SCM's Homebrew RPG System Workshop!

Long story short, am working on a Homebrew RPG system, and am making this thread to avoid cluttering up the Negima thread. An alternate discussion forum can be found here.

Relevant posts to the start of the discussion are here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=x7qwds45w7je04xdlt51q783&page=3255#81371

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=x7qwds45w7je04xdlt51q783&page=3257#81421

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=x7qwds45w7je04xdlt51q783&page=3258#81426

I have idea for two races: Orcs and High Elves. Orcs are... very vile (Berserk level vile), while High Elves is, like, pretty, but slow to age.

Should I elaborate?

Also, while vile, Orcs isn't really pure black. If you ask to elaborate, I'll elaborate further

While interesting, I'm not sure that's inkeeping with the Negima setting.

OP, you may find this useful.

You're going for a d10 system? You may find something like what the Unisystem.. uh.. system uses. It's d10 + stat + skill vs a difficulty of 9 (With penalties/bonuses applied as needed).

Additional degrees of success provide additional benefits.

Apposed contests are the same, but whoever rolls higher wins.

I find it preferable to the d20 system, in that it's simpler and more widely applicable. (The d20 system tends to focus a lot more on combat and murdering things.)

So, the usual?

As to 'race' I was thinking using a point-based 'build your own specie' kind of thing. You add characteristics like enhanced senses, increased average abilities, and flaws to get a zero-sum species. As the system is meant to emulate an anime universe, where you can have everything from Kitsune to robot girls to aliens, it needs to be more flexible.

Hmm, I guess I need to clarify on this thread, since chances are the links won't be read…

MISSION STATEMENT: the purpose of this thread is to discuss develop, and eventually playtest a Homebrew RPG system meant to emulate an anime flavor, whether that be a slice of life Highschool caper, or pecks-expanding DBZ ripoff. So far, the various things tenuously settled upon are:

• A system with 9 base stats
• a d10 resolution mechanic
• an emphasis on skill checks for conflict resolution, both against characters, objects and hazards
• an 'Adjective' system where you choose to attach various adjectives to your character that confer bonuses, penalties, personality templates and story-effects
• a realistic combat system that emulates the squishines of humans IRL when faced with swords and guns
• point-based ability-buy customization system
• an 'assemble your non-human species character' method, that let's you play non-human characters without having too much of an advantage
• d6 for damage rolls, with half the damage being a fixed number

Ooh, good list! I'll make a note of it.

edited 23rd May '15 8:53:19 AM by SCMof2814

Suggestion: have all abilities cost exactly one point.

Now copying stuff from the other thread...

Suggestion two: As I see it, to every category you have one attacking, one defending and one "good for both" stats. What if each character's "attack", and similarly each "defense", is tied to {one, possibly two} stats, and no stat can be used for {two or other minimum safe number} different "attacks" or "defenses"?

The words "attacks" and "defenses" being used not just in combat sense (although this might work well just for combat, needs testing), but in the general conflict resolution sense? I mean, "social attack" using Intelligence might mean you're trying to convince your opponent with logic, while the same using Strength means you're just bullying them.

Rather than smart, I'd prefer to be wise. It would let me be silly more often.

Mental sounds like a Dump Stat to me (except for Will, maybe). Memory don't look really useful (if my experience in D&D is anything to go by, Knowledge skills are at best very situational) and Intelligence... well, I'm sure the players would prefer to solve the puzzles by themselves instead of rolling to see if their character can, possibly leading to a Stupidity Is the Only Option situation.

Why not move some of the magic abilities to "Mental" to have a nice Fighter, Mage, Thief pattern ? Maybe something like, Memory -> how many spell you know, Intelligence -> how many you can prepare for the day / how much MP you have. The middle "Spiritual" stat can either become something entirely different, or remain Magic -> how strong the spells are, how difficult it is to resist them, how well you resist other spells, etc. (I'm sure some shuffling around between Intelligence and Magic would be needed, whatever makes the most sense.)

edited 23rd May '15 6:40:56 PM by Aetol

Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a chore

Good suggestions for Memory and Intelligence. Pretty sure they would be dump stats for fighter types in a straight up hack and slash, but it depends on your type. One of my ideas is dual-stat rolls, where you need to different stats simultaneously to do something, plus any skill bonuses. For example, Finesse and Intelligence can be used for attack rolls, the former because you need hand-eye coordination and the latter so that you work out where is the best place to aim for. Conversely, this can be a defense roll instead, where intelligence is for working out where NOT to be so you don't get hit.

