[Inheritance] Early Draft - Looking for Feedback

[SuperSooga]

Jorng has stories of great heroes moving mountains, God Kings that shaped the empires of today and beings sent by wicked Gods to destroy the world as we know it. Some of these are little more than characters from folk tales but some of them are real and set to make their own legends. Those who are born with, or gain, this great power are known as Inheritors, but who or what exactly they inherit their abilities from will vary depending on who you ask.

Inheritance is based in an age of prophecies and legends. A land of Empires, mythical creatures and people ranging from humble slaves to god-like beings. Battles between vast armies of conflicting Empires happen alongside titanic clashes of hero and monster.

Thought I'd take the plunge and stick up a very early work-in-progress version of my system for your consideration. Any feedback is appreciated. Try not to worry too much about the small bits of fluff that are contained in the document, there's a seperate wiki for all setting-specific stuff that's far too incomplete to show yet.

Enjoy Inheritance!

[Filip Luszczyk]

Your links don't seem to work.

[SuperSooga]

Ack, you're right.

This should work.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Ok. Is there any specific problem you want to discuss?

The document is longish, and we don't know much about what exactly you want to write. Your pitch explains what the game is about and your comments at the start of the document explain your technical concerns, but it's hard to guess what gaming experience you actually want the game to provide. Without knowing your intentions on that level, it's difficult to assess how close to them this version of the game is and give any advice.

Either way, presenting a more specific issue makes it easier to elicit feedback. You probably don't want to hear about stuff that you already know or completely don't care about.

[SuperSooga]

You're quite right, thanks for the advice.

The areas I'd most like feedback on are as follows:

- The main mechanic for task resolution, that is the opposed rolling of PLs. This links in with the scale of the PL charts found at the end of the document.

- Characters and Attributes. The character section is about a third of the way down after all the mechanic stuff. As you can see character generation is very open, it requires a DM that is comfortable with saying no sometimes unless you're prepared for a very high-powered character. Saying that, too many eggs in one basket will leave the character cripplingly weak in other areas. Playtests so far have found that Dump Stats generally result in the player feeling the effects quite hard. I like it that way but I'd like to hear others' thoughts.

- Clarity. Clearly this document is under-construction but I'd still like to hear of any sections that simply don't make sense.

- Artifacts. Found in the equipment section underneath the normal equipment, just past halfway down. I'm quite proud of some of these creations, I wanted them to be world famous items that are met with equal parts desire, fear and awe. With this in mind, most of them will typically have a beneficial effect, a dangerous risk or setback and most importantly an overall feeling of "cool".

Hope that gives a few places to start. I think once you get your teeth into the document you'll find that a lot of space is taken up by NPCs, Monsters and Equipment. The bulk of the system is found in the first section detailing the how the mechanics are used.

[lighthouse]

I'm also writing an early draft of my game, so I know how it feels.

Well I feel the basic task resolution system needs to be re-worded. I think you should go to much greater detail in explaining it.

As for the rest, my general feel right now, it's that you are going for a rules-light game that is, at the same time, designed to address a large number of different situations, which is nice but...

...when I see your artifacts and "monsters" all I see is a bunch of numbers but almost no background story

I don't like the "good thing" and "bad thing" designations for advantages and disadvantages. It almost looks like as if you could not think of any name.

[SuperSooga]

"Good Thing" and "Bad Thing" are names taken straight from the system that this is based upon and are definitely something I've considered renaming. I'll certainly bear that in mind.

As far as background on monsters and artifacts goes it all exists but isn't in this document, which is all "crunch" at the moment. Rest assured that when a full version is put up the backgrounds will be in there. I understand that the lack of background isn't helpful when you're trying to get a feeling for the game.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll take a closer look at how basic task resolution is worded.

[lighthouse]

Your welcome,