (restricted action)

Hammer (black)   Craft     Craft skills (blacksmith, carpenter, etc.) (restricted action)

Shield (blue)   Defend    Melee and Missile defense (universal action)

Cross (black)   Healer    Healing skills(restricted action)

Star (black)   Magic--Air     Special action—ritual air magic

Star (brown)   Magic--Earth    Special action—ritual earth magic

Star (red)   Magic--Fire    Special action—ritual fire magic

Star (blue)   Magic--Water   Special action—ritual water magic

Star (green)   Magic--Animism   Special action—animistic magic

Scale (black)   Maneuver    Physical maneuvers (climb/jump/etc.) (universal action)

Sword (black)   Melee combat   Melee attack or defense (universal action)

Dollar Sign (black)   Merchant    Mercantile skills such as appraisal, haggle, bartering (restricted action)

Arrow (black)   Missile combat   Missile attacks (universal action)

Tree (black)   Outdoorsman   Outdoor skills(restricted action)
      
Moon (black)   Stealth    Sneaking around (universal action)

Smiley (black)   Social    Social skills (diplomacy, persuasion, seduction, etc.) (universal action)

Mask (black)   Thief    Larceny skills (lockpick, disguise, con, etc.) (restricted action)

Eye (black)   Perception    Observation skills (universal action)

Horseshoe (brown)   Riding    Riding animals(restricted action)

Sun (black)   Scholar    Knowledge skills and book learning (restricted action)

Boat (blue)   Sailor    Sailing skills, swimming, etc (restricted action)

Hand (black)   Unarmed Combat   Special action— weaponless melee attacks, armorless missile and melee defense(restricted action)
      
      I hope that this is more illustrative.The Table looks much better in WORD.

Thank you for your comments.

Ain't this forum great?

Andy

Andy

[ethan_greer]

Hi Andy, and welcome to the Forge!

Dice are just cool.

So, from the skill table one can assume this is a fantasy game.  What's the game about?  Is it just about dice?  Probably not, or it wouldn't fall into the roleplaying category.  So what do the characters do?  Fight evil?  Rescue the princess?  Dungeon crawls?  Political intrigue?  Is this basically a core mechanic that can be used for lots of different campaign and play styles?  Or do you have a specific setting and play style in mind?

Do you have any areas in the game where you want advice?

How do players go about actually constructing the dice? Stickers? Magic marker on blank dice?

If you couldn't tell by the barrage of questions, I think this is an interesting idea. :)

[Bluve Oak]

More questions!

Would characters be fairly "static" seeing that making the dice is such a process?

Demo of combat? What if Gary rolls fo melee defense and gets a fire magic as opposed to rolling a sage or missile combat? Any margins of success/failure?

(-- Sending email for the rules --)

[andy]

Ethan-- In its current framework, Bones will be a "standard" fantasy game that will (hopefully) support a range of activities from dungeon delving through political intrigue and empire building. I am working on one campaign setting (which I call Cold Iron), which appears in ROUGH excerpt below:

COLD IRON CAMPAIGN SETTING

INTRODUCTION

   The Alfar are eternal. Sometimes called elves by humans (and other inferior races), an Alfar who is not slain in combat or by happenstance will live forever. Although births among the Alfar are rare, Alfar deaths in times of peace are rarer still. Resistant to the elements and to disease, only in times of war does the Alfar population decrease.

   Alfar civilization reached its peak before men could speak or make tools of their own.  Loosely governed by the Elf King from the isle of Alfheim (later to be called Iceland), the Ljosalfar (light elves) and Dokalfar (dark elves) dominated the peoples of man and the less numerous trollkin for millennia. Masters of magic and martial prowess, the alfar suppressed magic among the lesser races and suppressed the discovery and use of iron, a metal that was anathema to them.

   The Alfar Empire began to contract when the savage trollkin openly revolted and violently threw off the alfar yoke. Alfar retaliation was swift and brutal, and trolls died by the thousands. Still, their numbers were too great and they slew more elves than could be replaced for thousands of years. The alfar ended their war, although their last raid resulted in the capture of the troll king's daughter. During the struggle, the men of the north (the Norsemen) briefly allied with the trolls and also won freedom for their lands. This alliance of convenience ended when the alfar withdrew and the trolls turned on the men and attempted to subjugate them—the Vikings proved more than able to defend themselves and a perpetual state of war between man and trolls began which rages to this day.

   The Alfar suffered a second blow when Roman metallurgists finally overcame elven efforts to suppress iron. The touch of iron burns the alfar, and although a single alfar warrior was normally more than a match for one hundred men, arming those men with iron weapons and armor dramatically improved their odds. Only the elven monopoly on magic remained to assure their dominance.

   Feeling the nearly irreplaceable losses of the troll wars, the alfar decided to add to their numbers by creating elite servants. The alfar had long practiced selective breeding with their slaves, often with mixed results—their fierce helhounds and frightening helkites were an awesome force in war, but their efforts with men were less than successful. However, one strain of man (mixed with a touch of fey) showed promise—the servants that the alfar had called their sidhe were clearly magically and martially gifted, second only to the alfar themselves. Determined to swell their ranks with numbers sufficient to exterminate the hated trollkin, the alfar magically awakened the sidhe, provided them with tokens of power and established them on the neighboring island of Eire (Ireland). The sidhe lost no time in subjugating the native Celts and turning them into a powerful, if undisciplined, war machine. The sidhe also broke faith with their alfar masters and taught the more promising of their Celtic servants (who would later be called druids) the art of magic.