Of course, it can be character optional. Like there's a 'Power Attack' skill where you roll strength and finesse (essential just powering through, but dealing extra damage) and a 'Cunning Attack' skill (Int and Fin, but with a higher chance of critical and more long-lasting status-type debuffs to basically paper cut him to death). Which one you get depends on the class you choose.

BTW, when I figure these out, I imagine the characters to be in an urban, real world setting, so I'm picturing Highschool kids brawling in alleyways and not Conan (though they can be, with the right skills and abilities 'later'. Conan wouldn't have been an experienced fighter when he was 8 after all). The character is more likely a Perfectly Ordinary Student than an experienced brawler, so the base system is made with him in mind, experience brawlers show it by having skills (fighting experience), and thus beat the crap out of 'Mr. Doesn't really know how to fight'.

Maybe this will male the game overcomplicated, but should we add Bioware-style reputation system? Basically, the more you use diplomacy than asskicking, you get more famous as "reasonable, nice person" than "this guy make you into pancake if you don't listen to him", and vice versa. Intimidating ogre naturally will more easier to intimidate than your pretty elven preteen maiden, and vice versa.

Of course, it's possible to have an intellectual ogre who can pretty much tank angry mob and makes them reasonable without many wounds, or bratty pretty elven preteen maiden who throws lightning bolt at the first sign of displeasure.

(First off, I should mention that I've only glanced over a few posts linked to above. So there may be stuff I'm missing here. I also have no experience actually playing tabletop RPGs, or with the Negima franchise.)

'Will' and 'resolve' sound really similar to me, is there some important but non-obvious distinction between them?

Join my forum game!

Will is attack, resolve is defense. Actually, Resolve might be better as 'identity' or 'self-esteem'. Also, will is for things like resisting sleepiness, magical or otherwise, and fatigue effects, pain.

edited 23rd May '15 11:57:50 PM by SCMof2814

I've worked out the base stats and minimum damage, though it looks kinda repetitive, but Classes is giving me some trouble. Their names, anyway. On the one hand, I want the classes to be generic enough that it doesn't mater what setting you're in, high fantasy, magic school or highschool world savers. On the other hand, I want to give them the right 'feel' and make classes that are explicitly better for non-combat for those who want to play guile-hero types.

One possible solution would be to do something similar to what they did in Numenera, where a (descriptor) and a (type) come together to define your capabilities. So we could have a 'Smart Fighter', 'Magic Fighter' 'Strong Fighter', etc. So your final character would be something like a '(adjective) (adjective) (adjective) (descriptor) (class)'. That's... a decent amount of customization.

Now, for the right flavor, I just need to work out where I can stick things like 'Class Representative', 'Childhood Friend', 'Student Council President', etc. They're practically formal character classes already...

Make it dobule, or multiple class? Like, forcing customization when you took additional class, add and reducing points, or just build customization system where when you took some class, the point reduced, which enable you to customize the way you like but limited with number? Or force build around character your social class was assigned to (like, when you took a brawler as your "Childhood Friend", you are forced to took character who knows healing)?

Edit: On Character like "Class representative", you are forced to took decision that benefitted entire class. On "Student Council President", you are forced to took "righteous" decision. In gray situation, you are forced to took "diplomatic" decision. You took "intimidate" decision, and your charm fell like JDAM on Iraqi (alleged) weapon facility. And your intimidation factor rise a little.

edited 25th May '15 3:13:24 AM by RBomber

Well, do you really need classes?

If your character concepts are very flexible, a strict class system will only make things harder.

It may be better to simply have a pool of character options that can be assembled into whatever archetype you're going for. Especially works well with that adjective based thing you wanted.

Each character could be made using a few adjectives and nouns that describe them mechanically. "Strong", "High-School", "Martial Artist". So they'd individually provide the mechanical framework for the character.

