My Game Mechanics (quite long)

[Bomb Cat]

Hey, I'm new here so I guess I will introduce myself first. I'm Bomb Cat and I'm new to the Forge. I think this is a great forum and I love reading all the ideas and discussions that people have. All of these ideas created a catalyst of sorts and inspired me to create my own rpg.

Games I have played in the past include D&D, AD&D, Rifts, Ninjas and Super Spies, the old Warhammer, the old Middle Earth... uhmmm. Mostly old stuff. Anyway.

So, thanks for the inspiration. Thanks for the ideas. I hope to get some feedback and participate in this great forum.
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I'm at a point in my game where I have the core mechanic which is super simple. Basically for skills, weapon skills, special abilities or whatever, a central system is used which is target number based, d20 roll over. Characters possess levels (from 1-7) which are equivalent to certain TN's. This works like this...

No Level, TN = 15
Level 1, TN = 11
Level 2, TN = 10
Level 3, TN = 9
etc. to Level 7, TN =5

Modifiers get added or subtracted from the roll to hit, damage, parry or whatever.
Right now I am fooling around with Weapon proficiencies.
Here is what I have so far...

Weapon Proficiencies.
In my system I'm thinking of making weapon proficiencies level based. There will be 3 levels of proficiency. My system works on target numbers which have a level equivalent. So, if you have a weapon skill of level 4 your target number is 8 (roll 8 or better on d20). The Margin of Success (MOS) is integral in determining damage but that doesn't really apply to my question. Anyway. I was thinking of having the weapon proficiency damage/parry activated by the margin of success. (The wpn. prof. to hit bonus is always active).

MOS of +3 to +7 activates level 1 proficiency
MOS of +8 to +12 activates level 2 proficiency
MOS of +13 or better activates level 3 proficiency

Example: Jorik has a TN of 8 and level 2 proficiency with the weapon. Jorik rolls a 19 which has a MOS of +11. Jorik would receive his proficiency damage bonus. The damage bonus would be +X added to the base damage. If Jorik would have rolled 12 (MOS of +4) he would receive only his level 1 proficiency bonus.

I was looking for some feedback on this idea. I have yet to implement the mechanics and wanted to get some thoughts.

Also...
My Armor Mechanic works like this...

Armor System
In my system each weapon has a pierce rating (PR) and each armor has an armor rating (AR). If the PR is higher than the AR and a strike is successful, the armor has a chance of being pierced (as long as the MOS is +3 or better, simply hitting the TN, +1, +2 results in a graze and only damages the armor no matter the PR or the AR).

The way that the pierce is determined is by the MOS. If the weapons PR exceeds the armors AR and the MOS of the strike exceeds the AR the armor is considered pierced and damage is done directly to the wearer.

If the PR is less than the AR the armor cannot be pierced by that weapon (no matter the MOS).

Example: Lets say Garet has a weapon has a PR of 7 and Jorik is wearing armor with an AR of 5. Garet attacks and has an MOS of +8. Jorik fails to parry/dodge and his armor is hit. Garet's weapon has a PR of 7 which means that it has the capability to pierce AR 5 armor. Garet has an MOS of +8 which is greater than the 5 of Jorik's AR. Jorik's armor is pierced by the strike and damage is done directly to Jorik's HP.

I thought this may be a way to gauge how decent a strike was. High rolls should have a better chance of piercing than just barley a hit. Since the rest of my combat is based on MOS I thought this may fit in well. I don't know though. I figured I would let you guys rip this to shreds.

I guess thats it for now.

[Adam Dray]

Hey, cool!

It's hard to give you feedback because we don't know what your goals for the game are, and there's more than one way to skin a cat.

When you make a game design decision, what kinds of things are going through your head? What leads you to choose crunchy over creamy (I made that term up), or make the margin of success feed into damage?

Also, what is this game gonna be? I see the start of a resolution system, but don't know why you're resolving things in the first place. An RPG is a lot more than a dice roll. Tell us a little bit about what you think characters will do in the game. Then step back a bit and tell us what you think players will do in the game (more than "control characters" -- tell us what will be fun for them, what their creative input will be). And, yes, players include the GM.

[Illetizgerg]

Hey Bomb Cat. Like Adam said, we really need information on the setting in order to give good advice on how to continue designing/tweaking the engine. It might be the case that you're trying to design a universal engine which will have a system adapted to it later, but even in that case we really need to know that that's what you're going for, because that also has certain kinds of demands.

