Rephath
December 31st, 2012, 23:26
I’ve come up with the Important Details system for forum RPG’s. It’s meant to give a sense of achievement and legitimate progress to games, and provide some basic structure without bogging things down in rules. It’s not for all games, but for this game I think we’d be able to make good use of it. Currently experience, abilities, combat victory, gold, and so on is kind of determined as to how much you feel you deserve. I'm hoping adding a few rules makes your accomplishments feel more substantial.
Basically, the system assigns you three traits: level, abilities, and advantages. These add together to create the outcome of any RP you write. Outcome is how much you accomplished. Level is how competent your character is in general, and it adds its full value to the outcome of every RP you write. Abilities are things your character excels at, spells it can cast, skills it specializes, or special things it can do that most beings can’t. Your character has a number of abilities equal to twice its level, and each ability you use to further your goals in an RP adds +2 to the outcome. Finally, advantages are special equipment, magical buffs, and other things the character has acquired throughout its journeys. Advantages add their value to the outcome when you use them.
Okay. So let’s say you’re a level 3 thief. That lets you have up to four abilities, and we’ll give you disarm trap, steal, knife skills, pickpocket, assassinate, and stealth as abilities. If you write a roleplay where you’re trying to steal something, you can write your character sneaking in, stabbing the guard in the back, and stealing the treasure. Your level of 3 adds +3 to the outcome. You also used assassinate and knife skills on the guard, as well as sneak and steal in taking the treasure. Those four skills add +2 each, for a total of +8. So your outcome total is 11. If you had a fine knife of deadly death that grants you a +1 bonus, bringing your outcome up to 12 total.
Outcome is how effective you were in the RP section. Here’s the basic things you can do with it:
Gain Experience: You gain exp. equal to your outcome. We’ll say that experience required to reach next level is something like level squared times 10. So to get to level 3 costs 3x3x10 or 90 experience.
Block: You can set up a block to keep opponents from acting. They must achieve an outcome higher than your block, or they fail. The block persists until it is overcome.
Produce Advantage: You can produce an advantage whose value is the square root of your outcome, rounded down. So if your outcome is 17, that creates a +4 advantage.
Inflict Disadvantage: You can produce a disadvantage on an enemy, usually by injuring them. The disadvantage inflicted is equal in value to your outcome minus the target’s level. Disadvantages add a cumulative -1 penalty for each one the target has, and they also subtract their value from the outcome of any RP the owner of the disadvantage includes it in. Disadvantages grant experience equal to their value to any RP they’re in. Each time the player with the disadvantage uses that disadvantage in an RP, its value is halved and rounded down if necessary. Eventually, it will disappear. Disadvantages can bring your outcome so low, you accomplish nothing but gain experience. You might just roleplay as passed out or some such action. You can also lose an advantage you have to reduce the value of a disadvantage by the advantage’s value. You or an ally may create an advantage on you for this purpose.
Support: You can add your outcome as a bonus to a future outcome produced by an ally, as a one-time deal. This bonus is halved for opposed actions like inflicting a disadvantage or overcoming a block.
Basically, the system assigns you three traits: level, abilities, and advantages. These add together to create the outcome of any RP you write. Outcome is how much you accomplished. Level is how competent your character is in general, and it adds its full value to the outcome of every RP you write. Abilities are things your character excels at, spells it can cast, skills it specializes, or special things it can do that most beings can’t. Your character has a number of abilities equal to twice its level, and each ability you use to further your goals in an RP adds +2 to the outcome. Finally, advantages are special equipment, magical buffs, and other things the character has acquired throughout its journeys. Advantages add their value to the outcome when you use them.
Okay. So let’s say you’re a level 3 thief. That lets you have up to four abilities, and we’ll give you disarm trap, steal, knife skills, pickpocket, assassinate, and stealth as abilities. If you write a roleplay where you’re trying to steal something, you can write your character sneaking in, stabbing the guard in the back, and stealing the treasure. Your level of 3 adds +3 to the outcome. You also used assassinate and knife skills on the guard, as well as sneak and steal in taking the treasure. Those four skills add +2 each, for a total of +8. So your outcome total is 11. If you had a fine knife of deadly death that grants you a +1 bonus, bringing your outcome up to 12 total.
Outcome is how effective you were in the RP section. Here’s the basic things you can do with it:
Gain Experience: You gain exp. equal to your outcome. We’ll say that experience required to reach next level is something like level squared times 10. So to get to level 3 costs 3x3x10 or 90 experience.
Block: You can set up a block to keep opponents from acting. They must achieve an outcome higher than your block, or they fail. The block persists until it is overcome.
Produce Advantage: You can produce an advantage whose value is the square root of your outcome, rounded down. So if your outcome is 17, that creates a +4 advantage.
Inflict Disadvantage: You can produce a disadvantage on an enemy, usually by injuring them. The disadvantage inflicted is equal in value to your outcome minus the target’s level. Disadvantages add a cumulative -1 penalty for each one the target has, and they also subtract their value from the outcome of any RP the owner of the disadvantage includes it in. Disadvantages grant experience equal to their value to any RP they’re in. Each time the player with the disadvantage uses that disadvantage in an RP, its value is halved and rounded down if necessary. Eventually, it will disappear. Disadvantages can bring your outcome so low, you accomplish nothing but gain experience. You might just roleplay as passed out or some such action. You can also lose an advantage you have to reduce the value of a disadvantage by the advantage’s value. You or an ally may create an advantage on you for this purpose.
Support: You can add your outcome as a bonus to a future outcome produced by an ally, as a one-time deal. This bonus is halved for opposed actions like inflicting a disadvantage or overcoming a block.