That'd be more flexible than strict classes, but may be a bit more work.

Yeah, you're probably right. Even in the BESM d20 system, classes were mainly there to define your Base Attack Bonus and saves. Maybe I'd better just make 'classes' extra-powerful adjectives that give greater bonuses (or at least no penalties)? It'd be easier at character to just have to assign their base stats, pick out adjectives, then give them a bunch of points to put in skills and abilities.

Leveling up becomes the next question then. Should people get more points in level 1 (that is, at the start), than at later levels? Under analysis, for example, you get 4 times the character options at first level than you do at second and succeeding levels, on average. After all, at first level you get class skills and such...

Maybe give 20 customization points at level 1/character creation, then only 5 at later levels? Or at least, not as much as 20.

At first, give enough to build Jack Of All Stat -1 or 2. A quarter/ fifth of starting number/ each level is good enough, especially if HP is tied with stats. If HP didn't tied with stats, then you can go lower.

That's what they do in JRPG, anyway.

In relation to that, I've decided on a class system of 'Archetype Adjectives'. They give bonuses and no penalties, and automatically give you access to certain abilities. One of them is 'Perfectly Average In Every Way' (yes, it's too long to simply be an adjective, I know) that gives no set stat bonus but, like every other 'normal' anime, manga and Light Novel protagonist, has extra luck (basically, a reroll mechanic if the result of a roll is unfavorable), and maybe an extra attribute point to put where he will. To keep them from getting abused, to multiclass into another Archetype at leveling up, you need to forgo your attribute bonus for that level and take on 2 flaw adjectives? Off the top of my head, that'll probably balance it out...

List of Archetypes I'm considering:

• Acrobat- I'm a bit iffy on this one. Maybe just make it a regular adjective?
• Archer- optional, maybe. No one really uses bows in the modern day for fighting except superheroes and Shirou.
• Armored Crusader- basically, Metal Heroes like Gavan, Kikaider or Robocop
• Assassin- optimized for killing and only killing, at long range. Might need rethinking
• Color Squadman- basically, Super Sentai or Power Rangers
• Fighter- might need to be further subdivided. I'm thinking streetfighting in this, with no formal training.
• Gadgeteer- tech-genius, builder type.
• Gunslinger- anyone gun-capable?
• Healer- magical, and gives access to 'Magic' skill. Essentially cleric. Might need a non-magical equivalent for IRL-type games
• Hobbyist- Thinking of replacing Archer with this. The (modern day) character happens to have a martial hobby, so while they're theoretically good at it, they're not combat-grade
• Magical Girl- Or boy. Though maybe make this archetype sex-segregated?
• Martial Artist- Exactly what it says. Though
• Masked Raider- Basically, Kamen Rider
• Ninja- expert in blending in, disguise, infiltration, spying and, last and least, assassination
• Perfectly Average In Every Way- generic everydude with a bit of extra luck for survival
• Sorcerer- magic-type, flexible, and gives access to 'Magic' skill
• Summoner- either Pokemon master, or Yuna from FFX. might need to rethink this too.
• Thief- burglary, pick-pocketing and scamming

Yes, some are multiple words and aren't necessarily adjective. We'll change the name. And some are setting dependent. Maybe clarify that? Or maybe just make the words more generically neutral?

edited 26th May '15 4:27:18 PM by SCMof2814

There you go!

Maximum is '(adjective) (adjective) (adjective) (adjective) (descriptor) (class)', OR if you want to multi-class, '(adjective) (adjective) (adjective) (descriptor) (class) (class)'.

I suppose, '(adjective) (adjective) (descriptor) (class) (descriptor) (class)' MIGHT be allowed, but it seems a bit silly to me. Depends on descriptors I guess.

Blah. That shortened it a LOT.

edited 27th May '15 9:09:33 AM by UberNimrod

Madman with a box? I'm a madman with a semi, a pretzel bender and a Heart of Gold!

Okay, been working on what I hope is a reasonbaly workable but free-form magic system for this RPG. It's based on one I houseruled in a FATE system game, and while the numbers will likely need to be adjusted, the theory seems sound.

