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

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

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

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?

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

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. :)

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 --)

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

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.

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

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

andy wrote: 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.

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)."

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

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.

xiombarg

Thank you for your suggestion-- I had checked out Diceland, but I missed Sparks Dice. Printable paper dice make great economic and marketing sense, but for me, I just have to feel the ivory (well, OK, plastic) in my hand to feel like I'm rolling the bones. Still, no game will find acceptance if the economic entry is too high, a fact which I fear will doom the Conan D20 game.

Fortunately, the internet came to my rescue. There are a number of wholesalers that will sell a brick of 200 Koplow blank d6 for $20-30. Most gamers won't need that many. My customizing technique of choice is to use multi-colored fine point Sharpies ($7) on small Avery labels ($5 per thousand)--this way, you can reuse your dice.

Thank you for your tip. Would you like me to email you a copy of the rules.

Andy

Anyone think it difficult to make up symbols take a look at this site. It's an excellent resource of thousands of symbols and their meaning:

http://www.symbols.com

Andy,

I love the idea (I've been a big fan of Throwing Stones for ages), and I'd love to see your rules - or are the ones posted here it?

Aidan

Taalyn (and others)--

The current Bones rules PDF weighs in at 1Meg-- if you send me an email at bonesrpg@aol.com, I'll email you a copy.

Andy

Another exchange with a perceptive lurker:

Couple more questions (and comments after):

How is the Hindrance die laid out, and when is it applied? Difficulty is dertermined by # of success, and dice are lost with damage, so I'm a bit curious how they are used (could not find any examples in the PDF).

Is there any limit to the amount of the same faces you can have on a single die (such as 5 Sword Faces) when creating your character (not including masteries)?

Do you have any campaign information available on the world you playtest the rules in?

I've seen a few games using similar mechanics. Have you ever seen the dice game Throwing Stones? There is also a similar game I've seen but I cannot remember the name that also reminds me a bit like Bones.There is also another game called Rolled Bones (similar names) which is currently being sold, but the mechanics are very different.

The hindrance die is a special die. A typical poison die would look something like this: X (green), X (green), blank, blank, blank, blank. Every time a character who is poisoned rolls his bones, if a green X (poison icon) comes up, the character suffers one damage and loses one of his character dice--the hindrance die is NOT considered a character die. This continues until the character is cured, dead, or until the GM has punished the poor fool enough and relents.

There is no limit on how many of a single icon a player can put on a single die. The modular die for "berserker" is: universal success, melee, melee, melee, melee, melee. The disincentive to building like this is a lack of ability in other skills--woe to the berserker who must climb a mountain....

I do have the Cold Iron campaign under development. I have posted the rough background on the Forge.

Throwing Stones was one of my inspirations, although their collectability angle left me cold.

As for lazy players, it takes all kinds. I think along the lines of the 20/80 Rule-- 20 percent of the people in any given circumstance do 80 percent of the work.

I think that most FRPGs have three essential components-- A basic task resolution system, a combat system and a magic system. Although combat and magic are clearly tasks, most gamers (and all gamists) like their combat and magic systems to contain a few more crunchy bits.

The BONES magic system follows. I'd like feedback on how sound the mechanic appears to be, whether or not I should add to, delete from or substitute spells and any other creative input that comes to mind. Thus far, the Forge community has been very helpful.


Magic

There are six basic realms of magic in Bones, each represented by a separate die icon. They are fire magic, water magic, earth magic, water magic, Alchemy and animism. Each realm of magic contains nine basic spells and/or rituals (collectively “spells”), three of the first magnitude, three of the second magnitude and three of the third magnitude. A spell caster who has access to spells of the second magnitude is said to be an “adept”, and a spell caster who has access to spells of the third magnitude is said to be a master.

Learning spells

All spells of the first magnitude in any given realm must be learned before spells of the second magnitude can be learned and all spells of the second magnitude must be learned before spells of the third magnitude can be learned. In addition to the basic realms, there are advanced realms which require mastery of at least two basic realms prior to learning.
A PC may learn one spell for each die icon he has for any given realm. For example, Gary has one earth magic icon, which means that he can learn one earth spell (which must be of the first magnitude). Gary has six fire magic icons, which means that he can learn six fire magic spells, all three first magnitude spells and all three second magnitude spells. Gary could not learn a third magnitude fire spell until he earns his next fire magic icon and he could not use one of his fire icons to learn an earth spells.

Spells and rituals

The primary difference between a spell and a ritual is duration and casting time. Generally, rituals last much longer that spells. Where casting time is concerned, spells are generally single combat turn (10 seconds) while a ritual task typically takes ten minutes.

Alchemy

Rather than being similar to typical magic, alchemy is more akin to fantastic chemistry. Alchemy can only be worked in an equipped laboratory, and alchemical preparations cost (5 gold x magnitude). Alchemical rituals take 30 minutes per level of magnitude. A finished alchemical preparation is approximately 8 ounces and is usually kept in a specialized glass vial.

SPELLS

NAME Type Description
Animism
Calm Beast Animism 1- Sp Sooths a beast and prevents aggressive action—requires one success per 2d of beast

Beast mind Animism 1- Sp Gives basic thoughts of beast—requires one success per 3d of beast

Know Beast Animism 1- Sp Detects and identifies beasts within one mile per success

Beast Speech Animism 2-Sp Allows speech with beasts for 5 minutes per success

Beast Messenger Animism 2-R Sends a beast on one non-combat errand—lasts one day per 2 successes

Spook Beast Animism 2-Sp Al beasts within sensory range of you flee—requires one success per 4d of beasts

Eye of the Beast Animism 3- R Allows you to use the senses of the designated beast for one hour per success while you remain in trance

Summon Beast Animism 3- R Summons 2d of beasts (per success) from up to one mile away (per success)—you have no control

Enslave Beast Animism 3- Sp The beast does what you tell it to—2d of beast(s) per success for 1 hour per success


Alchemy

Fire unguent Alchemy 1-R Creates one vial of sticky napalm that gives target of successful hit one flaming impairment die per two successes

Antiseptic Alchemy 1-R Creates one vial of topical medicine that adds one medical success to the total when treating wounds per two successes

Night eyes Alchemy 1-R Gives the recipient night vision for 2 hours per success

Healing Draught Alchemy 2-R Creates healing potion that cures one die of damage per three successes

Blade Burn Alchemy 2-R Successful hit with coated blade adds one avg poison impairment die per three successes

Quench Alchemy 2-R Extinguishes any flame on a successful hit, a 5 foot radius per success

True Acid Alchemy 3-R Destroys one non-magic item on a successful hit or does 1 damage per 2 successes as a missile weapon

Poison purge Alchemy 3-R Removes one poison die per success

Morpheus Alchemy 3-R When taken orally gives one strong (subdual) die per three successes


Air Magic

Obedient Breeze Air 1- Sp Can use wind to lift 1 pound per success
Mist Air 1- Sp Obscuring mist in a 10 foot radius(per success)negates one combat/perception success (per success)

Downwind Air 1- Sp Carries sounds and scents on the breeze—every 3 successes can be used as 1 perception success

Obscurement Air 2- Sp Makes the caster hazy—every 3 successes can be used as one stealth success

Wind Air 2- Sp Wind emanating from caster provides protection from missiles—every success provides one missile defense in a 5 foot radius

Lightning Bolt Air 2- Sp Can use successes as missile attack successes. Armor and shield do not add to defend

Fly Air 3- R Caster can fly at running speed for 1 hr per 2 successes

Summon Air Elemental Air 3- R Summons and binds an air elemental to one service per four successes

Hasten Air 3- R Doubles the movement speed of one recipient (per two successes) for one hour per success


Fire Magic

Create Light Fire 1- Sp Creates a heatless, smokeless flame that illuminates a 30 ft radius—lasts for 4 hrs per success

Blinding Flash Fire 1- Sp Blinding flash of light adds a blindness impairment die for one combat round per 3 successes

Create Flame Fire 1- Sp Creates a normal flame (1 candlepower per success) within line of sight

Fire Bolt Fire 2- Sp Can use successes as missile attack successes. If target is damaged, target gets one flaming impairment die.

Flame Blade Fire 2- R The next time the blade is drawn from its sheath, it will burst into flame and act as a flaming sword. Duration 24 hours (in sheath) or 2 combat rounds per success once unsheathed

Flame Tell Fire 2- R Caster can use every 2 successes as 1 sage success to identify and analyze objects passed through an open flame.

