Just the start of some basic ideas for an RPG setting. Think "Super Hero Role-Playing in a World Gone Medieval" or something. Mostly for my own sake, but suggestions are very welcome.
Setting -
Taking a pretty standard Medieval European backdrop and extending the concept of Divine Right to Rule, we find that the nobility is truly descended from God, or at least some supernatural being, and have the power to prove it. The Nobility within the setting all have supernatural powers to some extent.
The degree of power within a bloodline is directly related to their station in the ruling class. You might find the offspring of those that have interbred with normal man, be it bastard children or simply marrying out of love, in a position as a knight, influential merchant, or esteemed clergymen. The highest seats of power are occupied by only the purest bred, the King himself being able to demonstrate his right to rule quite easily over others.
The divide between Nobles and Mortals has largely replaced any divide within the sexes, finding out that women can fry you with death-rays from their eyes if you treat the wrong one poorly will do that, as low-ranking Noble women are present at the highest levels of numerous organizations. I'm not really looking to run any great commentary on racial issues, and will generally be glossing over them with a simple "All the peasant stock is of one race. Whatever the Nobles descended from interbred with them long ago creating the mix we now see."
Killing a Noble (Need to come up with catchy name for them 'cause Super-Hero just doesn't fit, but Noble doesn't really evoke the right feeling to me. It's a placeholder for now) is considered an act of Heresy and carries the heaviest penalties imaginable, and when people in the world have unimaginable power, what's imaginable is far worse than death. The Nobility typically does not abuse this power and sees themselves as placed here to Shepherd a flock as it were. Even entire wars are fought with the Nobles typically retreating or surrendering when defeat has been assured. This allows for the somewhat typically hard to find, within a game with super-powers at least, political maneuvering and such easier to justify. At the same time, within fights there will still be the opportunity for combat ready players to wade through literally hundreds of men on a battlefield.
Ruleset - Suggestions welcome
Which brings me to how to resolve combat, or anything else for that matter. I've been looking hard at the One-Roll-Engine as presented in Wild Talents because I enjoy both the crunch it provides and I think it uniquely prevents getting bogged down when the action should be fast paced. I'm not really looking to break out miniatures and tape measures for my large scale combat. While, I like just about everything it has to offer, I'm considering home-brewing a bit here to get just the right feel to it. Some of the concepts originally presented in Godlike feel they might fit just a bit better...for one thing, I don't need Archetypes, permissions and intrinsics. Powers have exactly one source; genetic. Although I am quite fond of the passions and loyalties...anyhoo, Godlike had the idea that, even in large wars, the powers pretty much canceled each other out. Due to the willpower battles inherent in using your powers against others with powers. I like the way this would play out in a political setting. Also explains why the King doesn't have to go around turning everyone into piles of ash to prove he's the purest blood on the block. I don't like the blind bid though, probably replace that with simply escalating the willpower spent.
For example...Player 1 shoots fireball at Player 2, and Bids 1 Willpower to do it. If Player 2 wishes to take his chances, then Player 1 rolls his dice to hit and, assuming he succeeds, Player 2 takes the appropriate damage from a fireball, while Player 1 spends zero Willpower. If player 2 didn't like those prospects, he could decide to bid 1 Willpower himself, and they get into a bidding war until one player chickens out, or doesn't have anymore Willpower to spend. Whichever Player lost the bidding war, spends ZERO Willpower.
I think this adds an interesting tactical decision on whether offense or defense is going to be more important to you, and allows for Itty-Bitty Starting PCs(patent pending) to gang up on the Big Bad(probably already patented by someone) and at least chip away at him. It's offered in Wild Talents, but was default in Godlike, that No Will No Way meant once you ran out of Willpower you were left powerless, and I think this as a mechanic will be useful. With the addition of Loyalties and Passions, you're able to attack even the strongest character on multiple fronts.
Character Creation -
More liberal borrowing and tweaking of the ORE. Players would create several characters from a large pool of points, I'm thinking 500 pts per PC. Maybe with a cap of 200 pts on a single character at start. 100 pts would be a standard mortal PC, with points being able to be spent to purchase Minions that basically follow the Minion rules from Wild Talents, and fewer than 100 points being spent to create extremely specialized characters. Before you ask, I don't really have a problem with min/maxing, and generally trust my players. But as always, you can throw in a "With GM Approval" clause and you'll be fine.