From the perspective from someone who is not you, the target system seems a bit arbitrary, but it really depends on what you're using it for. Still, it could be simplified by saying that all the modifiers mod a flat base of 15, and your stats give the following modifiers to your roll...

0 = 0
1 = +4
2 = +5
3 = +6
4 = +7
5 = +8
6 = +9
7 = +10

An example would be if in your system a person tried to swim. Let's say they had a swim "level" (I'm not totally clear if the levels covered both your skills and your prime stats, or if you even have any prime stats) of 5, and the current made it hard to swim so their target number went up by +3. This would mean that they would roll a d20 against a target number of 7 + 3 = 10. Using the simplification that I just did, the same situation could be modeled where the target number was the base 15 plus the current's addition of +3, making it 18. Your roll would be a d20 + 8 (for your level of 5). This yields identical odds, and is basically just another way of writing it.

This makes things even simpler, and allows you to reduce the level system to simply Mod = Level + 3.

As far as combat goes, I don't really see a problem with your MOS system, however you might want to consider what it's ultimately supposed to do. Since you're familiar with D&D, consider their system. AC represents how difficult it is to do damage to someone, taking into consideration their ability to dodge and their armor. Getting past this allows you to do damage, which is then randomized based on the weapon.

My question is, particularly with regards to armor, if your system requires the characters to do a lot and get a high margin in order to get past armor, what does random damage (if you're using it) represent? Wouldn't it be simpler to say that the amount of damage you do when you roll damage reflects whether or not your character was able to get past their armor effectively or not? This isn't a rhetorical question by any means, but it might be worth your while to consider other ways of doing the same or similar things, and then considering which one fits the style of game you want to run.

To give an example from the system I'm working on, I don't use a compound AC system in my game because I want a character's dodging ability and armor to be kept separate. In D&D, an increase in AC lowers the chance that an attack will deal damage. This means that if you have an attack with d4 damage, the chances of dealing 1 damage, dealing 2 damage, etc, will all go down at once. This is fine if your ability to dodge an attack increases, however I would prefer that armor doesn't make you harder to hit, but makes it harder for a hit to deal lots of damage (so the chances should be weighted towards the 1 and away from the 4).

- Gregory Zitelli

[Bomb Cat]

Thanks for the replies...

I'm not going to answer any question directly right now (no disrespect). From yopur replies though I guess I outta post a power of 19 to give some overview of whats going on in my game.
I did decide to put a sample of combat for curiosity sake however.

Melee Combat
Situation: G.S. and B.K. have squared off against one another in a battle to the death. Game on!

Initiative Phase (d20 + speed + modifier)
G.S. rolls d20 = 16 + spd (10) = 26
B.K. rolls d20 = 14 + spd (10) = 24
G.S. wins initiative

First Action Phase
1a.) G.S. attacks with Longsword
   One Handed (TN=11) rolls 15 (success), 15 + spd (10) – wpn bulk (3) = 22
1b.) B.K. parries with Claymore (no parry penalty because each weapon has the same size (6).)
   Two Handed (TN=10) rolls 2 (failure)
1c.) G.S. checks damage, Damage= 15(roll) – 11(TN) = 4... 4 + str (12) + wpn damage (10) = 26
   G.S. deals 26 points of damage
1d.) B.K. is wearing no armor so teh damage is done directly.
1e.) B.K. must make a Resist Death check or suffer a stun from the 50% Health loss.
   Resist Death = 10, 20 – 10 = TN (TN = 10). B.K. rolls 13 (success). B.K. avoids being stunned. The 50% Health loss results in an increase to Wound Level 2. At the end of the round B.K. will suffer an additional loss of -2 Health due to bleeding.
First Action Phase Ends

Second Action Phase
2a.) B.K. attacks with Claymore
   Two Handed (TN= 10) rolls 18 (success), 18 + spd (10) – bulk (5) = 23
2b.) G.S. parries with Longsword
   One Handed (TN= 11) rolls 11, 11 + spd (10) – wpn bulk (3) = 18 (failure)
2c.) B.K. checks damage. Damage = 18 – 10 = 8, 8 + str (14) + wpn damage (14) = 36
2d.) G.S. is wearing no armor and takes full damage directly to Health.
   G.S. has 36 Health. 36 – 36 = 0. G.S. is unconscious and will lose an additional 4 Health at the end of the round due to his wound level (wound level 4).
Second Phase Ends

Third Action Phase
3a.) G.S. is out cold and in super bad shape
3b.) B.K. uses his claymore to finish the job. G.S. is dead. B.K. loots his corpse.
Third Action Phase Ends

Combat Completed!!