Fire Storm Fire 3- Sp Spell conjures a sheet of fire—each 2 successes counts as 1 missile attack success against everyone in a 10 foot radius

Flame Jump Fire 3- R Caster teleports between 2 open flames—up to 1 mile per 2 successes

Summon Fire Elemental Fire 3- R Summons and binds a fire elemental to one service per four successes


Earth Magic

Clay Touch Earth 1- Sp Caster can mold earth or stone like soft clay—1 cubic foot per 2 successes

Mending Earth 1- R Fixes a broken object made from clay, stone, metal or glass--1 cubic foot per 2 successes

Earth Friend Earth 1- Sp Can use each success as a maneuver success on earth, stone, metal or glass surfaces

Warding Earth 2- Sp Caster can use each success as a defense success

Stone Tell Earth 2- R Caster can ask one question (per 2 successes) of natural or worked stone

Harden Earth 2- R Adds one defense face to metal armor or one attack face to metal melee weapon for one hour per 3 successes

Summon Earth Elemental Earth 3- R Summons and binds an earth elemental to one service per four successes

Passage Earth 3- R Opens a 5 ft wide and 10 ft long passage through stone or earth per 3 successes

Rock to Mud Earth 3- R Turns a 10 foot cube of earth or a 2 foot cube of stone to mud per 3 successes



Water Magic

Create Water Water 1-Sp Creates one gallon of water per 2 successes—no range

Minor Healing Water 1-Sp Cures one damage per 3 successes

Mist Water 1-Sp Obscuring mist in a 10 foot radius(per success)negates one combat/perception success (per success)

Detoxify Water 2-R Cures 1d of poison per 3 successes

Walk on Water Water 2-Sp Allows the recipient to walk on water for 10 minutes per 2 successes

Ice Dart Water 2-Sp Can use successes as missile attack

Summon Water Elemental Water 3- R Summons and binds a water elemental to one service per four successes

Water Breathe Water 3- R The recipient can breathe water for 1 hr per 3 successes

Weather Control Water 3- R Caster can change the weather 1 factor per 3 successes in a 1 mile radius per 4 successes

Those are the basics for now. Thanks for your input.

Andy

heya Andy,

Well, I've looked it over and thought a bunch, and here are my comments. I lost your specific questions to me, so if I don't hit them, ask again.

Skills

I have two opinions about your skill list. Either it should be pared down some (less is good IMO) - perhaps limit the magic skills some other way, or drop skills like sailor and riding and replace them with transport. My own game only has 7 "skills", for example. Or, it should be expanded and a little more specific.
The reason I say this is that the scope of the skills varies considerably. Some skills (like Melee or Craft) are fairly broad, but then you get very narrow on skills like Fire magic. I think there should be some similarity of scope throughout, for elegance's sake if nothing else.

Universal symbols

You have separate icons for poison and flaming - why? Couldn't these more easily be combined into one symbol - Damage, or Pain, or Bleeding, or something like that? Or go the other route, and increase the detail - again, this is a scope issue for me. Increasing the icons, you could add bleeding, pain, broken limb, concussion, etc. for fun details for combat, or even go with more generic icons so that they would apply in multiple situations: Confusion (combat: fumble, social: wrong person or wrong words), Pain (combat: bleeding, social: fear), Encumbrance (combat: heavy armor and stuff, social: bad reactions from the peasants), Poison (combat: well, um, poison, of course, social: hidden enemies), and so on. All kinds of interesting detail could come out of these hindering dice.

Hybrid tasks

These make no sense to me. I can't imagine any instance where a single task would be a hybrid. Your example (jumping out the window to land on the horse) sounds like two separate tasks to me - maneuver to land on the horse, riding to not spook it.
I also think they're a little too complicated (too much algebra! =) for the sleek and simple system that I see here.

Equipment

Need more examples. Some ideas and guidelines on how to build an item die would be immensely useful too. How many Stealth icons should there be on Boots of Stealth, and what are the implications? You offer 3 on the die in the example, which effectively means they only work half the time. That doesn't seem right to me.
I wonder if instead of item dice, you simply have an item icon, or only allow items to be used successfully with universal successes and an "item use" skill, or somesuch.

Hindering dice

These should be some other color (red), so they're easily identified when in a player's pool.
When do hindering dice appear, especially the non-poison-or-flaming varieties? I have ideas for them I'll get to in a sec. Generally, these seem to influential, and it seems as though they would be way to powerful an effect. I wonder if there are other ways to handle these issues (I think there are, of course...).

Skill Mastery

Scope! =) More possible icons, or be more generic. An idea - a single mastery icon for any skill (the skill's icon circled?), which will have multiple possible effects. The player has to choose which one of those effects to apply. If you adjust the skill scopes, I think scope here might be automatically fixed, even if you keep three masteries per skill.

On and Off Stage

I really don't like these terms. It makes the game seem like a narrativist diceless freeform system. I don't mind that sort of system, but it's not what you're doing here. I'd go with simpy calling OffStage "Longterm tasks", since OnStage tasks are simply "tasks".
You also need more examples of OffStage uses - as presented, it doesn't seem like there is much I can do with it except make money. What about seduction, spying, exploring, researching, etc? How do successes work for those?

Improvement

Unless you intend for characters to advance fairly quickly, I would double the costs you provided for advancement. They seem a little fast to me. But I could be wrong.

Combat damage

How is the lost die chosen? It will make a huge difference if my 4-melee die is lost vs. my 4-stealth die.
One die lost seems like an awfully high penalty, especially if the player hasn't arranged his icons well (I would never put all my fire magic icons on one die, for example, but spread them out so I can be sure to have the chance for multiple successes). An idea - every point of damage is a hindrance die. After you've accumulated 2 or 3 hindrance dice, they are lost, and you lose a character die.
Of course, if you want combat very deadly, you've got it pegged. But most fantasy isn't quite that deadly, I think.

Magic

Personally, I don't like the magic system. But then, I'm not a big fan of limited choices. If I got to remake the system howver I'd like, here's what I'd do.
Come up with effect icons. Say Damage, Healing, Enchanting, and so on. Perhaps something on the order of the "schools" of magic common in numerous different games. Then the players can create spell dice, the number of dice based on how advanced they are. They'd roll the dice, and try to get what they want to happen with the effects they roll. Example:

Amanda the Sorceress is accosted by Bob the Thug in an alley. He threatens to kill her if she doesn't hand over her moolah. being a powerful sorceress, and not one to take lip from some uncouth punk in the street, she decides to cast a spall and take him out. She has 3 spell dice, and rolls Damage, Movement, and Plants. The player decides that Amanda is moving the wood of the nearby fence to poke Bob in the back (for 1 point/hindrance die because of the one Damage effect), and convince him that her friends are right behind him until she can talk her way out of this, cast another spell, or otherwise escape.

Overall

I like. I very very like. I started looking at bricks of dice already, that's how much I like. =)

I think you need to offer some guidelines on how to build dice, and how to place icons, particularly for item, beast, and NPC dice. What the implications are if the NPC die has 3 melees on it instead of 1, and that sort of thing. You also need to clarify whether I can put my icons anywhere, or are limited in how they can be placed. If all my icons of a particular type have to appear on one die, then you definitely need to change the 1 die lost for damage thing. If not, then I'd make sure your examples are a little more spread around.

Hope this helped, and I look forward to your comments and other questions!

Aidan

Great insights Aidan. To specifically look at some of these issues:

Skills-- I think that a game needs a decent number of skills for character distinctions. Still, your point is valid, esp. w/respect to magic (which I address more below). Any other opinions on this issue?

Universal Symbols--I stick with three universal hindrance symbols to keep complexity (and the number of different dice you need) to a relative minimum. I separate flaming and poison because each hindrance is eliminated in a different fashion and I want to make it easy to remember if you're on fire or just poisoned. More would be cool, but probably take too many dice.

Hybrid tasks-- I think that you're right, and you're not alone in this comment. Bones 1.1 will omit this rule.

Equipment-- I do need some better equipment examples-- again, B1.1 will address this issue.

Hindering Dice-- I personally use red dice, but I don't want to force all players to buy multi-colored dice. Poison dice appear when you injest poison or when a critter poisons you (see the Bestiary). Flaming dice appear when someone sets you alight (with a spell or alchemical preparation, for example).

Skill Mastery-- Let me think about this one....

On/Off Stage-- As a "gamist" (if you recognize such distinctions, which I really don't), your objection to the term is well taken. I'll try to think of something catchier. V1.1 will have more examples--great suggestion.

Improvement-- I like fast improvement in the beginning, slowing later. I'll have to test this system a little more.

Combat damage-- The player picks the die lost. My group of min-maxers would follow the course that you suggest and spread their icons-- better two dice with one melee symbol each that one die with two symbols. I do want sort of deadly, but not too deadly. I hope that allowing the player to assign his dice in response to the NPC's assignment will be enough of an advantage to prevent routine bloodbaths, but I could be wrong....

Magic-- I don't really like the magic system either, but it was the best that I could come up with. Your suggestion is intriguing--I'll give it a write-through and see what it looks like.

Your post was great. Thank you for the help.

Andy

Hey Andy,

First off, if you're thinking you still have all kinds of work to do before you can start playtesting, you're wrong. The rules I'm looking at are very much solid enough for playtesting right now. And I think that's where you should be...playtesting yourself, and rounding up independent groups of playtesters. Don't be put off from this by all the questions and feedback coming up from me in the main part of this post. I only have a lot to say because I think Bones is going to be really great.

So, feedback, questions, and suggestions, in no particular order:

• The name...Bones. It's decently evocative. But from the mechanics it's obvious you're focused on fast Gamism, player risk-taking, and uncertainty. I think a better title would convey that dynamic...would tell the potential customer that this is a roleplaying game about "step on up." What do you think of The Flesh and the Bones?

• I think you need a term that means "number of symbols," that is, "number of symbols appropriate to the current task." It's hard to parse "number of symbols" when it's seen in a formula. The reader wonders, "number of what kind of symbols?" I don't have any good suggestions though. The best I could come up with was "density." So a player is limited to 2 x Density worth of universal successes when attempting a Restricted Action. Yeah, "density" sucks, but you get the idea.