Basically, if you want to spend fewer than 100 points (and only fewer, no 200 point combat only characters) on a character, it's a mix between standard and Minion rules. If the character doesn't have an appropriate skill to roll, they simply fail any action involving it. It allows the creation of simple 20 point "Advisor to the Throne" type characters, as well as a not fully fleshed out Sergeant Of Guard for 60 points or so. None of these characters would be allowed to be Noble characters. In other words, you can't spend 50 points to get a character that only shoots a death ray and fails everything else, but you could get a 20 Point Handmaiden that's good with customs and ceremonies, but would never survive a fight...or a math problem for that matter. All characters without a body stat come equipped with 3 health boxes, just like a minion. I may need to create a clause for minimum points to close a potential loophole where 1 point buys you a meat shield.
I see typical character creation panning out something like...
200 Points spent on a Main Character for the player, with full stats and skills consuming 125-150 of their points, plus a hefty 50-75 Point power that's useful both in and out of combat. They're a young Heir to something, but might be 4th or 5th in line at the moment.
125 Points for a Royal Knight. The result of a coupling with "a mere Mortal" they aren't due to inherit anything, but still easily hold the title of Sir or Dame Knight, and are well respected. with your typical 100 Points spent for stats/skills and a 25 point Power. They're a one trick pony, but it's quite a trick. Their stats and skills are impressive, but probably focused in a few areas to give 4d to 5d dice pools at select things, while being pretty lousy at everything else...your typical starting character.
75 Points for a Sergeant of the Guard. He has a Body and Coordination stat, maybe no charm stat, and probably a couple of points in swordplay to hold his own, but unlike what most of you are thinking, the majority of his points are dumped into command and the leadership and tactics skills. Why? Well to lead the...
60 points of Soldiers that follow you around. A dozen or so armed Minions meant to do all the real fighting (and dying) for you. A group of 10d Professional Minions doing width in Killing with LAR 1 should do the trick nicely. That leaves...
20 Points for a tutor with some mind and basic scholarly skillsets and a...
20 Point Courtier/Courtesan with some charm and persuasion.
Sounds like a pretty well rounded party, no? Or more precisely, for my purposes, allows each PC to contribute a character to almost any challenge the party encounters. While they may not be bringing their Sergeant to a courtly dinner, their Courtesan can accompany them and take on some schmoozing. I'd expect socially minded Players to shift some things around, perhaps coming up with a 60 Point Courtesan with some assassin skills and a 20 point bodyguard that can literally only swing a sword. Perhaps 50 points worth of Hand-Maidens at their beck and call would make their royal existence more soothing as well.
Speaking of Minions, Wild Talents doesn't expressly give a way to create them for PCs, so I'm going with 1pt buys you 1d of unarmored Rabble doing width in shock. 2pts for Trained, 4 for Professional and 8 for Expert. 1 Additional point to go up a level to Width in Killing for Damage or Light Armor Rating 1, 2 points gets you Width in Shock and Killing or LAR 2. The above 60 points were created using 4 Points for Professional, and another 2 points to do Killing damage and have LAR 1, which nets 10d of the above mentioned soldiers.
To anyone unfamiliar with the minion rules, I'll give a brief summary...Basically, they represent a large group acting together. You roll the entire pool of dice for an action, and can take as many successes as you get matching dice. So 10d of attacking Minions might get 1334566777 and would hit 3 times doing 2x3 2x6 and 3x7. Unlike a normal character, they do not take simply one matching set. The level of your minions (Rabble, etc...) affects how hard they are to command, how easily they can be routed in combat, and how difficult it is for them to succeed at a skill roll outside of combat. This is the reason for creating a character (The Sergeant of the Guard, above) to command them in combat. These are basically the rules as stated, and besides adding my own cost to create them for PCs, I don't see any real reason to alter it for this game.
I haven't quite settled on how I want to go about replacing dead characters. We all know that a GMs purpose is to kill his PCs characters, I mean, weave an elaborate and compelling tapestry of cooperative fiction...so character death is inevitable. I'm not sure if I should perhaps offer a conversion, say 1-to-10, for xp turned in to create a new character...or just tweak the costs for character advancement (making them significantly higher) and then start handing out xp like it's candy. The standard rules suggest 1 point per session for showing up, 1 point from the DM for whoever did a particularly good job staying in character, and 1 point voted democratically amongst the players. Unfortunately if I give out a max of 3 xp per session, it will take an average of three sessions to replace a lost minion. I want to be able to kill characters, I mean, weave stories a lot more than that.
