A Test of Chaos - Genericum Test Game (Inactive)

Game Master JonGarrett

Under Magic Foci

(https://genericum.weebly.com/ranged-weapons.html#magicfoci)

it looks like the description of the ring is wrong... probably copied over from stave.

I was thinking about taking the foci drawback, so if you have time, I would like to know how it works. If I take a ring as a focus object, but not the drawbacks of having to use motions or words, can I still cast spells without being seen to have done so, or is the drawback of the focus object that you might lose it, and then would be powerless?

I'm sorry Jon, I didn't end up having as much time as I thought I would over the weekend. Still interested however, and I started reading through as many of the rules as I could! Let's roll some stats, always interested in some RNG. I also like rolling things in order, it helps shape the character in my mind.

Weapon Skill: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (9, 6) + 25 = 40
Ranged Skill: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (5, 4) + 25 = 34
Physical Prowess: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (8, 8) + 25 = 41
Agility: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (2, 8) + 25 = 35
Intelligence: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (9, 10) + 25 = 44
Willpower: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (1, 6) + 25 = 32
Fellowship: 2d10 + 25 ⇒ (2, 6) + 25 = 33

...
Huh. That array really doesn't help all that much. I feel bad for Pale's poor wizard!

Yeah, copy and paste was a blessing when it came to quickly doing things, but I had a bad habit of missing the bits I needed to edit in my rush to get ideas down.

And no worries, there's no great rush.

What is the full description for Rank 1 of Mental Hold supposed to be?

Mental Hold - Make an opposed Willpower test. On a failure the AP are wasted. On a success the target suffers a -1 to AP for

It kind of looks like this requires the PC to spend 5 AP just to have the target suffer -1 AP?

Also, the summary description for Self Propelled is copied from Mental Hold.

Pretty much! For three whole rounds!

Yeah, some of the abilities don't start off very strong. At the third rank you can do more, especially after a quick re-write, but I'm trying to avoid 'Save or Die' until they very high-level play.

This *may* result in me too cautious sometimes, but I figure it'll be easier to buff stuff later than nerf it, right?

Okay, 5 AP for 3 AP is better. And it's a good starting point to grow the Talent, yeah.

So, on some races, like Human, the Goblin bloodline is a + to fire damage. However, on other bloodlines, such as Halflings or Orestiad, the Goblin bloodline is to gain a talent from Alchemy or Atificery (the same as the Gnome bloodline). Is this intentional?

Also, I see you fixed the Self Propelled intro mentioned in my post above, but not the description for Mental Hold, which is on the same page, so I'm wondering if you didn't catch that the description isn't complete? Sorry if this sounds like nagging.

Another thought: I feel like it would be pretty straightforward to come up with a Race builder system for Genericum.

That is intentional, yeah. I'd like a bit more variation, and some fine-tuning for different mixes to make sense, but at the moment they're a bit random and generic.

Fixed Self-Propelled.

And yeah, I have rough notes for race, archetype and talent building functions, but I wanna see if what I have works before I do too much on them.

Quick question, does telekinetic weapon fighting work off of willpower or weapon skill?

Hmm, good question. I guess Willpower would make sense, but perhaps for balance it might be something you can grab later, so we'll start with Weapon/Ranged Skill (no reason you can't telekinetically use a gun, it just won't be as useful).

I'm going to make a Umbresk Magus who has a Chalkydri bloodline. Gonna focus on both Umbramancy and Luxomancy, with perhaps a few other magicks as well.

Dice time!

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (9, 2) + 25 = 36 Physical Prowess

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (3, 6) + 25 = 34 Weapon Skill

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (9, 8) + 25 = 42 Intelligence

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (8, 10) + 25 = 43 Willpower

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (6, 8) + 25 = 39 Agility

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (9, 4) + 25 = 38 Ranged Skill

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (8, 8) + 25 = 41 Fellowship

Dang, solid!

OK, let's see.

A few updates for folks - quite literally. Most of the Races have been tweaked to add a few more options, and some of the language has been 1) edited (don't expect too much) and 2) more options have been added. In a couple of places stuff has been made to make more sense, and most of them have at least a short blurb instead of 'fluff' at the top.

In addition to the Psion bits and pieces mentioned earlier I added Fury Magic - because why should the melee guy be the only one to scream furious while doing cool stuff - and a couple of items.

Also, in a minor-major change, I'm working on a crit system. I can't access the site to link it, but in short if you roll 5% or lower you can do a Cool Thing. That Cool Thing could be hit them harder, or it might be reduce there ability to move, or reduce there AP pool for a round, or get a really good zinger off in a conversation.