• Regarding the symbols, if you weren't already thinking along these lines, I strongly suggest that you keep them very simple. I know it will be hard to come up with simple, iconic representations for so many things. But I think it's important. Your mechanics are going to require the creation of dice by all participants during actual play. In my experience, the simplest quick and fun way to make dice is to draw with a Sharpie on the sides of inexpensive wooden cubes sold at craft stores. And if your official Boat icon looks like a trireme, it's going to be a big deterrent to some folks. "My dice look like shit :("

The Scale icon is going to be a challenge.

Definitely check out that link to symbols.com. I'm remembering a standard icon for Alchemy that isn't a circle. It's the infinity symbol, isn't it?

• Regarding the optional Skills and Familiarity rules...I think they're very much counter to the kind of fast play and variety you're wanting to promote. Players are going use their strong skills over and over until you're sick to death of the lack of variation in their actions. I think you should ditch them. At the very least, they shouldn't be a penalty. If you don't ditch them, consider instead of a penalty some kind of bonus that isn't about effectiveness at task resolution.

• The task resolution system is arguably the core of Bones, and so I feel compelled to really push and pull at it with my feedback. Really, there's nothing wrong with what you have. But I think it could be tighter, and faster, and more conscious and facilitative of the GM's delivery of adversity.

First off, have you seen Mike's Standard Rant #5: The Myth of Opposed Rolls? If it were any other game I'd say to just ditch one or the other of your resolution systems, target numbers or opposed rolls, and make everything work the same. Earlier in this thread Mike suggested going with all target numbers. And I'm sure you barely considered it. You're emotionally invested in the play dynamic of the opposed dice throwdown. And don't think that's a bad thing. I think the opposed dice combat mechanics sound exciting. But I'm going to suggest something else entirely. William Faulkner's oft-quoted advice to writers is "kill your darlings"...the idea being that what you create will be less than excellent if you can't bring yourself to be ruthless and objective about it as a whole. You need to be prepared to excise any passage of text, or by extension, any game mechanic. Bluntly, this is often exceedingly difficult for game designers who are making a game to deliver the player experience they've always wanted. They mentally occupy a space within the game system, and struggle to get objective.

So I'm going to tell you how I'd re-architect the Bones task resolution system to be facilitative of myself as a GM. I've long had an interest in dice fabrication games. And here if you don't know, the closet comes open. I designed my own a few years ago. I'd recently played James V. West's game, The Pool, and had a blast. It totally changed the way I thought about how a GM could be best positioned by a game's mechanics for bringing intensity to the events of play. I liked how in it, the player's dice were not compared to anything the GM did after they were rolled, not a dice pool, not a target number. The interpreting of the dice was fixed and objective. The giving of the one-to-three dice prior to the dice roll had a great tone to it in my mind, eliminating the GM as opponent/obstacle within the game all the way down at the root of the conflict resolution mechanics.

It was a great GMing experience that let me focus my energy during play on offering compelling adversity, and not on trying to build that somehow, incrementally, by tweaking at the challenge level of individual tasks. Bones currently offers the GM a lot of opportunity to tweak the challenge level of individual tasks...setting target numbers, determining the size of an opposed pool and how many sides of defend or melee appear on each opposing die. It may seem improbable, but challenges will seem much more intense to players if you remove the GM from the role of scaling and adjudicating the opposition as much as possible. Maybe you'll need to run The Pool in order to understand.

But enough, here's what I'd do: I'd ditch opposed pools and target numbers. I'd provide guidance to the prospective GM in the game text on creating a standard set of adversity dice. You already have a precedent for this with the concept of hindering dice. I'm just suggesting you extend it. Check out the text on the GM's dice in The World, the Flesh, and the Devil for an idea of what I'm talking about. So when a player states an intended action, the GM gives him a handful of adversity to roll along with his character dice. And one success over the adversity is all it takes. It's a smoking fast throw-em-and-read-em resolution system. You gotta play The Pool.

• Hybrid tasks. No dividing. Yuk. You need to be able to throw the bones and see the result. Like Aidan suggests, I'm not sure you need hybrid tasks, but if you think you do then maybe just require the rolled successes to include at least one icon from each.

• Have you considered a term for where a player puts dice that get removed, but that will eventually return to the character? The text always says "removal of a die," which seems jarringly permanent. How about "Injury Pool"?

• What's up with all the movement rates and spell radiuses and ranges and volumes of cubic matter and lengths of combat rounds in seconds and how many candlepowers the flames are and whatnot? Is the game intended to be played tactically with miniatures? If so, the text should make that clear. And yeah, I think you need to take a stand on this. "Use miniatures if you want" is exactly the same wishy-washy crap as "if you don't like the rules, remember that it's your game and you can change them." Bluntly, these kinds of things do not help you sell more games. You don't avoid amputating part of your potential audience with game text that's equivocal about what the game is. You'll provoke lots more actual play and enthusiasm with authoritative text. The game needs to read like it knows what it is.

• The "no more than one mastery icon on any given die" restriction is interesting. What purpose does it have? Is it preventing something undesirable that isn't obvious to me?

• Instead of "artesian" you want "artisan," right?

• I love how encumbrance works. It occasionally cancels certain successes. Beautiful. I love how endurance works, cancelling encumbrances.

You generate so much information about a specific task's resolution from just one roll. It's great. But maybe it's another argument for eliminating the opposed rolls. They could very well be information overload, and hard to mentally reconcile when considered alongside the player's roll.

• So am I right that a magic user can wear whatever armor he wants, simply assuming whatever risk it entails for the cancellation of spell successes? If so, I like it.

• If I'm understanding correctly, I love how the special effects from skill masteries work. Say I'm rolling in combat and my Animal Friend mastery icon comes up. At that point I can choose to count it as a successful command to an animal companion? It's not that I'm stating the intent of commanding my companion and trying to roll the Outdoorsman mastery icon...the dice are offering me the command option when I'm rolling for something else? It's gorgeous. Up until that point, I presume the GM has been controlling the companion. And the Boss mastery works the same way. I love the idea of the GM handling a lackey as playing defensive in combat until I turn up the icon that lets me tell him what to do. I love that the dice mechanics produce stuff for the player to have to make decisions about, rather than just determining success/failure of what the player had intended to accomplish. I'd love to see some weapon masteries that allow for the translation of attack and defend successes to another player's roll...putting the rolling player in the position of having to decide how to use them when they turn up.

• If I roll my Horseman mastery icon I can translate successes to a mount's roll. Is this just the successes represented by the mastery icon itself, or any successes I rolled?

• Another thing I love about the masteries...they aren't ranked in any way. So as a player, once I've achieved mastery level I get to choose from among several mastery options what I want to add to my dice. I've always hated the White Wolf thing where you have to buy levels in shit you aren't the least bit interested in before you can get what you want.

• In the text on the Night Vision mastery you mention cancelling "cover from darkness." How does cover from darkness work?

• I also quite like the On Stage/Off Stage stuff. So as a player I could say, "I wage war for the peninsula," and then I'd roll for it. It's nice to see strategy in the game in a way that doesn't require it to be produced incrementally from tactical victories. It makes the game feel big.

• You write, "every asset acquired in play must be maintained (an Off Stage action) or be lost." So what's an asset, and how do are they acquired? If I use my Disarm mastery duelling with Lord Grompt, and snag his magic sword, is that an asset that I have to maintain? What does an Off Stage action maintaining a magic sword asset look like? Are friendships assets? If I state the Off Stage intent of making friends with Lady Cleve, and I win the roll, then that friendship is an asset? And because I only get three Off Stage actions, that means I can only maintain three assets? If so, why would I ever maintain a friendship asset that has no mechanical impact on play over maintaing my magic sword asset?

• Love the "survive death" usage for spiff.

• Interesting to see that spiffs "cannot change any major plot elements" and that the "GM can veto any use of spiffs." You realize these say the same thing?

That isn't to say that I think you should take either of them out as being redundant. It's just from reading the spiff mechanics I can tell you're interested in a play dynamic where players respect the GM's setting and antagonists, and that you're using the spiff mechanics to set that expectation. A player gets spiff for "making the GM laugh," but not for making the other players laugh...that is, you don't want Monty Python jokes. You don't want the GM to be an adversary to the players at the social level. You want the characters to have in-game adversaries, but for the players to respect the GM for the delivery of the antagonism that makes their actions meaningful. Have I suggested yet that you could eliminate the "GM as opponent" social dynamic by having the GM not roll for the opponents :)

• You answered Aiden above that when a character takes damage that it's the player who decides which dice is lost. I presume this extends to healing as well, the player decides which dice to get back first?

• You give free successes for cover. Why not give a cover die to any character with cover? Ditch the size thing for cover.

• Love the weapons and armor dice. They're very nicely balanced, with advantages to almost all of them, so it's not like the choice of weapon is obvious the way it is in other games. It does look like the spear is always better than the dagger, and the longbow is always better than the shortbow.

Am I correct in that a character who rolls a missile success on his spear or javelin is presented with the decision of using that success toward the roll, and losing the weapon, or of not using the success and keeping the weapon for continued combat? If so, it's just like the way rolling skill masteries puts the player in the position of making decisions, and I like it.

• When a character earns a new icon, can they put it onto a blank side of an armor or weapon die?