Wound levels at this point only represent losses of health.
One roll is used to hit and damage. Combat is fast and usually deadly. Some weapons have a static number of damage like +12 which is added to the MOS. Other weapons have damage which is multiplied by the MOS like 3x. In the case of the damage that multiplies the MOS is multiplied by the damage to give the overall damage...So if the MOS is +8 and the weapons damage is 2x. 8 x 2 =16. So on a MOS of +* the weapon could have done 16 damage (strength, critical and proficiency are added if they apply).

Anyway... I'll post a power of 19 and go from there.

[JoyWriter]

Currently your system puts three different sets of modifiers on the same roll, and looks at it three different ways. I don't really like the fact that you have to subtract the target number twice, as I think you'd probably forget it!
What do you think of the idea of roll under/compare? This system gets the target number out the way as fast as possible, and uses it basically as a limit of awesomeness: You can't pull of critical super hits as a novice, but you can occasionally reach your maximum skill.
In your current system the roll's absolute value is used for speed, but the difference from the stat is used for damage. Why do it both ways? The current system means that someone's lower target limit for hitting doesn't actually help them very much when someone is trying to parry: A master swordsman may be able to hit on a 2, but that doesn't help him, as almost anyone will be fast enough to parry his strike. It's just strange, as basically masters get to hit you really slowly and no-one else does. These special slow swings he is able to get in have no upside, except that they exist, as they deal less damage than fast swings. Now I can conceivably see that adding to the coolness in fights between masters, because no-one will ever miss, but they are just as likely to beat each other with their parrying as everyone else. So you get this deceptive kind of skill system where target number actually controls consistency more than anything else. In the world of damage things seem to make more sense to me, with skill level effecting damage in the traditional way. Now it might be that you really like the effect of skill as consistency, as it certainly does give different roles to speed strength and skill, but I would personally rather have skill as the basic limit for

GS and BK are spoiling for a fight, they clash!
[Initiative works the same, except in cases of surprise, when I thought it would be cool to have limits]

First Turn
1 GS slashes with Longsword - He's one handed and skilled, so his limit is 9.
   One Handed rolls 4 (success as it's under the limit), speed of strike=4 + spd (10) – bulk (3) = 11
2 BK parries with Claymore (no parry penalty because each weapon has the same size of 6)
   Two Handed (limit 10 as the better grip gives him +1 limit) rolls 12 (failure)
                      (notice here that if he could pull off a move that good he would succeed at parrying)
3 GS checks damage: Damage= roll(4) + str (12) + sword damage (10) - armour(0)= 26
   GS deals 26 points of damage to BK
4 BK must Resist Death or suffer a stun from losing 50% Health in one go.
   Resist Death limit is 10. BK rolls 7 (success). BK avoids being stunned, but the wound stuff happens anyway.
First Turn Ends

Second Turn
1 BK swings back with his Claymore (limit 10 as before)
           Rolls 8 (success), 8 + spd (10) – bulk (5) = 13
2 GS parries with Longsword (limit 9)
           Rolls 9, 9 + spd (10) – bulk (3) = 16 (success!)
                   (BK wasn't up to his best this time so the swords clash!)
Second turn ends

Now here are the problems I see with my version of your system:
The allowed random factor goes way down, which is difficult as it means you might have to scale down the modifiers to go with it, meaning less variety of numbers, otherwise broadswords will very frequently get parried!
Secondly 9 seems small compared to 20, (perhaps because it corresponds to the age range moving from children to adults). Perhaps it would be better suited to a %age dice system, as 45% seems a much more respectable skill value! But perhaps this issue will fade as people get used to it.
Thirdly perhaps people armed with heavier weapons could have special strikes that are hard to parry, so there is an equivalent for dropping a bulky object on someone's head!
Finally, people like to roll high! That is the great weakness of this system for me, as in your system people can have unadulterated joy at the rolling of a 20!

