Initial System Ideas

I’ve got five ‘systems’ I’ve put together in my head and considered using, some perhaps in conjunction with others, since there are systems for generating characters and systems for resolving actions mixed up here. I'm trying to get them out of my head - where they've been for a very long time - and down in writing, so any feedback and criticism would be appreciated.

In rough order of when I came up with them:

1. THE EDGE SYSTEM (Character Gen)

Assumes characters are essentially similar, that people are only better at times than others if they have an ‘Edge’ – stronger, quicker, smarter, whatever.

REALLY BASIC VERSION:
At it’s most basic, a character has maybe one or two Edges that make him or her distinct from everyone else. This system means a normal person has a slim chance of succeeding with a tough action(say 2 in 6), a person with an applicable Edge has a better chance (4 in 6), and those with Supernatural Edges have a supernatural level of success (6 in 6). Factor in things like critical Successes and Fumbles and this simple system gains a little more depth.

This initial idea of Edges has evolved a little, the above being really basic rules for really basic play (for quick character generation and game-play – for one-shots more than campaigns). It was originally whipped up for a horror film styled scenario, so that you don’t take too long creating a character that dies nastily.

ADVANCED VERSION:
The advanced version instead allocates rating to the various Edges. Furthermore, Edges are split into categories and tiers. The Advanced system is basically the character generation – the actual system to resolve actions needs to be added, but can easily be a case of rolling a die, adding the Edge, and getting above five (or higher for more difficult actions).

The top tier are Core Edges, of which characters have one for approximately every ten years of their life. For approximately every five years of their life they acquire a Minor Edge, on the bottom tier. Every time the ten year mark swings around, one of the Minor Edges is upgraded (and possibly modified) into a Core Edge, to be replaced on the bottom tier by whichever Minor Edge has been acquired in the five year period. These time periods are not carved in stone – focussed heroic types will no doubt build up life skills quicker than someone sitting in front of the TV every day.

This kind of means a five year old has a Minor Edge. At ten the Minor Edge becomes a Core Edge and the kid gains another Minor Edge. At 15 he has his Core Edge and two Minor Edges, at 20 he has two Core Edges and two Minor Edges. At 25 the character has two Core Edges and three Minor Edges... and so on - you get the idea.

The three categories Edges fall into are Natural Talents, Skills and Tools.

Skills are the easiest to explain. As a Core Edge they have a value of 4, whilst as a Minor Edge they are worth just 2. Natural Talents however are easier to use than Skills, but harder to explain and intellectualise. On a practical level, Core Natural Talents are used at a value of 6, and Minor Natural Talents are rated at 3. To use for purposes of theory rather than practice, however, the character is at a bit of a loss. Being 2 for a Core Edge and just 1 for a Minor Edge. Finally Tools are just those things that a character uses on a regular (probably daily) basis.

The Tool Edge is similar to the Natural Talent, but it represents a ‘signature’ Tool that they almost always have access to, a better than average ability to use it, but a slight reduction in ability to know the inner workings of it, beyond simple maintenance. The entire focus of the Edge is one particular item, and whilst it may allow you to, for example, drive similar vehicles or use similar weapons (at the secondary value of the Edge), you can never have theoretical or technical knowledge about the item without also having an appropriate Skill. Furthermore, the value of a Tool Edge is stacked on top of any Natural Talents or Skills used with it.

Edges are written with the Practical value first, the Technical value second, divided by a slash. Hence someone who is Naturally Strong, as a Core edge, writes ‘Strength: 6/2’. Someone who has a Minor Skill in Body Building, on the other hand, would write ‘Body Building: 2/2’. They essentially know the same as the Strong guy who’s just spent his life being strong, but couldn’t beat him in a wrestling match without some help.

Someone who’s spent ten years wandering the wilderness with an Uzi might have the Tool Edge ‘Uzi: 6/2’ – meaning firstly, he probably carries the gun around with him and, secondly, he can shoot the gun with a value of 6 added to any Shooting value he might have. Furthermore, if he wants to fire a similar fire-arm, he’d could still add 2 points to his Shooting value, whereas all other fire-arms would use the base Shooting value. To fix the gun if jammed, he would use a value of 2, plus any value he had in an appropriate Skill, such as Mechanics or, well, Fixing Jammed Guns.

A Natural Talent can be changed to a Skill or a Skill to a Natural Talent when upgrading from Minor Edge to Core Edge. It depends on how the character plays the ability, either dedicated time to study, or throwing yourself into the deep end experiencing the pure joy of doing something. So, for example, the Body Builder could throw caution to the wind could become as Strong as the character with a Core Edge of Strength, gaining no further theoretical knowledge and understanding, or a youth with a Minor Natural Talent of Strength could go from 3/1 to 4/4, building up a little more ability, but a whole heap of knowledge on the subject.