I'm also considering expanding it - adding additional options that cost something, AP or Luck, but do even cooler stuff.

Finally, I would like to have the first table of folks forming a party and running through the test game in a week or so. We seem to have enough interest to do two tables, which is way better than I expected - I was kinda thinking I'd have to tweek things for a party of two or three - so that's pretty cool. If both groups are ready to go by then then we'll do that.

Still looking for more or are you all filled up?

Okay... I'll try to get my character playable this weekend.

Still looking for more or are you all filled up?

Nope, plenty of room. I'm hoping to run two tables of at least 4 each, but more would not be an issue.

Questions about Elemental Body. All of the Rank 3 abilities are the same and have two parts:

1. "Gain an Ability from the Elemental of your type,"

Does this mean an ability from one of the Elemental-kin races, or an ability from the Elementals found in the Bestiary? I'm assuming the latter, but it doesn't look like those creatures have been statted, yet.

2. "or an Ability that they as a player would qualify for."

I'm not sure what this means. Can you give an example?

Why do some races have +10% and others get a straight +10?

Questions about Elemental Body. All of the Rank 3 abilities are the same and have two parts:

1. "Gain an Ability from the Elemental of your type,"

Does this mean an ability from one of the Elemental-kin races, or an ability from the Elementals found in the Bestiary? I'm assuming the latter, but it doesn't look like those creatures have been statted, yet.

2. "or an Ability that they as a player would qualify for."

I'm not sure what this means. Can you give an example?

From the Elementals listed in the Summoning stuff. I'll link some bits up when I get a few minutes.

And it simply means something your character can physically do. You can't get bonuses to fly if you don't have the ability. I think I mention some abilities are Elemental only. I'll see if I can clarify that one.

Why do some races have +10% and others get a straight +10?

Because sometimes I forget to but a % in there. It means exactly the same thing - the attribute in question would go from 30 to 40, as all the attributes are 0-100.

OK, most of the stuff should now have a % marker.

Also, for the curious, here's the current version of the Critical rules.

I haven't looked at this too closely, but why would I take a summoning talent that requires a summoning cost, an upkeep cost, and limits other spells that I can cast when instead, I can take a Companion talent, which gives a permanent ally, has no upkeep cost, and doesn't limit other actions that I can take at the same time?

And going back to the discussion about Bloodlines, the Nepilim Bloodline ability that I've seen on most of the races seem much more flexible than most of the other bloodlines, mainly because picking that option lets you pick from a very wide range of abilities. I'd consider toning that down; maybe pick a Neplilim talent based on the primary race?

At the other end of the spectrum, it looks like the Undead Taint bloodline is unlikely to get picked (if that decision is based solely as a mechanical option). Unless the Exposed condition is going to come into play more frequently than similar environmental related conditions that I've seen in other games?

I haven't looked at this too closely, but why would I take a summoning talent that requires a summoning cost, an upkeep cost, and limits other spells that I can cast when instead, I can take a Companion talent, which gives a permanent ally, has no upkeep cost, and doesn't limit other actions that I can take at the same time?

And going back to the discussion about Bloodlines, the Nepilim Bloodline ability that I've seen on most of the races seem much more flexible than most of the other bloodlines, mainly because picking that option lets you pick from a very wide range of abilities. I'd consider toning that down; maybe pick a Neplilim talent based on the primary race?

At the other end of the spectrum, it looks like the Undead Taint bloodline is unlikely to get picked (if that decision is based solely as a mechanical option). Unless the Exposed condition is going to come into play more frequently than similar environmental related conditions that I've seen in other games?

I'm hoping to vary the bloodline stuff a lot more, yeah. I might make it so you can choose between a Vice/Virtue for each race to help it make it more interesting. And yeah, the undead one should probably get a little buff - I know one player chose it, so I'll talk to them, see what they might think.

If I remember right - I'm on a work computer, and the one thing it blocks is my bloody website - Elementals are more powerful, tougher and get more AP to play with than the Companions. It was also one of the first things I wrote, so I might wanna go back and look it over again, see how much Power Creep during development has been an issue.

EDIT: Yeah, had a quick rummage through Elementals on my phone. They're a bit beefier than companions, get abilities and buffs more often, and while they start with limited AP there attacks and abilities cost less. I am thinking that removing Cooldown so other spells can be cast by the Summoner might be a good idea, though. Spellcasters wanna cast, after all.

On Imbue Magic, the duration means the casting time, right? The spell would be permanent to grant an item magical properties, I'm assuming.