Basically, taking the 'Sorcery' ability lets you do magic. To be able to cast magic, you basically assemble it out of modifiers based on how big it is and how it affects it's target or not. For example:

Our Imaginary Test Character, lets call her Itchy, has a Level 1 (out of either 5 or 10, depending) Sorcery Ability, giving her the Sorcery skill at level +3 and letting her do a minimum of 2d6 + (Magic X 2) damage. Combined with her Magic score, she has 8 at the skill. She wants to cast a spell and assembles it with these modifiers:

So, Itchy wants to cast an Attack spell, say a fireball. There's only one target, and within 50, so that's +4. Casting time is near-instant, so that's another +2, so +6. Raise to +8 since she wants it to have no material components. Since she has an 8 in her magic skill, she can cast it without needing to roll the skill, though she still needs to roll for whether it hits her target. However, if she wants it to do extra damage [3d6+ (Magic x 3)], the difficulty goes up to +10, meaning she needs to roll 1d10 + Magic + Skill and match or surpass it o cast the spell.

Any holes in using this as a magic system?

Still working out summoning (materials or creature) modifiers. Should I make it by mass or by volume? And should I make it related to damage, like the more mass/volume of something, the harder it hits? I should, but I just thought of it right now at posting, and not sure if it's good for game balance.

EDIT: Okay, Hole 1 found. I either need to increase the Duration Modifers or make it harder to debuff someone, since a level 1 with magic could conceivably curse someone with -1 Attribute or a few thousand years...

edited 27th May '15 6:52:05 PM by SCMof2814

Hmmm. I see something else as well I think. Let me add the numbers:

My Imaginary Test Character, Obviously Evil Bitchy, has a Level 1 Sorcery Ability, giving her the Sorcery skill at level +3 and letting her do a minimum of 2d6 + (Magic X 2) damage.

Give her a Magic score of 8 and start adding:

If the spell targets... 1-2 Persons: +2 difficulty
Range... Mid-Range, about 50- 250 feet: +3
If the Casting time takes... A few minutes: +1 Difficulty
Components the spell requires: Easily acquirable, portable components: +1 Difficulty
If the spell lasts... A few Years: +6 Difficulty
Other Modifiers Mind Altering: +2 Difficulty
2+3+1+1+6+2 = 15!

Theoretically, she can just wait outside a window or some such until her intended victim, who annoyed her earlier by trying to flirt with her, sits down (or passes out) within Line Of Sight, before casting some sort of Compulsion Spell to make said victim do something REALLY stupid.

I hate to suggest such a thing, but maybe make the more powerful options level-dependent? No decades long duration at first level then.

I will also point out that Line Of Sight might be all you need for certain spells. Not sure if that is an issue or not.

edited 28th May '15 11:59:18 AM by UberNimrod

Madman with a box? I'm a madman with a semi, a pretzel bender and a Heart of Gold!

Hmm... I suspect that part of the problem may be that your numbers follow a linear scale, while their applications don't: it costs as much—or rather, as little—to go from "a few seconds" to "a few minutes" as it does to go from "a few days" to "a few months", or to go from "the caster" to "a room" as it does to go from "a room" to "a building". To illustrate, consider the the duration scale, specifically these three: "a few seconds", "a few minutes" and "a few hours". Let's assume that in all cases "a few" means "five", so that we have concrete numbers to work with.

Thus, 5 seconds costs 1 difficulty.

5 minutes = 60*5 seconds, and costs 2 difficulty. Thus, casting a spell with the latter duration lasts 60 times one with the former duration, but costs only one more difficulty point.

Similarly, 5 hours = 60*5 minutes = 60*60*5 seconds, and costs 3 difficulty. Thus, two points gets us 60*60 = 3600 times the duration of a five-second spell.

Instead, perhaps try scaling the numbers on a curve; taking duration again, consider the following (untested) numbers:

• Instant: 0 difficulty
• A few seconds: 1 difficulty
• A few minutes: 5 difficulty
• A few hours: 25 difficulty
• And so on...

The exact scale might take some work, and the curve might want for adjustments to individual entries for some of the categories, but I suspect that overall this will work better than the linear scale that you've been using.