• You typed "water magic" twice in the text on magic. You need to replace one with "air magic."

• You write that alchemical preparations cost "5 x magnitude." What's magnitude?

• Summon Beast produces "2d of beasts (per success)." Since when are you using standard d6s? It totally violates the customized dice aesthetic of the rest of the game. And who determines what kind of beasts show up?

• The Morpheus alchemical potion "gives one strong (subdual) die per three successes." Is this die added to the pool of whoever drank it? So what's happening here is the character gets burly and wields increased ability to subdue opponents?

• Obedient Breeze seems pretty wimpy. So does Downwind. I have to roll three successes for one Perception success? So if I only have two Air Magic icons, and then because spellcasting is a Universal action I'm limited to two total successes, I can never get a single Perception success from casting Downwind? Lots of spells are underwhelming this way. If I only have one Alchemy icon, I can make a Fire Unguent but it will never be successful. What happens if only roll three successes summoning an elemental? He just stands there, or he doesn't show up at all?

In general, I think the spells are fun. I just think you have an issue from allowing characters to start putting icons into something where you require a minimum number of successes for that investment to even do anything.

• What is a "weather factor"?

• Okay, so despite my relentless advocacy of players rolling "adversity dice" instead of the GM rolling for the opposition, I have to admit that I like the beasts and how they work. In fact, the pouncer/predator/behemoth/etc. dice are very close to how I envision the "adversity dice." I like the toolkit approach. In fact, I think it's going to be fundamental to the popularity of your game. That is, I can totally appreciate the fetishism of dice fabrication...but that appreciation is fondly remembering when I was younger and had the time to paint miniatures and whatnot, and wishing I still had that kind of time. But reality is that adults aren't going to invest themselves in a game that requires them making up a couple of dozen dice before each play session. They might buy it, out of their own fond remembrances of younger days. But they won't play it. How many thirtysomethings do you know who've painted even a dozen of the figures in their Warhammer army? You can't play Bones with unfabricated dice. Normal adults have limited time. They want to play games, not fabricate game ephemera. Unless you're targeting only asocial grognards, I think you need to clearly limit the amount of dice fabrication required of the GM. You need to make it a start-up cost of time invested. I'm thinking all you can reasonably expect for up-front fabrication is a standard set of no more than twenty GM's dice that are used in various combinations for all opposition.

And you have to get some social stuff into that set in addition to the combat stuff.

Yikes.

So that's a lot of feedback. Don't be deterred. It's a cool freakin' game. I wouldn't have written maybe the longest post I've ever written if it wasn't.

Paul

You could use blank sticker sheets and create pdfs of the symbols that are inkjet printable for easy dice assembly. X-Bugs uses stickers for its custom dice and they seem to work pretty well.

I am on vacation this week, so it will take me longer to respond to posts.

Great post Paul--extremely helpful. I am still digesting it.

Andy

Does anyone have an idea what software would work for printing on tiny stickers? Unfortunately, the Avery labels that I use aren't on 8x11 sheets.

Thanks.

Andy

That shouldn't be an issue. Just set your page to match the dimensions of the Avery labels (or enter the Avery label code) and you should be okay.

Check out the Avery website too. They may have independent software which can do the same thing (though Word should do it fine).

Finally, give up half sheets. Simply arrange your icons and print them onto full sheet label paper. You'll have to cut each out separately, but...

Let me know what Avery code you've got, and I can see if I can get it to work.

Aidan

okay, i have an idea to contribute about the NPCs, if you do keep up the idea of opposed rolling, with the GM using dice. for monsters, or bad guys or whatever, simply have a couple of charts for each, all mapping out what would be on their dice. like this:

THUG

Dice One
1- universal
2- melee
3- melee
4- melee
5- defense
6- defense

With this, the dice faces correspond to the numbers on a standard D6. then, all you need to have as the GM is a couple of un-customized D6. so, whenever you need to roll for your NPCs, you just grab a couple of D6 and roll 'em and check your charts for the NPC.

this may also be helpful for players that don't have access to a printer to make their own dice, or to help players track their PCs experience and evolution. also, it will halp with lost dice. if others here are anything like me, then i know you're going to wind up losing your favourite character dice.

(Also, listen to Paul. He's damned right on all of the stuff he brought up.)

Unfortunately, I have had altogether too much real work come up on this vacation to have the time to devote to Paul's good advice--now I have had a chance to chew on it, crunchy bits and all:

1. I like just Bones. I think that there are more evocative and descriptive titles, but in the end most RPGs end up being referred to by shorthand names anyway. I'd rather just start there. Besides, I'm also a craps player....

2. I agree. How about "Icon Count" for number of symbols?

3. Again, I agree. Being a terrible artist, the simpler the better. I also want people to be able to read their Bones without needing reference material.

4. I like skill mastery because it helps distinguish between characters as they get more powerful. I agree w/respect to Familiarity--it's out.

5. I was originally going to reject this suggestion out of hand (opposed roles ARE one of my "darlings"). However, I read Paul's own innovative customizable dice game, reviewed some other posts on this august Board and searched my already-mortgaged soul-- and I'm still chewing on this one. I've got enough BA Felton in me to like rolling against my players, and the game should be fun for the GM too.

I've got to go-- I'm still digesting, but now I need a nap.

Andy

Back from vacation and in my office (with my cuddly T1);

5. Opposed rolls-- I've chewed on this one a lot, and have decided to keep opposed rolls for combat and stick to static rolls for non-combat situations. I think that the concept of avoiding two mechanics where one will do is certainly good game design--I'm just not convinced that it makes for a game that's more fun to play. I use Axis & Allies as my example--while you could have standard target numbers instead of opposed rolls, that would take the fun out of defending and make it a passive endeavor. Most of us who have played A&A have a memory or two about impossible last stands that changed the course of a game. These games would be less memorable if we were just sitting, watching the attacker roll. A triumph of gamism? Perhaps....

6. Hybrid tasks-- Paul (and others) are correct--they're out.

7. Another good point-- how does "damage pool" sound?

8. Hmm...no movement or distance rules... I think that you're probably right--any other feedback?

9. I want to avoid stacking masterys and have a little more diverse skill base. I don't mind a combat monster if it can also Put on the Ritz.

10. Yes. Bad proofing.

11. I like the encumbrance system too--in testing it works really well.

12. Yep.

13. Thank you. So far, it seems to work. Still working out some of the bugs in the lackey rules (for version 2.0)

14. At this point, just the Mastery success. Would it make more sense the other way?

15. White Wolf and Feng Shui were two of my models, but I agree-- I never liked having to take stuff that I didn't want to get to what I did want.

16. Darkness (and cover) will cancel combat successes.

17. I also wanted to have separate scopes in the same game. I would normally flesh out details thru narrative or via email.

18. I have dumped asset management. Sounded at little too much like my broker.

19. I don't like to kill characters by chance.

20. You're right--I have edited V2.0 to read a little better.

21. Yes--the player picks.

22. This is a good idea that I will also apply to darkness-- I will have separate dice in the toolkit for different degrees of cover (ie a "light" cover die would be: blank, blank, blank, blank, defend, defend)

23. I'm still tweaking the weapons equipment dice, but they've held up well to testing. The player has the option of how he uses his weapons.

24. Nope-- just character dice (although enchantments could be added to equipment dice)

25. Thank you--fixed.

26. Magnitude was a concept that didn't fit--gone now.

27. Hmmm (again) -- what I meant was a beast with 2 character dice per level of success. Does this make more sense?

28. The subdual dice is out. I'm looking for another alchemical preparation instead.

29. I'm still working on the spells, but you're right. I have contemplated other magic systems and am still noodling on previous posts.

30. Weather factor is out.

31. I hope to avoid some of these issues by making the symbols easy and quick to draw. For my group, we would do dice while scarfing our pizza. I get varying levels of participation from various players.

Paul--thanks again for a great post. I'll email you Bones 2.0 when it's ready.

Andy

Me too! Me too! I am so entirely excited about this game. If you don't finish it, I'll have to do one. And I might even if you do finish! =)

Aidan

Andy, hi.

First I'm new to this forum in a way (it's my first wrinting here), yet I've been looking around for some months now. It's an excellent site and enought said for now.


As of your post, you have quite a few good ideas in this game of yours but perhaps I should point out Ron Edwards' article "System Does Matter":

"Let's consider Fortune methods as the example because that's what most of us are used to. So the question becomes, given that a system is (e.g.) mostly Fortune-based, how well does it actually work during play? I suggest two things to check carefully (these terms are stolen from ecology, of all things).

- Search time, meaning, how long does it take to know what you got? This includes knowing how many dice to roll, calculating modifiers, counting up the result, and so on.

- Handling time, meaning, so what happens? This includes comparing the outcome to another roll or to a chart, moving on to the next step if any, ticking off hit points, checking for stunning, and so on.

I certainly can't dictate how much is too little or too much - but I do claim that if they are not appropriate for the player outlook of the game (Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist), players will complain, rightly, that the system "bogs down" (Narrativist), is "unfair" (Gamist), or isn't "realistic" or "accurate" (Simulationist). A good system's resolution should get the job done in appropriate amount of real time. Which job, and how long is appropriate, depend on the outlook. A new RPG system has no excuse simply to rely on the old paradigm of (1) roll initiative, (2) roll to hit, (3) roll defense, (4) roll damage, (5) check for stunning, etc, etc. This is a leftover from wargaming and is strictly Simulationist + Gamist. The RPG for you might be very, very different."