Hmm... that doesn't seem right either because it takes an hour per 100 silver.

... I just want to know if this is a temporary enhancement or permanent.

It's permanent, I probably just wrote it in a bad way. I'm gonna be swinging through talents soon to try and add some of the missing options in and do some editing, so I'll make sure to check that one.

It's basically the magic item crating system for the game, so all the items you make are eternal until broken. Which is good, because I didn't add item durability.

<--Okay, this is Zanbabe's submission. I believe she is playable now, if I did everything right.

I did try the Google character sheet but I was having a hard time being able to add in things I wanted to be able to refer to, so I just made my own based on how I usually make my Pathfinder characters. If I missed something important, let me know.

The background is a little sparse (just a few notes), but I haven't read anything about the world yet... was just playing with the mechanics, so will flesh it out as I learn more.

I haven't gone through everything yet, but my impression so far is that the design is scattered, like you designed one bit and flesh it out, then designed another and fleshed it out separately, then the next, adding things each time that affect previous things but not going through to adjust them.

I think it might benefit from you stepping back a bit to build a skeleton of the mechanics from scratch, then flesh out subsystems, then after that design a [thing] builder* for the various options, and then design the various specific options you want to include, and adjust them from there as needed.

*Like a race builder, talent builder, extra character builder (power of character, vs cost to obtain, vs cost to use, vs time on field, etc), spell-builder, etc.

This would help keep things unified mechanically, and if you add some new concept, it minimizes the work to bring everything else up to date.

Is there a level restriction on Talent Ranks, like can I throw two talents into Berserker and start at Rank 2?

Mostly done with my character, hopefully I’ll be done by early in the coming week.

I haven't gone through everything yet, but my impression so far is that the design is scattered, like you designed one bit and flesh it out, then designed another and fleshed it out separately, then the next, adding things each time that affect previous things but not going through to adjust them.

I think it might benefit from you stepping back a bit to build a skeleton of the mechanics from scratch, then flesh out subsystems, then after that design a [thing] builder* for the various options, and then design the various specific options you want to include, and adjust them from there as needed.

*Like a race builder, talent builder, extra character builder (power of character, vs cost to obtain, vs cost to use, vs time on field, etc), spell-builder, etc.

This would help keep things unified mechanically, and if you add some new concept, it minimizes the work to bring everything else up to date.

Sorta true, yeah. Basically I wrote the core rules first, and those have pretty much stayed the same beyond the occasional addition. The main thing is that Talents have taken a long time - two or three years? - to write on my own. For my next trick I do intend to go through them all, bringing the older Talents and terminology with the newer stuff.

Frankly, the idea of starting again from scratch scares the ever-living hell out of me, but if the test games show there is potential but a dramatic overhaul is needed, then I'll...probably give up and run away? I honestly am not sure how I'd deal with having to do all this again. It should be a lot faster with all the ideas written down.

There are a couple of builders in a cliff's notes kinda way, but they're not fully fleshed out. The first thing I'm gonna do before overhauling the talents is make sure I have some notes on standards to compare them too, so that should standardise things more. Hopefully. Maybe.

Is there a level restriction on Talent Ranks, like can I throw two talents into Berserker and start at Rank 2?

Yup! Ranks 1-3 are available from the get-go, rank 4 is available at level 5, rank 5 is available at level 10 and rank 6 is accessible from 15 up. It's mentioned a couple of places, but it's on the 'clarify so it's everywhere' list.

Mostly done with my character, hopefully I’ll be done by early in the coming week.

Sweet, good to hear!

Question on the Attribute Increase talent... says you can take it every 5 levels, once per attribute. Does that mean you can take it at first level, or does it mean that you can't take it till level 5?

From level 1. I think it's the only way, rules as are, to go over the 50% limit at level 1.

2d10 + 25 ⇒ (8, 1) + 25 = 34
2d10 + 25 ⇒ (7, 5) + 25 = 37
2d10 + 25 ⇒ (9, 7) + 25 = 41
2d10 + 25 ⇒ (2, 7) + 25 = 34
2d10 + 25 ⇒ (7, 9) + 25 = 41
2d10 + 25 ⇒ (10, 4) + 25 = 39
2d10 + 25 ⇒ (6, 9) + 25 = 40

From level 1. I think it's the only way, rules as are, to go over the 50% limit at level 1.