A final note must be given to magic and other weirdness. Supernatural Abilities, Occult Learning and Magical Items map well onto the system for Natural Abilities, Skills and Tools, although generally the ‘incubation period’ is quicker than five or ten years, sometimes minutes long in the case of diseases like vampirism or lycanthropy, or sentient magical items that fall into hands of like-minded individuals. Even occult learning has a knack of jumping into people’s heads quicker than ‘normal’, although you might prefer the low-fantasy option of requiring five years to learn just the basics of each spell. It might go some way to explain why wizards tend to be old, grey and wizened.

Deities have a distinct Divine Edge, based around whatever things fall under their jurisdiction as gods, at a value of 6. It’s a Skill of sorts, allowing both practical and theoretical ability, and can be used on it’s own to sense, create or warp particular element of reality (but not destroy – that’s going against their own nature). However, like a Tool it can be used to boost existing Skills and Natural Talents, with even greater chance of success. And, given the time most Deities have been around a long time, they tend to be pretty well equipped with Skills and Talents – it’s probably not worth listing them.

2. THE GRID SYSTEM (Character Gen)

Another system mostly based around character generation, generating traditional attributes rather than skills. It’s based upon the idea of splitting a character attributes into a 3x3 grid, the columns representing Physical, Mental and Spiritual, the rows representing Power, Ability and Presence. Most rolls are made with Ability, Power being used mainly for shows of strength (internal or external), including capacity to take damage, and Presence being how the character naturally appears to others. The main advantage is that, depending on the games you want to play you can jettison columns or rows you don’t think appropriate (such as the Spiritual column in an espionage game, or the Presence row in a game about gritty combat). Alternatively you can compress the characteristics into one column (Power, Ability, Presence) or one row (Physical, Mental, Spiritual), depending on how you’d like to play the game.

As an idea, split 10 points between every set of three attributes, with 3 being ‘average’ and 6 being ‘exceptional’. Further rules can be added to this framework, for example assigning descriptors, both as an overall 'Character Class’ and also to Physical, Mental and Spiritual to give bonus points in certain situations. For example, you might suggest that Physically a cop is ‘Tough’, Mentally he is ‘Determined’ and Spiritually he is ‘Cynical’, allowing bonuses for shows of strength and endurance, or to shrug off fancy magic, as well as a bonus to standard police procedures.

Whilst most rolls will take place using the Ability attribute, you can boost your Ability by burning a point of Power. I’m also toying with the idea that you can depend on one Power gauge to boost another when the chips are down – for example, if your Mental or Physical Power is at rock bottom, a successful Spiritual Power roll gives you enough strength to carry on somehow, reducing damage. I don’t want it to be a direct tap though – in the above example the use of Spiritual Power shouldn’t drain the character Spiritually (if anything it would make them spiritually stronger). Perhaps this needs to be curbed by the character having to take time to reflect and build up their resolve…

A final note of the Spiritual column, since it’s not immediately obvious what it represents. In my mind Spiritual Power equates to faith and belief in something, perhaps something external, perhaps something internal. Spiritual ability is the ability to wield psionics, magic or prayer as a tool. Spiritual Presence is how brightly a character’s soul glows – I’m thinking of it as a means through which characters attract luck and karma, good and bad, as well as the attentions of various gods, demons and spirits. Think of all those heroes that seem to get themselves into the middle of a whole mess of trouble, and yet somehow manage to escape through uncovering the means to defeat the enemy almost by chance.

3. THE DOUBLE SYSTEM (Task Resolution)

An action resolution system to be used with skills and abilities that use a relatively low scale, either rolling against them or using the value as a bonus to the dice roll. Works well with the Edge system above (Double Edged), and probably not too bad with the Grid system too.

To make a standard roll (such as an attack) you could roll two dice and add your value. If you roll 10 or more you succeed, and given that an average roll will give you a result of 7, any ability should just get you to the 10 mark. If it’s easy to achieve, maybe reduce the difficulty to 8 – if harder to accomplish maybe bump it up to 12 or 15.

Here’s the twist. If you go ahead and roll two dice, you’re considered to be throwing yourself into the action, with little concern for anything else. If you succeed, you do well. If you roll the number exactly, you just succeed. If you miss by one point you just fail, but any greater margin and you really screw up.