I feel that a player who has kept their characters alive for 2 sessions should be able to reward them with growth, or replace 1 minor character by the end of the second session. It also leaves some interesting choices for the player, say their 60 point Sergeant died this session, and they've just got enough xp to draw up a replacement (Congratulations Corporal), but they were really wanting to make their Knight into a two trick pony. It creates interesting choices that I'd like, and hopefully my players would like, to see explored. It also raises the tactical question of which is a better choice. I'm sure someone will try slowly letting their characters die off to see their 500 point Übermensch finally realized. I don't really want to discourage that either...I'd be interested to see how he fairs the next time his Willpower runs out against someone with lazer beam eyes.
I think that rate, a new character every other session, is about right to reward smart play, and to discourage a player getting someone killed every game. I guess my options are to make xp worth ten character creation points, or to giving out 20-30 xp per player, per session. The first option seems a little disjointed, and the second seems sort of silly unless I'm going to a Gygaxian system where every obstacle the characters foil rewards them with some amount of xp. I'll now be taking suggestions from the audience...anyone?
Story -
This is probably making you all wonder what could possibly be killing characters so often if I already outlined the concept that killing Nobles was a big no-no. Well, if our idyllic rulers are descended from God, it seems inevitable that something would be descended from the Devil. Enter the invading armies of the Unclean (Again why Noble doesn't really work for me, I'd like something to contrast with it...and draw a blank with trying to come up with a pairing of terms for our heroes and their mortal enemies.)
Although the land is largely a peaceful one, armies of the Unclean are said to prey on civilizations outside of the Kingdom(again, placeholder). Although our Noble heroes would like to lead armies to fight them, any battle is almost certainly a Pyrrhic victory. Mortal men are no match for them and many Nobles would surely fall in even a winning battle. So for as long as time remembers, the Kingdom is the last bastion of sanity against them. (I have no real desire to outline how large the world truly is. The Kingdom may take up 90% or 10% of the world, the point is only that beyond it is dangerous. At some point, if this game lasted long enough, we might meet another kingdom that has managed to stave them off, even without God given powers).
While we've rarely seen these armies, a favorite tactic of the Unclean had always been to abandon one of their own newborn children in a border town to be raised Mortal. Only after growing up would they realize they were something more, something to be used as a tool by the Unclean, as spies within the Kingdom. This can provide our players with dangerous random encounters, or minor quests to undertake ridding towns of them.
Fast-forward to PCs begin campaign +1 day. The armies of the Unclean finally mount an offensive. I'd like to see the PCs party away from their home castle (conveniently located near the border) on what feels like the first adventure, only to receive word that their home has been attacked, and now lies somewhere behind the front lines of the war. Trying to discover if any of their family remained alive after the attack, and to eventually mount a rescue, becomes a long term goal. Allowing the PCs to charge headfirst back to the castle to set it free allows an opportunity for some of that story weaving I was talking about, and to clearly demonstrate that death is a real danger to their characters. Smart players will retreat to fight another day...smarter characters will run sooner and lose fewer men to the fight.
I've thought through what I'd basically like the first session to include, which involves a Noble who has unfairly mistreated those in his township, a decree from the King that he step down, and his reluctance to do so requiring the intervention of our nearby PCs. The Noble has fallen back to his keep, with a group of his most loyal guards still supporting him. Our players are quickly introduced through combat to the basic mechanics of play, with the more diplomatic players being given the chance to talk the Noble into surrendering (demonstrating how resisted rolls work, since they don't really happen in combat)...receiving a bonus to their role the more men he loses in the fight, and for any particularly compelling words their players come up with. Eventually reason will prevail, and he surrenders into custody. I'll probably stat him up as a 500pt group of characters, with only combat related characters still with the Noble. He also won't have anyone else with powers, meaning the players don't have to show restraint in killing anyone else present, and he'll probably have enough Minions to throw some at each one of my Players. As the players ride back home patting themselves on the back they're intercepted by a rider with news of the invasion...and we find a nice stopping point, ready to pick up next time.
From their, some pretty standard sandboxesque role playing with various characters, information, and long lost mythical items spread about the Kingdom for PCs to go about playing with, and a long term goal of amassing enough power to repel the invasion. How hard the invasion is to repel will depend largely on when I feel like everyone is getting bored with the game, and then one final great battle sees the heroes victorious...or not. I like to weave good stories after all.
Closing Thoughts -
This is what I've been thinking up over the weekend, and would probably like to start running it in say a month or so for my group. I'd appreciate any advice, comments, or criticisms from anyone that you think might help. I'll probably use this book page to gather my own thoughts, and maybe even organize some notes for once play begins. I'll break this wall of text down into multiple pages...once I figure out how to use this book thing a little better.