Comments on: Design Question of the Week…

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By: Fitz

Fitz — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:55:18 +0000

@Swordgleam – Thanks for mentioning tri-stat dX… It’s one I hadn’t heard of before. They have a whole wiki site about the system along with some downloads here: http://tristat.wikispaces.com/

Thanks!

By: Fitz

Fitz — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:54:23 +0000

@Zzarchov – Yes, I totally see your point about evenly ranked opponents. It would be the death of a thousand cuts. Neither would get any solid damage on the other. But I have to wonder if that would really be okay too – think of the great sword fights on the stairs in those great old movies with Douglas Fairbanks… it was back and forth and back and forth until one or the other got tired or careless… I think there’s merit to the argument that close combats like that could be exciting. (Could also be extremely boring if it takes forever, but that’s why there’s groups of players working together against foes…)

On the other side, the length of the weapon came into play in very early talks we had about the rules… But as I recall, the rules very quickly became unplayable because of the amount of detail needed.

By: Zzarchov

Zzarchov — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:22:15 +0000

Cohesive and elegant simple rules do not always stimulate roleplaying, sometimes they can detract from it.

In many older RPG’s for instance, each different activity was basically a minigame (vastly different mechanics), this allowed one to be largely ignorant of different activities because by and large they were easy to pick up, change and discard again if need be.

The change aspect would often encourage more roleplay, if the rules on how your character worked could fluctuate, concept and roleplay can become far more important than mechanics.

Just a thought.

As for the combat mechanics:

the issue I see happening is when two evenly matched opponents (say two equally skilled fighters), then one being poorly armed (say a dagger VS a the opponents longsword) matters little.

If you will tend to roll about even, then higher maximum damage seems less useful as it will rarely come up. An edge, but not a large one with two even skilled fighters (when it would appear to account for more)
Zzarchov´s last blog ..Halloween Creature Feature – Peripheral Terrors

By: Swordgleam

Swordgleam — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:04:31 +0000

Have you ever looked at tri-stat dX? It’s very similar to what you’re doing – Mind Body and Soul, rolling low is better, and simple skills. You might be able to get some inspiration from it.

I don’t know if you can still find it online, but I can send you the pdf (it’s free anyway) if you want to take a look at it.

By: Fitz

Fitz — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:32:05 +0000

@Zzarchov – Cool. Three attributes does boil things down to their component parts pretty quickly. I’m a bit more concerned about the mechanic for determining success/failure using QoS and QoF. The goal is to make everything use pretty much the same mechanic all the way through to minimize the brain pain and allow folks to do more role playing than roll playing.

By: Zzarchov

Zzarchov — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:28:48 +0000

Having three attributes in that manner is fine,

In piecemeal shorthand for NPC’s and creatures (or for penalties), I use Physical, Mental and Metaphysical (Same deal, save luck is metaphysical).

So a weaken spell might give -1 penalty to all physical checks (meaning Strength, Agility and Health).

Its a perfectly suitable division.
Zzarchov´s last blog ..Halloween Creature Feature – Peripheral Terrors