Not the only way... As a Nephilim I took angelic heritage *and* chastity, which both give you +10 to Willpower, so I could have technically gone over 50 if I hadn't switched to point buy and planned for that hard stop. :)

But cool. I'm going to have to take a hard look at my talents and see if any of them are worth trading for attribute increases.

JonGarrett wrote:

From level 1. I think it's the only way, rules as are, to go over the 50% limit at level 1.

Not the only way... As a Nephilim I took angelic heritage *and* chastity, which both give you +10 to Willpower, so I could have technically gone over 50 if I hadn't switched to point buy and planned for that hard stop. :)

I think it's specifically called out that you can't do that on the Character Creation page.

You have 100 points to distribute as you see fit among the seven attributes. There is a hard cap of 50 at the first level, including using Advantages and Species bonuses to go beyond it - 50 is the highest a first-level character gets. You may use Drawbacks to take your attributes below the 20 minimum.

That's the idea. Honestly, dice rolls were just something I threw in because, hey, some people like taking a chance. It's proving popular, though, so I'm gonna go look at it a little more later.

Yeah, that's why I said technically. My best option still had me at 53, so it was lose three points or switch to point-buy where I could distribute them elsewhere, which when I did the numbers actually helped me get a couple of other improvements, at least bonus-wise, even though I think the overall total was a couple of points fewer.

Overall I like the randomness of rolling and playing with what you get, but when I saw that the normal ways to add points were set at 5 and 10 and you couldn't distribute the numbers across different scores, then rolling just didn't seem to make sense anymore.

Here's what I've got done so far of my character. Still finishing it up, but the general idea is a psionic warrior who uses telekinetic weapon fighting and eventually some other telekinetic talents.

Hmmm. Maybe I should create something along the lines of Prodigy - You can start with one Attribute at 55% instead of 50% as an advantage?

The Psion looks good so far.

I've done a sweep through the combat talents for basic errors, added some content and detail to some talents that were lacking, and added a note on the 4th, 5th and 6th ranks about the level you need to be to take them.

Gonna do the Skilled talents tomorrow and then dig into the Magic talents after that. Magic is probably gonna get the biggest overhaul, probably getting a bit of beef up in some areas and some standardising in terminology.

That's the idea. Honestly, dice rolls were just something I threw in because, hey, some people like taking a chance. It's proving popular, though, so I'm gonna go look at it a little more later.

You know, dice perform an important role (pun intended :).

First, there's no risk unless the player makes a choice without knowing the outcome.

To make the outcome uncertain requires either randomness or gm fiat. If the gm arbitrarily decides success or failure, feels too much like bias and failure is entirely the gm's fault rather than chance/fate like it is with dice. That has a big impact on the player-gm relationship.

Even if the gm is honestly avoiding bias in their choice of whether the players succeed or fail, they can't entirely remove bias, and even if they could, it can still feel like bias is there, engendering negative feelings in a way that doesn't really happen with dice (unless somebody is truly screwing up socially).

Second, uncertainty is critical to investment in the story and characters, because you are taking a risk.

Whoops, I misphrased that - I mean dice rolls for attribute generation. The system itself was always d100 based.

All told, your character looks good! Got a name for this fine young Lizardfolk?

His name is Jeremy.

Whoops, I misphrased that - I mean dice rolls for attribute generation. The system itself was always d100 based.

Ah, I see.

I like rolling for stats as a source for inspiration and something to either work around or build upon.

But for building a specific concept, or optimized friendly game styles, point buy is generally better. However, I find that mixing the two in the same game can feel unfair for some.

I have noticed some Talents have no abilities at certain ranks, is this intentional or is it a work in progress?

I am specifically referring to Thunder Shock.

This is ElbowtotheFace's submission. Giantborn Warrior with some magic.

Work in progress, I'm afraid. I'm filling them in as I go, but to simply get things running I sometimes just made enough that you could go 1-6 with them.

Slight delay as I finish recovering from a nasty cold. I'm hoping to start play for the first table on Sunday, but I might still be looking for the lung I coughed up.

OK, apologies for the delay. I'm still feeling rough, so I'll postpone starting until Monday, which will hopefully let me finish editing the Magic and Skill talents.

Table One

Shada - Human - The Adventurer.

Jeremy - Lizardfolk - The Skilled.

Zandora - Nephilim - The Adventurer.

Cathiric - Giantborn - The Warrior.

We also have a few other folks interested, so if there are more completed sheets on Monday I'll add them to the table.

A gameplay thread to dot into would be divine.

Sounds great, thanks. Looking forward to seeing how the system works as we go.

Here's my psionic warrior. There's a few more things to add to the sheet but the lion's share is done.