What’s the alternative? Suppose you’re planning to jump a chasm and don’t fancy a really bad result. Or perhaps you’re performing heart surgery and don’t plan on killing someone. Well, you can roll one die and add the value of your ability. If you think you can meet or beat the difficulty with your second die go ahead and try. If, however, the result of the first die makes it look unlikely, you can stop. You attempt the run up but stop short of the edge of the chasm. You begin surgery, but judge it too hard to complete before doing irreversible damage.

So what’s the catch? Two things.

Firstly the time you take. In Game Time, the rolling of each die separately is equal to the time taken to roll two dice together. It therefore takes twice the time as you carefully consider everything – not always an advantage when time is of the essence, as in most stressful situations.

Secondly, if you roll a 1 on your first roll you don’t foresee the danger, and blunder onwards, with greater chance of failure. If you succeed despite rolling a 1 first, you get stuck somehow, and need to repeat the whole process again in order to finally resolve the situation – for example you fall part-way into the chasm, but manage to cling a handhold, or you complete the surgery but now you need to stem some internal bleeding.

(EDIT: then again, maybe this penalty works better for those who've just thrown themselves into the action)

4. THE AFTER DARK SYSTEM (Character Gen / Action Resolution)

This was a rules-lite system I was working on to create a more open-ended version of the table top card game where some of the players are secretly Werewolves, Cultists or members of the Mafia, trying to kill off the other player’s characters night by night. I wanted a system that could be used both during ‘The Night’, with actions resolved by comparing stats rather than rolling dice, with activity during ‘The Day’ obvious to everyone, with the option to roll a die to boost their chances. Much of this is typed up elsewhere, so I’ll most likely upload the game, system and setting, soon. But the basics are as follows – the resolution system is easy enough to be adapted to most games/genres:

Characters had just two attributes, Status and Power, which added up to 4. Status represented a character’s standing and sway in the village, whilst Power was their strength, of body and mind, their determination to get things done by force, so characters were pretty much balanced. On top of that, each character had a unique ability, an ability that bent or broke the normal rules, based upon their role in the village (such as doctor, priest, farmer) and their secret Night-time role (such as werewolf, cultist, hunter). During the Day characters role-play as normal, but for the Night they secretly note down their intentions on a scrap of paper, or if online via directly messaging the GM, and the results of Night-time activity are revealed in the morning without announcing those responsible.

Much as each character has a unique ability, that either works or is interrupted by another’s actions, characters tend to do a set amount of damage (although some do more damage than others). An attack on another person is pretty much resolved in one declaration and resolution, rather than considering each individual blow. Ultimately this game is about characters sneaking around and killing each other, whether they’re good guys killing the bad guys or vice versa, so the main rules concern physical conflict.

Here’s how the system works:

A character can just accept the basic Power vs. Power equation, treating their Power as a point higher if they initiate the attack. The highest total wins. This means that a character will normally beat someone that they’re usually on equal footing with, just enough to give them a bump on the head, to teach them a lesson, or whatever. At Night, when characters aren’t so aware of the strengths and weaknesses their opponents have during this phase, it is also a quick way to determine who fights who beats who without players revealing their parts in conflicts by rolling dice or the GM having to make multiple rolls for various players.

During the Day-time, if a player wants to go crazy they can do so - after adding the bonus for initiating the attack, both parties roll a die and add it to their totals. Alternatively some sort of secret bidding system (if all characters have a pool of, say, ‘Destiny Points’) can add points temporarily to the character’s Power – this method could also be used for Night-time activities if characters want to allocate Destiny Points to activities or defending themselves when they secretly declare their intentions. The highest total wins, as usual. However, if one character ends up with a total significantly higher than the other, they do a lot more damage that expected, possibly more than they intended. If it is Night-time, and the winner was unaware of the attack, the attacker has screwed up somehow, hurting themselves in the process without even alerting the potential victim.

Rolling a 6, or bidding above 5 Destiny Points in one swoop is an effort in itself, and imposes a temporary penalty following the conflict. But it might save your life or beat an opponent you would otherwise have no chance of beating.

Damage can either be taken straight off Power, although I’ve been working on an alternative ‘damage level’ system.

5. THE TWO-SIDES SYSTEM (Character Gen / Action Resolution)

This will be the core rule system for my Yin-Yang, Left-Right, Heads-Tails, Odds-Evens system, so I’ll explain it more when I’ve had more time to work on the whole setting. I’m tempted to make character generation similar to the I-Ching method of creating a Hexagram by tossing three coins for each of six lines. Hopefully that’ll make sense to somebody… :-)