Regarding damage, why not just make damage another entry under "Other Modifiers", rather than having an entry for "no damage"? In other words, instead of having a guaranteed 2d6 + Magic*2 damage, have "damage" be an entry under "Other Modifiers", costing two difficulty points per 1d6 + Magic damage, plus a base damage of 1d6. Thus the "Other Modifiers" list might start something like this:

• Damage: (1d6 + Magic)*(Damage levels bought) + (1d6 + Magic), as long as at least one Difficulty point is spent, at a cost of (Damage levels bought)*2 Difficulty
• Irritating or inconvenient (to the target or in the scope of the spell), like itching or buffs/debuffs the target (eg, fear effect, nausea, fatigue, - 1 to an Atribute, -2 to skill, etc): +1 Difficulty
• Healing/Restoration: +1 Difficulty
• Etc...

edited 28th May '15 3:32:10 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

Hmm, I see what you mean about making things level dependent. Bitchy's 8 Magic plus 3 Skill (I'm assuming the maximum amount for this example), comes up to a bonus of +11, meaning that she still has to roll, but has a 60% chance of casting the spell (you forgot 'No HP Damage', which could have lowered the difficulty.). After posting, I added another modifier. I thought of making Spells Known to be Memory and Level dependent. You only 'know' a number of spells equal to your Memory attribute, which increases as you level up. If you want to cast a spell that's not one of your 'memorized' spells, that's a +3 difficulty modifier. So, unless Bitchy specifically set out at character creation to know a years-long curse, she'd be casting against a difficulty of 18, which only gives her a 30% chance of success.

On the one hand, I want to nerf this since, yes, this is very abusable. On the other hand, in role-play terms, someone becoming a level 1 magic-user just to cast such a spell is very believable. One thing that's always bothered me, in role-play terms, with D&D and Pathfinder is that there really isn't much in the way of low-level (0-2) 'petty annoyances'-type spells (since you just KNOW there's at least one commoner out there who took a level in Wizard just so he could curse the guy he hates with Diarhea). Definitely gotta raise the difficulty on Mind-affecting, though, at least until I work out Spell Resistance and Resolve Saves.

ArsThaum's suggested formula seems good solution to the problem, though I might lower the base number a little. Exponents of 2, maybe? And give the casting time modifiers a similar workover, while still allowing for long-term effect. I'd have to curve it though, since even using just exponents of 2, you'd never have enough modifiers to cast spells above 'A few years', since by the skill system I'm using, the highest you can bring up a skill is 42 (of course, if you're magical you're already not human and thus can reasonably exceed some stat limits, but even then...)Although since there are 10 levels of Duration, it might be easier to just make it level-dependent, then handwave the ease by saying it's a product of the character's increased magical knowledge.

One thing that might help with adjusting the curve is to settle on a few example spells that you'd expect a maximum-level character to be able to perform without a roll, and a few that should be out of reach—or at least call for some rather good rolls—for even a maximum-level character. You then adjust the curve such that the average cost for the first set of spells matches the expected statistics of a maximum-level character, and the average cost for the second set remains above those statistics.

For example, if the maximum value for the Magic skill is fourty-two, then you might want the first set of spells above to have an average cost of around fourty-two, and the second set of spells to have a cost of perhaps fifty or sixty. (I'll confess here that I haven't read your skill system in any real depth; adjust the values there as appropriate.)

Let's then say that you want a maximum-level spell-caster to be able to cast a spell with the most powerful effect from one of the lists above, but not much more—you presumably don't want player-controlled spell-casters capable of doing 22d6 + 22*Magic damage every round over the scope of an entire town, with the effect lasting forever, for example. You then come up with a few spells built around extremes from one or two lists—regeneration that lasts millennia; incredible damage to a single, nearby target; or complete incapacitation of a creature for a few months, perhaps—and start playing with the statistical curves until they work for you. You might find a spreadsheet useful in this.

Another thought that occurred to me: it might be a good idea for effects like incapacitation and regeneration to scale as damage does. After all, there's a difference between regenerating one hit-point per turn and regenerating twenty hit-points per turn, or between freezing a tiny spider in place and freezing an elephant in place.