That only to poin out that the more dice come into play, the more time (the one Ron describes) is spent. If that affects positively or not your gaming time is something you should consider, because they are the engine at the core of the "Fortune" part of your game, a backbone so to speak. That leads to your goal as a designer:


Are you aiming at a Gamist style of play? Or at a Narrativist, or Simulationist? In other words, what style do you fancy the most?
I'm deeply involved in this issues myself 'cause I've been assembling a game of my own in throughout this past year or so and these issues have been keeeping my late interest - as opposed to just dish out some groovy mechanics.

And, I'm also fighting through a lot of opposition from my regular D&D mates. Again, to clear you a bit more on that, I suggest readind another of Ron's articles "Fantasy Heartbreakers" and "More FH", whose excerpt sums my friends' thoughts on the matter:

"you can't do D&D fantasy, regardless of how streamlined or "more logical" your rules are, without being directly measured by the defining feature, which is to say, D&D itself. In other words, the game design is trapped - the less like D&D it becomes in function and content, the further it moves from its goals, to "fix D&D." And the more it stays with its goals, the more D&D compares favorably with it. "

So, how close is your fantasy to D&D's? And that's another real big issue to consider, 'cause my friends (and they are my friends) feel a lot of reluctance to put out with a few sessions of our 20+ year D&D campaign, that's come to life since the Basic Boxed Set, for the sake of an experiment. We've done fine experiments with other games in the past, including my very own "Time Conspiracy", yet now our lives don't leave that much free time as in earlier days, and people have to make choices...


That said, let me add:
I also like dice, they're fun to look at, to roll and collect, and they come in all shapes, sizes and fancy colours. But HOW MUCH of them do I need?

Mike Holmes wrote:
"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."

Hmm...no movement or distance rules... I think that you're probably right--any other feedback?

Nuno raises several good points, with the central theme being "will the dice mechanic bog down play?" This is certainly an issue, and is my second biggest problem with DnD3E (the first problem is that the advancement scheme makes the higher levels unplayable IMHO).

With the kind help of people on this board and friendly lurkers, I have been adjusting and tweaking mechanics and I have decided to scrap the task resolution system (which uses a table) for non-combat tasks in favor of an opposed roll similar to the combat system. This will keep all task resolution on the same mechanic (a good thing) and actually speed play.

No, really, it will. The single dice vs dice mechanic (which I refer to as the "throw down") is both easy to read and quick to resolve.

And, as an avid RPGer and craps player, I like dice.

I will post the text of this mechanic in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks to all on this Board.

Andy

As promised, here are two new mechanics for BONES:

First, the addition of two more universal icons:

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 (character 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 character die has one face which is marked with a “+”, the symbol for universal success and one face marked with either a triangle (mental success) or a square (physical success). The remaining four 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 addition, I have scrapped the task table and replaced it with an opposed roll for unopposed tasks:

Success at an unopposed task is determined by comparing the character’s roll with the results of the challenge dice – the player rolls his bones and the GM rolls the challenge dice, and if the player generates a success after subtracting any hindrances rolled on the challenge dice, the character succeeds in performing the task. Each challenge die has the same icons (null, null, null, blank, blank, blank) and every null rolled on a challenge die negates one of the player’s successes. The difficulty of the task sets the number of challenge dice that are rolled:

Task Difficulty Number of challenge dice

Easy 2
Average 3
Difficult 4
Almost impossible 6
Impossible 8
Inconceivable 10


Please let me know what you think.

Andy

Heya Andy!

Love the new additions. I would think doing the same with the penalty dice would be appropriate too (mental or physical failure - perhaps the successes are hollow, but the failures are solid). As always, I'm looking forward to where you go with this.
The comments you requested are below. If anyone else would like to take the "survey" too, I'm sure Andy would be quite pleased.

1. Do you think that the basic mechanic is sound?

I think so. I think some playtesting is in order, to hammer out probabilities and fine tune, but it looks workable to me.

2. Is there anything missing that I need to add?

A bunch of things that need work, I think. Advancement rules could use some fleshing out.

Some thoughts:

Chargen: needs some system to guide how many icons of any type can be placed. I guess I'm thinking of someone who uses ONLY melee or magic icons, which is fine as the rules stand. On the other hand, that comes with it's own problems... I guess some sort of system for deciding which icons and how many might be a good idea anyway. How powerful is one icon on one die vs 3 icons on one die vs. one on each vs. 4 spread out. Some idea of how many means what would be useful, both at chargen and when creating a new item die - that's the most important thing I would add right now. One thought was to have defined dice types (Warrior, Thief, Mage, etc) and let the player build their pool from them. Or at least provide that option.

Combat: love it. love the simultaneity of it too. it's probably the best way to handle simultaneous action I've ever seen. Very awesome.

Magic: you're working on it - so I aint saying nothin.

Money: well...okay, I will say something about Magic here. If you've got it, or can afford $10, look at Donjon (by our very own Clinton R. Nixon) - it's fantastic. I think Bones could really benefit from some streamlined and symbolic methods for handling both money and magic, and I think Donjon has an excellent system.

3. Are the contents understandable?

Clearly written, for the most part. More examples would be good - too many is just right when it comes to garlic in chili and examples in rpgs, IMO. Could use some color, but that will come with setting. Unless you're going to go generic with Cold Iron as a sample setting, in which case, you need to account for a number of other genres (what does a laser rifle die look like? force fields?)

4. Would there be a better way to organize things?

Perhaps, but at the moment, a lot is waiting for setting info. I think that may help a lot in deciding how to present.

5. Do any problems stand out?

Need that table/explanation of the relative power of icon number and placement. That will be a central tool players (and GMs) will use.

6. Any suggestions for additions/changes?

Mentioned above. And you're working on magic.

7. Would you be interested in a play test down the road?

Abso-friggin-lutely. Tell me when. Next week? =)

Aidan

There is only basic character generation information included in the core BONES rules because I intend to customize each setting's char gen process. I am a proponent of character differentiation, or the idea that characters (as opposed to merely their players) should be recognizable and distinct. This concept undoubtedly harkens back to the ancient DnD concept of class and party (anyone remember when adventuring parties had a group "caller?"), but I find that players enjoy themselves more when they don't often steal each other's thunder.

Without further ado, the unfinished char gen system from my first (and only) setting, COLD IRON, follows:


Character Generation

In the Cold Iron campaign setting, starting Bones characters are created one die at a time. First, the character selects a culture (which represents the character’s birthplace and roots) and finalizes his first die, called his culture die. Next, the character chooses a background (which represents the character’s upbringing and initial place in society) and finalizes his second die, called his background die. A character’s culture will limit his choice of backgrounds—for example, there are no Roman nomads.
After a character has selected his culture and background, he may build his character by adding additional background and/or culture dice (from the same background and culture that he started with) or he may choose an initial and second occupation die (which may be the same). Again, culture and background will limit the character’s choice of initial occupation (there are no Norse villager students) and a character’s initial occupation may limit his choice of a second occupation – a Mongol man-at-arms might become a cavalry rider, but he cannot switch to sage.

Character generation summary
1. Pick a starting culture
2. Finalize the culture die (1st die)
3. Pick a starting background
4. Finalize the background die (2nd die)
5. Pick an initial occupation (or continue with either starting background or culture)
6. Finalize the third die
7. Pick another occupation (or starting culture/background) die
8. Finalize the fourth die
9. List starting equipment and finalize sheet
10. Write character back story.


Starting Cultures

Roman—Rome is the center of a civilized empire that includes Egypt, Greece and Gaul as recent conquests. Available backgrounds include citizen, villager, noble, slave and criminal.
1. universal success
2. mental success
3. (choice) craft or artisan or scholar
4. (choice) merchant or social or craft or artisan
5. (choice)—unrestricted
6. (choice)—unrestricted

I have finished the starting cultures and am just starting on backgrounds.

Does this semi-modular character development work?

Is it too flexible--not flexible enough--just right?

Any other comments/suggestions?

As always, thank you everyone for your help.

Andy

I think it can be flexible enough, as long as you provide plenty of options (and it sounds like you will). One of the problems I've faced with Crux is the problem of too many options - the player's eyes glaze over as they consider which of 783209347 options they could choose. I've done a similar semi-modular thing, and it's helped immensely.

It seems to me that the basic process of chargen could go in the bare bones Bones :D rules. That is, that players pick a culture die, then a background, and so on. You could even provide some sample culture/background/profession dice in the basic rules. Then simply note that any particular setting may have additional variants, or its own versions of the ones provided.

For example:

The rules could provide background dice for warriors, berserkers, thieves, footpads, etc.
The Setting might state that warriors, thieves, and footpads are allowed, but that berserkers are not. Instead, it defines a Viking die.

This way, chargen is visible even if setting material isn't available, and it gives GMs creating their own setting something to work from. At least, it sounds like you're going universal system-wise, so that would be a good idea.

If you are going universal (and not just fantasy universal, which is also doable - I just don't know which you're going for), you might consider expanding the skill icons to include starship handling, firearms, xenobiology, etc. Some of these may fall in fine with what you've got already.