If you stick with it as currently is, try not to change target numbers very much, or people like me will forget them! In the same way I'd leave multiplying values well alone if asking people to do MOS: If you ask people to do maths let them have the numbers in front of them, either on the dice or the sheet, as derived values will get lost when people are simultaneously trying to work out their nemesis's plan.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  OK, two things:
1) I agree with Joy and others. Maybe it is just the way you are describing it, but this seems to be a convoluted and awkward mechanic. And some stuff is not adequately described. For instance, what happens if you roll a hit, but it does not exceed their AR? And what happens if you roll a hit and your MOS, etc takes the DMG above the AR? You use this phrase "does damage directly to the character," which makes em wonder, what other kind of damage is there? Don't get me wrong, I am sure this mechanic makes perfect sense to you, but it is not coming through so clearly in print. Also, shouldn't a one handed sword (these are relatively short and light) be in a different size/weight category than a two-handed claymore (which are very long and heavy)?
2) I like a lot of elements of this design:
- The fact that the quality of your hit roll directly effects damage
- The fact that Armor acts like DR and not dodge skill
- The fact that the defender has to use some sort of tactics

  All in all, I think you are close to a final mechanic, and I hope this feedback both inspires you and aids you in some small way.
  Good luck man!

[Bomb Cat]

Currently your system puts three different sets of modifiers on the same roll, and looks at it three different ways. I don't really like the fact that you have to subtract the target number twice, as I think you'd probably forget it!

Perhaps this could be simplified by saying, instead of d20 - TN, its just MoS + X + X etc. I dunno if that would help, in testing, our group didn't have any problem remembering this.
Since you and several others have pointed this out though it appears to be a problem.

What Im going to do is post a sample of teh rules in detail. I think I have made a mistake in posting only partial rules and its causing some misenterpretations. I do agree that some things need to be reworded.

Thanks for taking the time to analyze this a bit.

Ill try and post the rules soon.

[Bomb Cat]

Currently your system puts three different sets of modifiers on the same roll, and looks at it three different ways. I don't really like the fact that you have to subtract the target number twice, as I think you'd probably forget it!...

In your current system the roll's absolute value is used for speed, but the difference from the stat is used for damage. Why do it both ways? The current system means that someone's lower target limit for hitting doesn't actually help them very much when someone is trying to parry: A master swordsman may be able to hit on a 2, but that doesn't help him, as almost anyone will be fast enough to parry his strike.
It's just strange, as basically masters get to hit you really slowly and no-one else does.

Wow, this does present a problem. Ive been thinking about this and thought that maybe the MoS be applied to not only damage, but "to hit", to dodge and to parry. This would be more balanced. The trouble I am having is with the dodge roll. The damage and the  parry and the hit get MoS based on the weapon skill but the dodge roll is not based on weapon skill. What I was thinking is use the characters speed to create a MoS the same as with weapon skills.

John has a speed of 12, so his target number would be 8 (20 - 12). To dodge John would add his MoS (on speed) to his speed and subtract the weapon bulk. Thus...
John rolls 15 which has a MoS of +3. 3 + 12 - wpn bulk (3) = 12. This works but I dont know how wonky this is as I have not tested it. It seems simple to me because the TN could be listed on the character sheet and that could be easily subtracted from the d20 roll.

What do you think of the idea of roll under/compare? This system gets the target number out the way as fast as possible, and uses it basically as a limit of awesomeness: You can't pull of critical super hits as a novice, but you can occasionally reach your maximum skill.

I have thought over and over about this idea and I really like my roll over system as it opens up so many avenues for striking, damage and other skill checks using the margin of success. I didnt think that it was too clunky to subtract the TN from the d20 roll but maybe it was. I thought that if I rephrased how this works (instead of saying d20 -TN, I just say MoS instead. (like "to hit" is MoS + Speed - weapon bulk).

Im not quite sure why you said that the TN must be subtracted twice?

In your current system the roll's absolute value is used for speed, but the difference from the stat is used for damage. Why do it both ways? The current system means that someone's lower target limit for hitting doesn't actually help them very much when someone is trying to parry: A master swordsman may be able to hit on a 2, but that doesn't help him, as almost anyone will be fast enough to parry his strike.
It's just strange, as basically masters get to hit you really slowly and no-one else does.

I agree. It is unbalanced and presents major problems. Dodges and aprries will almost always be higher than the "to hit" roll. Hence the shift to MoS on all combat rolls as opposed to a simple d20 roll.

My gaming group is not much help so I hope to get some more feedback. Thanks.