    Although they did initially war upon the trolls and the nors, ultimately the sidhe themselves rebelled against their alfar masters and, with the aid of the celts, drove them from Eire. Again, the alfar fell back to Alfheim, fewer than when they had started—too few, in fact, to continue to extinguish the flame of magic that continually grew in men.

    First with iron, Rome quickly moved to fill the void left by the withdrawing alfar. Conquer ring Greece, Gaul and Egypt in quick succession, the Roman Empire assimilated those it conquered and continued to grow until it reached the Moors, who were expanding from the other direction from their capitol of Baghdad.

         The Moors were united by a single god, the Destroyer, who supposedly granted his children the destiny of conquest. Unfortunately for their aspirations, the Moors found themselves in the unenviable position of being one growing empire in between two other growing empires. To the east, the Han Empire, supported and sponsored by the great celestial dragons, continued its own expansion. Added to the mix were the Nubians of the Dark Continent, the Rus of eastern and central Europe, the Saxons and Scots whose island bordered Eire and the fierce Nors whose lands bordered the trolls.

This is just a rough campaign sketch.

As for the dice, I buy blank d6 by the brick of 200 (cheap) and then use thin-line Sharpies to write on small Avery labels. This lets me customize and reuse dice fairly easily.

Thank you for your thoughtful questions.

Andy

[andy]

Is it just me, or does the term "Lurker" have vaguely Lovecraftian overtones? I was a lurker on this board for a year prior to posting. One of the more helpful commentators thus far , a lurker himself, has given me permission to post our exchanges.

I downloaded and had a look at the files, some nice stuff here! I should have more comments later, but my only initial observation is my fear of how dice for NPCs will work. Having customized dice for groups of NPC's seems to me a bit hard to keep track of, have you considered this problem and is there a solution?

That is a good question -- my (hopefully workable) solution will be to have standard "modular" dice for NPCs similar to the modular dice for beasts (i.e., predator, etc.) found in the Bestiary. For example, I will have a modular dice for "warrior," one for "thug," etc. To make an NPC on the fly, you could take two warrior dice and one thug die and stir thoroughly. Only truly special NPCs--typically ones who factor in the plot as either epic opponents or recurring characters -- would be wholly customized.

[Mike Holmes]

Have you considered the idea of the system being one where players only roll for PCs? For instance, in Whispering Vault, the opposition is only ever described by difficulty ratings. So if you want to hit a fast NPC, the GM makes the difficulty higher.

This would seem to be a real advantage for this type of game.

Mike

[andy]

Mike-- I loved Whispering Vault, although I think that the setting and support were stronger than the system. I agree that it would streamline things considerably to only have the players roll.

But where's the fun in that? What's the point of being GM if you can't roll the dice yourself and kick a little player butt every once in a while? I think that it seems less arbitrary to your players if you have to roll too.

It also keeps them honest.

Thank you for your comment.

Andy

[Mike Holmes]

But where's the fun in that? What's the point of being GM if you can't roll the dice yourself and kick a little player butt every once in a while? I think that it seems less arbitrary to your players if you have to roll too.

I personally prefer systems where everybody rolls, too. It's just that in this case, I think that it's going to be difficult to pull off well.

It also keeps them honest.

How so? Either way, they have the same ability to falsify their report of successes, no?

Mike

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

Actually Mike, making NPC's is apparantly quite easy for a system like this. This is taken from a Thrwoing Stones review at: http://www.gamereport.com/tgr12/throwingstones.html

"One of the neatest ideas in the game is the monster die. This die, supplied with each tube, has 2 primary and 1 secondary skill faces which differ in interpretation from monster to monster. For example, a Giant Spider has Web and Poison as its primary/secondary abilities while an Elephant has Knockdown and Stun. A chart describes this and how many such dice to roll, armor, hit point modifiers and the number of damage mulligans to use, listing nearly 100 creatures on one page. Fuller descriptions are given in the monster section but this chart and several of these cleverly designed monster stones makes running random monster encounters very easy for the GM (while the monster die is mostly for a GM to use during roleplaying, Summon Monster and Shapeshifting spells allow it to be used in the dueling game too)."

[Mike Holmes]

Thanks Lorenzo, however, I own a copy of the game (I also have Chaos Dice, which has some similarities). Yes, that's a solution that would work, just having a set of generic dice to emulate bad guys, or dice that read differently from creature to creature - there are probably lots of solutions. But my point is that you can get finer gradations on the bad guys, and have the system take much less time by simply by making them a set of difficulties. This also makes creating opposition on the fly much easier.

Just providing options.

Mike

[xiombarg]

I'd like to chime in at this point just to say that I really like the sound of this game, and that I agree with Mike that not having the GM roll is a wonderful idea for this. Speaking as a long-time GM, I have enough to keep track of without the "fun" of having to roll dice all the time YMMV, of course.

BTW, have you considered creating paper dice for this game, ala Diceland or Sparks Dice? Diceland, in particular, is worth looking at, as it's essentially a miniatures wargame that uses custom paper dice as the miniatures, and the rules are available online if you want to steal some of their mechanics.