And don't forget that relative power chart! :D I really do think that will be invaluable.

Aidan

Well, I've finally gotten around to reevaluating the first draft magic system (posted earlier on this thread) and, with a lot of good input from this Board, I have decided to scrap it entirely.

Magic is one of the most challenging elements to regulate in a Fantasy RPG-- although a few do it well (Ars Magica, Talislanta 4ed, Conan, to name a few), it is tough to balance magic with other system components.

Perhaps this imbalance is realistic--if magic really existed, it would kick a** and magic wielding people would certainly have an advantage over us muggles.

Perhaps this imbalance shouldn't matter to truly devoted players, who shouldn't care if the other players can kick the snot out of their character.

But I frankly don't care. I think that the game should be relatively fair and balanced for all players (the gamist in me again) to encourage both a diversity in characters and creativity in problem solving.

Hence my struggle with a good magic system for BONES.

This is where I am now-- "Magic" will be a single skill like any other. There will be no spells. The magic using character will describe the effect he is trying to create and roll his bones (dice) against either the GM's challenge dice or against the opposing character's dice. If he succeeds, his magic works. If not, it fails.

Help. I need a little more structure than this. I am thinking if a few universal "rules" for magic to keep it in line a little more. Any assistance would be appreciated.

As always, thanks.

Andy

Heya Andy,

Questions for you -

How does magic work? Is it a divine aid thing? Manipulating the energy of the universe? Imposing will? And how can that be represented in Bones?

Does magic cost anything? Drain the caster? Age them? IS there any risk at all in using magic? "No" is a valid answer.

It seems to me that the easiest way would be to describe some levels of complexity. That is, anything that could be done by a person without any tools would be complexity 1 (telekinesis, for example), with simple tools=2, and so on. The complexity determines how many successes are required, how many hindrance dice, or how many the GM rolls. Something like this works for Crux.

A.

What about drawing on concepts from Donjon's magic words and 3E meta magic feats.

What if you had a variety of magic symbols. They all serve as successes, but carry different unique color.

For instance a Damage Magic symbol would count as a success and give bonus damage. A Range Magic symbol would count as a success and give longer range effects. A Fire Magic symbol would count as a success and require that Fire be incorporated into the description of the spell...

That may require too many unique symbols...but its the first thing that came to mind.

First, in response to Taalyn's questions--

I want to leave the theme of an individual character's use of magic open to that character-- I would like the same system to encompass the Jesuit's miracles of faith and the shaman's spirit dance.

I am still chewing on the potential cost of magic. My options are either "none" or looking at a fatigue system (similar to the elegant system used in LOTR RPG) that would use hindering dice and may or may not only come into effect in cases of spell failures.

I am looking at levels of complexity, using my handy-dandy Challenge table. However, I think that I need additional guidelines for that complexity.

I might also be persuaded that all magic should be ritual magic, effectively ruling out combat usage (heresy!).

Valamir--

I do want to limit the number of symbols (preferably to one for magic). My ideal game would not require the players or GM to look at the book to read the dice.

I love Donjon's key word system (esp. the potential for humorous applications). I wish I could think of a good way to borrow from it.

Thanks for your help.

BONES 2.0 coming soon.

Andy

Using Donjon's magic words - simple. Just convert to the different mechanic.

Roll for magic power, use those successes to define the spell ala Donjon, and a final roll (with magic bonus dice) for the casting. I imagine bonus dice as something like {blank, blank, blank, magic, magic, magic}. The opposite of hindrance dice, in other words. For that matter, why not simply have bonus and penalty dice. Certainly easier to say if nothing else. :)

Of course, I think you'd want your examples a little more serious that what I just wrote.

I might also be persuaded that all magic should be ritual magic, effectively ruling out combat usage (heresy!).

Hi Andy

I agree with your & other posters' conclusion: limiting the number of icons to "enough & no more" is going to be the big one in Bones: I think your ideal of eliminating lookups is right on.

I can't see any mechanical problem with a single magical icon -- call it 'mana', or 'big-p Power' or 'essence' or whatever -- I think it would work, it would be simple, it would be flexible enough to cover anything you wanted it to do. But that very unlimited, undefined quality would make it impossible to differentiate functionally between magic-using chars: what's to stop a character from acting like a druid one minute, a demon-summoning diabolist the next, & potion-mixing alchemist the minute after that?

Of course, this may actually be completely be fine, if it suits your setting & ideas on what you want to do with magic in Bones.
(It's at odds with my reading of your goals in character design, but that's for you to say.)

So I think an essential first step in building the magic system is to lock down your concept of magic.

I agree with previous posters that this is an awesome-cool game in the making; but I disagree with some of them in that I think trying to build a cross-genre (or even generic fantasy) rules set for Bones, at this stage, is at best an unneccesary distraction & at worst, will dilute the power of what you're trying to do & push the finish date way further than you probably want it to be (I'm speaking from my own experiences here though Andy, so I may well be underestimating your capabilities :)

My $0.02 is that Cold Iron is a strong setting, & all the setting you need right now. If the game works the way you want it to, there'll be plenty of forthcoming versions if you so desire to widen the potential settings, & no shortage of people eager to pitch in their own ideas on ways to do that :)

Having said all that, if you decided against the single magic icon, the best I can think of is to keep the number of icons as small & simple as possible.

One way would be to assign magic icons to a small number of basic functional groups.

For example, you could do it by intent, something like:


Magic Icon 1: Attacking magic
Magic Icon 2: Protective magic
Magic Icon 3: Beneficial / 'Neutral'magic


So, anything designed to hurt someone or something, or to place it under your influence or at a disadvantage (basically: anything that directly gives hinderance dice to its target), would be Attacking (ie sleep, binding, a fireball, etc). Anything whose intent is to protect from attack is Protective. And basically, anything else is Beneficial (its got to benefit somebody, right?) or 'Neutral' eg: good luck, scrying, growing wings, etc.

So you could be a diabolist with lots of attacking icons (summon slavering minions), or protective icons (summon hellish minions bestowing unnatural vitality, or inscribe a magic circle) or 'neutral' (invisible minions to do cool stuff for you). Or you could be a druid: substitute 'forces of nature' for 'minions'. Or a priest: substitute 'divine power' for 'forces of nature'. Etc etc ad infinitum.

Players still effectively need to roleplay how their magic works (the only difference between a rampaging demon, a tornado, & a death curse is the way the casters describe them--functionally, they all work the same, & use the same icon). But, players can decide wheter to concentrate on offensive, defensive, or utility magics.

The presentation's pretty clunky, but you get the idea.

A simplification of this would be a 2-icon system: it's either Helpful Magic or Harmful Magic.

Another variation:

You could define magic icons by spell effect, but this is more prone to lead to more complexity (ie, more icons, at least potentially). Something like:


Magic Icon 1: Shaping (changing something into something else, or giving something new properties)
Magic Icon 2: Calling (creating or summoning something that wasn't there before)
Magic Icon 3: Binding (tying or commanding a target mentally or physically or emotionally)



This is is very different in emphasis than the "intent" model abovel, but the underlying concept is the same. The point is to think broadly & creatively, such that a few basic groupings represent all that you wish magic to be capable of in Bones.

Depending on what magic is & does in your setting, the possiblities of how you want to define your 'basic functional groupings' (should you want to go that road) are almost unlimited. You can come up with some very cool, setting-appropriate descriptors for all these.

I've been refining this concept for quite a while now in my own game design, so I may have taken some mental shortcuts that are invisible to me but make what I've written into word-spaghetti for everyone else. I hope it all makes sense...

I have some ideas on spell cost too, but it should probably wait for another post.

Hey--I just had an idea that might work for the 'single magic icon' model.

I'm thinking of the magic icon as representing the char's power over 'ambient magic power'. It could be like:



- Corum 'pulling' energy/denizens from 'the other planes'
- the Jedi 'using the Force'
- the 'radiance' of Otherkind.



It could come from a spell, some other supernatural realm (heaven, hell, alfarheim), an otherworldly guardian or minion, a character's inner focus--it doesn't matter. All these could even co-exist within the same setting.

Call it puissance, essence, mana, focus--I'll call it 'essence' here.

The point is, rolling an icon of 'essence' doesn't 'do' any magic itself--it only provides the potential for magic. Performing a magical act requires a trigger: that is, rolling an icon in some other skill.

So the thing that defines 'what kind of magic' a char can do, is their OTHER skills.

For example:

A roll of essence + Outdoor would be needed for a char to use Nature magic (like druid stuff, for example).
A roll of essence + Stealth would be needed for a char to use magic to avoid detection (invisibility, illusion, seeming)
A roll of essence + Perception would be needed for a char to use magic to scry, or read thoughts etc.
A roll of essence + Maneuver would be needed for a char to use magic to make the Hero's Salmon Leap (a la Cuchulain)


And so on.

So different 'types of magic':

a) WOULDN'T require an additional icon for each new magic type
b) WOULD require the char to have skill in the area they want to do their magic in--the more they have, the better they'll be at using that kind of magic (makes sense to me...)

You could take the view that you 'weave' magic into stuff you can already do, or know something about.


How It Might Work
---------------------

If you used magic (that is, rolled at least 1 essence, & at least 1 in the skill area needed to trigger your magic) the success would = trigger skill icons + essence icons rolled.