My Games & Writing

The skill system is simple. Take two attributes (say Intelligence and Memory, or Health and Strength) or the same stat x2 (although I'm not fond of that idea, since maxing out one stat is easier than making out 2), add skill level (maximum 23, not counting other misc modifiers from other abilities), roll d10 and see if you make it. Maximum humanly possible with no dice roll is 42 (although that's badass normal characters defined as "Arnold Schwarzenegger in an action movie"). Non-human beings like elves, Servants, demons, etc, easily exceed.

Healing can be linked to damage, turning damage into healing. It's easy to make added damage progressively more expensive. The first increase in damage is +2, the next increase is +3, the next +4, etc. Since human characters get only 300 HP are most, the damage formula you quoted would be at worst a two-hit kill.

Maybe just make it harder to stack the abusable things. Increase the difficulty on the 'Other modifiers' part. Given that that Attributes go from 1-10, I should make the 'Irritating' modifier much higher, or set a different modifier for things that actually affect stats. I also agree volume/mass of target should be a factor. Let me see what numbers I can come up with.

Edit: Looking at the level 9 Wizard spell lists of the SRD (purely for comparison), I'm reminded I don't have modifers for things like teleporting, dimensional travel. Abilities handle things like that, so maybe I can add in that the modifer for, say teleporting is equal to the point-cost of the level of the ability that would let you do that? Eh, I'll get back to that after I finish statting Abilities.

edited 28th May '15 6:56:26 PM by SCMof2814

"Teleportation" might be implemented as a special case in a more general "Movement" modifier—being, essentially, a movement spell with an "instant" duration.

You might then have the movement modifier as such:

• Movement: 1 Difficulty per 2 horizontal metres (or something similar in feet), divided by (Spell duration difficulty + 1).
  • For vertical movement, multiply the above by 2
  • For free movement, multiply the above by 2.5
  • For interdimensional movement, multiply the above by 3
  • For metaphorical or other forms of "movement", multiply the above by 4
  • Round off fractions
  • This works by exerting a force, whether physical or metaphysical, and so may be countered by a similar opposing spell; for example, an attempt to teleport a character to another dimension might be countered by casting a spell that attempts to "teleport" them to their current dimension.

(As per usual, the numbers in question might call for adjustment.)

For example, a spell intended to throw a touched enemy into the sky might work something like this: (I'm using your original scale for this, so the numbers may be somewhat off.)

• Targets 1 person: +2
• Touching the target: -1
• Momentary casting time: +2
• No components: +2
• Duration of a few seconds: +1
• Moves the target ten metres vertically: ((distance/2)/(duration difficulty+1))*(modifier for verticality) = ((10/2)/(2))*2 = ((5)/2)*2 = 5

And thus a final cost of 11

If instead we just wanted to float the target up slowly, over the course of a few minutes, we would instead get a "movement difficulty" of ((10/2)/(3))*2 = 3.333, rounded to 3, and thus a final cost of 9.

I will confess that the formula involved makes movement a little more complicated than other modifiers, but short of creating a large set of categories—short distance at high speed, short distance at low speed, short distance at very low speed, medium distance at high speed, etc.—I'm not sure of how to make a simpler system that doesn't produce odd results in either travel-time or speed.

My Games & Writing

Okay, back from vacation and giving this system some thought. The original magic system was made to deal with a more free-for system, so the straight port is of course being problematic. Still, it's workable. So far, I've concentrated mainly on modifiers that translate to evocation-esque blasting spells and curses, but as Ars pointed out, teleporting is something you do with magic too. I think that problem can be streamlined by making the modifiers to scale rather than directly correlating to distance, similar to the range modifiers. That said, the 'scope' modifiers will need to do double duty for both area effects and area of effect spells... which they obviously should have been doing anyway. And I need to nerf the 'Target' modifiers, since multi-target offensive spells would be way broken at early levels...

Besides teleporting, there's also summoning matter, like making lava appear. I figure two different modifiers, one for volume, and one for density? A low volume, high-density substance like, say gold would be about equal to a high volume, low density substance like, say a poison gas, right? Or maybe another modifier for being poisonous and/or lethal on appearance?