If you roll some essence, but don't roll the skill area you need to use the kind of magic you're hoping for: well, tough, you don't get to use that magic that action.
Your options are:

1) ignore the essence icon/s, & forget about magic for that action
2) try & think around the problem, & use magic in some other way using a different skill icon that you DID roll
3) STORE your essence that action (you're readying your magic, & can't do anything else, as per classic D&D magic-users) & hope you roll the trigger skill you want next roll. This roll's essence will acummulate, ADDING to your success for when/if you DO finally unleash that magic.

This last would allow some powerful effects to build up. You could rule that chars can "store" a max of 'magic rolls' = to their total essence icons for a single act of magic.

Characters who 'stored' essence, but who rolled NO essence in the very next roll would LOSE CONTROL of their magic in some kind of critical fumble (ooops!)

Another twist would be to use Ralph's token idea: rule that tokens (made ahead of time, ie the 'ritual magic' slant) ALREADY have their own specific trigger (ie, 'magic type' or 'skill') built in a time of creation. They just need an essence roll to 'power/activate' them.
So, they would be way more reliable, especially to 'high magic' chars who have a big chance of rolling lots of essence, but NOT of rolling a given 'trigger' skill when they need it. In other words--doing powerful magic 'on the fly' is a lot more unreliable than using tokens.
Conversely, a char with a strong skill & only one (say) icon of essence would have a low chance of being able to use magic in any given roll, but when they do, they are pretty likely to be able to trigger it in the area of their expertise.

Use of tokens could be done with or without the 'storing essence' rule.


Far as I can see, this would work with spells, rituals, prayers, miracles, mystic abilities, heroic feats--any kind of magic you care to include, because it doesn't try & codify the source of the magic, just its expression. (A Heal has the same result whether its an incantation, a potion, or comes from divine intervention).

Well that's me--waaay past my bedtime ;(

Again, lots of good suggestions! Charles' ideas on tying magic to other icons is particularly interesting and creative, but I'm afraid that I'd end up with everyone wanting magic as a performance enhancer. I would prefer if not everyone had magic, but I may have to bite the bullet.

I plan to require players to choose a theme for their magic as part of character creation, with players able to pick a second theme if they have a magic icon on more than 4 of their dice (sort of like I handle skill mastery).

I do like the idea of prepared spells (sort of like racked spells in Amber or even memorized spells in gool old DnD). I'm thinking that all magic is ritualized, and that you can store one spell in a fetish per magic icon you possess.

Now, for a little more work on defining the parameters of magic...

any suggestions?

Andy

Which parameters are you looking for? Complexity guidelines? Range/target stuff?


Frankly, as simple as the system is (a good thing) I'd be cautious of getting complicated.

Aidan

Hi Andy,

Andy wrote:
Again, lots of good suggestions! Charles' ideas on tying magic to other icons is particularly interesting and creative

Andy wrote:
but I'm afraid that I'd end up with everyone wanting magic as a performance enhancer. I would prefer if not everyone had magic

Andy wrote:
I plan to require players to choose a theme for their magic as part of character creation, with players able to pick a second theme if they have a magic icon on more than 4 of their dice (sort of like I handle skill mastery).

Andy wrote:
Now, for a little more work on defining the parameters of magic...
any suggestions?
Andy

Well gang, here is my redrafted magic system for Bones:

MAGIC

In Bones, Magic is a special skill represented by the magic icon. The system has no set spells, or even types of magic. Rather, a character’s use of magic and the theme for the character’s magic are defined by the player in a manner consistent with the universal rules of magic. As long as the character’s use of magic falls within both the character’s theme and is allowed by the Universal Rules, the character can use his magic as he sees fit.
The Universal Rules of Magic
All magic (with the exception of alchemy, which is discussed below) is governed by the three Universal Rules of magic:

1. Magic is immediate. This rule means that, while the effects of magic may be lasting (e.g. a fire ignited by a fireball burns even after the magic is gone), magic itself is instantaneous. Thus, there are no lingering spells, and if a magic wielding character wants a magic effect to continue, he must continue to devote himself to the task which created the magic effect.

Example
Bob’s Magic theme is Elemental Magic. Bob decides to create a wall of flame to defend him against missile fire. Each combat turn that Bob wants his wall to burn, he must perform the magic task. When Bob devotes his attention to a different task, the wall disappears.

2. Magic is hard. Generally speaking, achieving a result by magic (with respect to unopposed tasks) is twice as hard as achieving that result by mundane means.

Example
Bob decides to break down a door with mighty gout of flame. If someone were physically trying to break the door down, it would be a difficult task and the GM would throw down five challenge dice. Because Bob is using magic, the GM doubles the result of his throw down to oppose Bob’s task.

3. Magic takes time. To call upon magic requires a concentrated, overt effort. A character attempting to use magic must declare in advance of rolling his bones how many tasks he will devote to achieving the desired effect. Magical effects created as a single task (and thus, with a single roll) are referred to as spells. Magical effects created as the result of multiple tasks are referred to as rituals.
For each task spent devoted to creating the magical effect, the character rolls his bones and counts his successes. Only after completing the last task, the character adds up his successes in the aggregate to determine success or failure. The world does not stop while the character is engaged in magic, and other characters undertake their tasks normally.

Example
Bob has decided to use air magic to have the winds propel him 100 meters to the top of a cliff. Climbing the cliff would be a difficult task to accomplish by mundane means, which means both that the GM will be throwing down five challenge dice and that (because Bob is using magic) the GM will double the result. Bob declares that he will devote four tasks and use a magic ritual to fly to the top of the cliff. The GM throws down the challenge dice, gets three Nulls, which he multiplies by two to get six Nulls. Bob will succeed in having the winds bear him to the top of the cliff if he generates seven total successes with four rolls of his bones.
Bob starts his ritual and rolls three successes (Universal, Magic, and Mental). Unfortunately, those tenacious goblins happen upon Bob as he is beginning his second task devoted to the ritual. Bob rolls three more successes on his second roll of his bones—one short of flying to the top of the cliff.
In the third turn, the vengeful goblins (Bob’s book did not treat them kindly) attack Bob, declaring that combat will be there task. Bob has a decision to make—will he continue the ritual, hoping to survive and reach the cliff face or will he abandon the ritual and switch to combat to defend himself?
Where’s Ragnar when you need him?

Magical Themes

Each character who wields magic must pick a single theme for his magic and define the parameters of that theme. Characters may choose a second theme when they have a magic icon on at least five separate character dice and may choose a third theme when they have a magic icon on at least ten separate character dice. After choosing a Theme, the character must define the Effect of his magic and describe the Limitations of his magic.

Example
Bob has made the Theme of his magic “Elemental Magic” and has defined the Effect of his magic as being “Creating and manipulating the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire and water.” Bob describes the Limitation on his magic as being “restricted to elemental manipulation and creation.” Bob’s friend Father Joe, a roman catholic priest, defines the Theme of his magic as being “Miracles of Faith” and describes the Effect of his magic as being “benefiting the faithful and combating Satan.” Father Joe describes the Limitation of his magic as being “restricted to the service of the Lord.”

Magic in combat
Because magic takes time and the Single Task Rule limits characters to a single task in any given turn, using magic in combat is risky. Provided that the character’s magic includes an appropriate effect, the character can use his magic in place of either attack or defend successes in combat. Because combat is an opposed task, the Magic is Hard Rule does not apply.

Example
Bob decides to burn two of his goblin rivals with a fireball. Combat ensues and Bob rolls 4 successes (2 Mental successes and two Magic successes). Because Bob is using his fire magic to attack at range, he may treat his successes as missile successes, and Bob elects to apply one of them against the first goblin (who has no defend successes) and three of them against the second goblin (who has one universal success allocated to defense—being NPCs, the goblins had to allocate their dice first). The first goblin takes one damage and loses one of its character dice. Because the goblin was injured by flames, the GM decides to also award the goblin a flaming hindrance die. After subtracting the second goblin’s Universal success from Bob’s three attack successes, the second goblin takes two damage—because the second goblin only has two character dice, it is incapacitated (or in this case, smoked). Meanwhile, the first goblin rolled one attack success, which Bob (who has no defense successes) cannot block. If Bob had been wearing armor (he’s not) the armor could have contributed a defense success or even been discarded as it absorbed the damage. Instead, Bob loses one character die to injury.
Bob next decides to use his elemental magic to form a wall of fire surrounding him to protect him from damage and injure opponents who strike him. The burning goblin elects to attack again. The goblin rolls one attack success and his flaming die rolls a Blank face. Bob rolls his three remaining bones and gets a Universal Success, a Mental Success and a Magic Success. Bob decides to allocate one of his successes to defense (his shield flares and blocks the goblin’s blow) and two to attack. Because the goblin has no way to defend against Bob’s successes, his flaming shield fries the goblin to a crisp.

Well, please give it a good read and give me your two cents.

Thanks in advance.

Andy

Charles asked good questions:

what do you want magic to be able to do in Bones?

what don't you want it to be able to do?

what feel do you want it to have?

is it going to be reliable & predictable but limited, like classic D&D/Vancian spells?

is it going to be big & flashy & with few limits when it works, but unreliable: that is, powerful & scary--& not just to the target, with the chance of disaster lying in wait for the user who over-reaches themself?

I am finally surfacing for air--

I am close to BONES 2.0--really, I am.

Here is the semi-permanent version of the magic system--


In Bones, Magic is a special skill represented by the magic icon. The system has no set spells, or even types of magic. Rather, a character’s use of magic and the theme for the character’s magic are defined by the player in a manner consistent with the universal rules of magic. As long as the character’s use of magic falls within both the character’s theme and is allowed by the Universal Rules, the character can use his magic as he sees fit.


The Universal Rules of Magic

All magic (with the exception of alchemy, which is discussed below) is governed by the three Universal Rules of magic:

1. Magic is immediate. This rule means that, while the effects of magic may be lasting (e.g. a fire ignited by a fireball burns even after the magic is gone), magic itself is instantaneous. Thus, there are no lingering spells, and if a magic wielding character wants a magic effect to continue, he must continue to devote himself to the task which created the magic effect. Magic can affect the body, but it cannot affect the heart or the mind.

Example
Bob’s Magic theme is Elemental Magic. Bob decides to create a wall of flame to defend him against missile fire. Each combat turn that Bob wants his wall to burn, he must perform the magic task. When Bob devotes his attention to a different task, the wall disappears.

2. Magic is hard. Generally speaking, achieving a result by magic (with respect to unopposed tasks) is one level harder than achieving that result by mundane means.

Example

Bob decides to break down a door with mighty gout of flame. If someone were physically trying to break the door down, it would be a challenging task and the GM would throw down five challenge dice. Because Bob is using magic, the GM treats it as a difficult task and throws down seven challenge dice to oppose Bob’s task.

3. Magic has a price. To call upon magic requires a concentrated, overt effort. For every consecutive turn that a character uses magic beyond the total number of magic icons that he has on his character dice, he adds one hindering die (Null, Null, Null, Blank, Blank, Damage)to his bones. A character may discard one hindering die for ever hour of full rest or every four hours of light activity.

Example
Bob is in a firefight with a squad of goblin archers who are upset with him over their shabby treatment in his book. For five turns, Bob blasts them with withering bolts of flame until only three are left. Not having his crossbow, Bob blasts away again in turn six, slaying a goblin. Because he only has five Magic icons on his character dice, Bob earns a hindering die to add to his bones. Emboldened by his success, Bob blasts away in turn seven. Although the hindering die comes up Null, negating one of Bob’s successes, he still succeeds in slaying another goblin. Unfortunately, this is his seventh consecutive use of magic, and the GM gives him another hindering die to add to his bones.
Bob doesn’t care and blasts away again in turn eight. This time, both hindering dice come up Damage, and Bob loses two character dice (and two successes). He still wounds the last goblin, but now he is hurt as well and risks incapacitation, especially after the GM hands him his third hindering die.
Where’s Ragnar when you need him?

Magical Themes

Each character who wields magic must pick a single theme for his magic and define the parameters of that theme. Characters may choose a second theme when they have a magic icon on at least five separate character dice and may choose a third theme when they have a magic icon on at least ten separate character dice. After choosing a Theme, the character must define the Effect of his magic and describe the Limitations of his magic.

Example
Bob has made the Theme of his magic “Elemental Magic” and has defined the Effect of his magic as being “Creating and manipulating the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire and water.” Bob describes the Limitation on his magic as being “restricted to elemental manipulation and creation.” Bob’s friend Father Joe, a roman catholic priest, defines the Theme of his magic as being “Miracles of Faith” and describes the Effect of his magic as being “benefiting the faithful and combating Satan.” Father Joe describes the Limitation of his magic as being “restricted to the service of the Lord.”

Magic in combat

Because magic takes time and the Single Task Rule limits characters to a single task in any given turn, using magic in combat is risky. Provided that the character’s magic includes an appropriate effect, the character can use his magic in place of either attack or defend successes in combat. Because combat is an opposed task, the Magic is Hard Rule does not apply to combat.

Example
Bob decides to burn two of his goblin rivals with a fireball. Combat ensues and Bob rolls 4 successes (2 Mental successes and two Magic successes). Because Bob is using his fire magic to attack at range, he may treat his successes as missile successes, and Bob elects to apply one of them against the first goblin (who has no defend successes) and three of them against the second goblin (who has one universal success allocated to defense—being NPCs, the goblins had to allocate their dice first). The first goblin takes one damage and loses one of its character dice. Because the goblin was injured by flames, the GM decides to also award the goblin a flaming hindrance die. After subtracting the second goblin’s Universal success from Bob’s three attack successes, the second goblin takes two damage—because the second goblin only has two character dice, it is incapacitated (or in this case, smoked). Meanwhile, the first goblin rolled one attack success, which Bob (who has no defense successes) cannot block. If Bob had been wearing armor (he’s not) the armor could have contributed a defense success or even been discarded as it absorbed the damage. Instead, Bob loses one character die to injury.
Bob next decides to use his elemental magic to form a wall of fire surrounding him to protect him from damage and injure opponents who strike him. The burning goblin elects to attack again (goblins are like that). The goblin rolls one attack success and his flaming die rolls a Blank face. Bob rolls his three remaining bones and gets a Universal Success, a Mental Success and a Magic Success. Bob decides to allocate one of his successes to defense (his shield flares and blocks the goblin’s blow) and two to attack. Because the goblin has no way to defend against Bob’s successes, his flaming shield fries the goblin to a crisp.

ALCHEMY
Rather than being similar to typical magic, alchemy is more akin to fantastic chemistry. Alchemy can only be worked in an equipped laboratory, and alchemical preparations cost (5 coins x magnitude) and take 30 minutes per level of magnitude to complete. A character can learn one alchemical formula for every Alchemy icon on his bones and must learn all formulae of lower levels of magnitude before moving up to the next higher level of magnitude. There are nine known basic alchemical formulae, three of the first order of magnitude, three of the second order of magnitude and three of the third order of magnitude. A finished alchemical preparation is approximately 8 ounces and is usually kept in a specialized glass vial. A person can only benefit from an alchemical preparation of a given type only one time in every twenty-four hour period.

Known Formulae
Fire unguent (Magnitude 1) Creates one vial of sticky napalm that gives target of successful hit one flaming impairment die

Antiseptic (Magnitude1) Creates one vial of topical medicine that adds one medical success to the total when treating wounds

Night eyes (Magnitude1) Gives the recipient night vision for 4 hours

Healing Draught (Magnitude 2) Creates healing potion that cures one die of damage

Blade Burn (Magnitude 2) Successful hit with coated blade adds one average poison impairment die. Lasts for two hits.

Quench (Magnitude 2) Extinguishes any flame on a successful hit

True Acid (Magnitude 3) Destroys one non-magic item on a successful hit or does 1 damage per 2 successes as a missile weapon

Poison purge (Magnitude 3) Removes one poison die

Rejuvenate (Magnitude 3) When taken orally gives the recipient (including spell casters) the equivalent of 4 hours rest

Please give me any thoughts and impressions you might have.

Thanks. Andy

I have the draft version of BONES 2.0 out. If anyone would like it, please drop me a line.

Andy

Heya Andy! You know I want a copy of Bones 2.

Quick comment on Alchemy - seems totally wrong for what you've set up for magic. I find it particularly strange that napalm can only affect a target once in 24 hours. I'd rather see some different mechanic for Alchemy or other semi-permanent magics. Perhaps successes (or even dice with magic icons) have to be set aside until the magic is freed? Or a certain number of successes are required for different effects? Something - I hate limited lists, and the rest of the magic system is so freeing...

Aidan

Comments on first glance through the pdf - more detail later.

I agree with Taalyn, the alchemy system doesn't seem to fit well with the other mechanics you have going on.

The Money system. This also doesn't fit the flavor IMHO. Why not use dice? Wealth dice/faces can be earned on a monthly basis, dice/faces lost on a monthly basis based on desired level of living. Perhaps when you want to purchase something you roll the wealth dice you have. If you meet the successes required for the item, you own it. This would allow opposing dice on the side of the merchant for bartering. If you failed the roll perhaps there is an option to "spend" your wealth dice/faces. Lets say you missed the roll by 2 successes for the purchase. The option may be there to give up two wealth faces to make the deal. You are out a bit of accumulated wealth, but you now own the item.

I personally really like the character development. That, along with the Spiffs allows quite a bit of control and customization, but keeps it abstract.

Question: why do you limit the number of Spiffs for soaking damage? Why not just let the player blow all their Spiffs if they believe the conflict is important enough.

Thanks for the questions--

Alchemy-- I agree that this is not consistent with the rest of the magic system-- I view it as being more akin to a skill with defined results-- I am rethinking it-- maybe Alchemy should just be another magical theme.

Money-- I do admire the Donjon system. Perhaps requiring a roll and weighting the value of the different icons for purpose of determining success (ie. Merchant is x2, Sailor is x1 and Melee is x 1/2 for making a wealth check)--how does that sound?

Spiffs-- I think that the concept of risk is essential to a good (gamist) RPG, and I don't want to give anyone the idea that they can make themselves bulletproof by blowing their wad of spiffs.

Well, I'm just about ready to release BONES the RPG on RPGNow-- I hope to be ready by the beginning of June.

Thanks to all on this Board for your help and critiques. I'll ask for help on my Cold Iron campaign setting next.

Thanks Again.

Andy