If you were playing an RPG set in something like Fallout, Robotech or Starwars, and you had the option of designing your own Iron Man / Warmonger style suit of armor to wear:
How many pages of material would you be willing to read to do it?
My old gaming system has 30 pages, 8x11 font 8. It is quite a task if you aren't highly motivated to have a new hobby building power suits for RPGs.
I've attempted to read the special crafting rules in the Iron Kingdom's Setting Guide. They were just stupid complex. You could totally build magitec armor, it would just cost you several years of work and lots of XP (and in that setting using XP to craft led to potential Con loss).
I kind of want to design some Pathfinder power armor now...
Tristram wrote: I've attempted to read the special crafting rules in the Iron Kingdom's Setting Guide. They were just stupid complex. You could totally build magitec armor, it would just cost you several years of work and lots of XP (and in that setting using XP to craft led to potential Con loss).
I kind of want to design some Pathfinder power armor now...
I know what you mean. I couldn't handle even the computer hacking rules in Spycraft. I don't know that I'd play these design rules if I wasn't the one who wrote them.
A part of why they are so complex is because I wanted to include every possibility when I made them, so you can have a 7' tall one with both feet joining to a single wheel or one that looks like a 15' tall man with the pilot totally in the chest. You can design them to fly like a plane or stalk around like a tank. You can give them big guns and small guns or armor or better dodging or blah blah blah...
But story wise, they are basically used for 3 things: police actions against cyborgs, assaulting spaceships and space stations, and defending space ships and space stations. It occurs to me that the system could probably be a lot less involved.
More than that, the new book I'm finishing I hope to sell is sitting at about 190 pages, and I told myself I'd get it under 150. While that looks impossible now, I do have about 30 pages of power armor construction rules tacked in it that I'm not sure I need.
Interesting. What system is it designed to work with?
Tristram wrote: Interesting. What system is it designed to work with? It's my own home brew. Sort of its own thing.
Oops. I assumed you meant you had designed a support book for a current system.
30 pages does seem a little much, but I guess it depends how things are setup. If it's only a couple pages of how the designing system works, with maybe a side bar to paraphrase the rules and then the other pages are all suit modifications/types grouped by something like item slot, then it might not be too bad.
Tristram wrote: Oops. I assumed you meant you had designed a support book for a current system.
30 pages does seem a little much, but I guess it depends how things are setup. If it's only a couple pages of how the designing system works, with maybe a side bar to paraphrase the rules and then the other pages are all suit modifications/types grouped by something like item slot, then it might not be too bad.
That's pretty much how it is. I feel like it is swamped in unnecessary bad ideas. Plus, the steps are too detailed. I think I've got it brain stormed out how I'm going to combine all the various construction steps and I'm probably going to cut out one of the suit sizes, which doesn't make a lot of sense (where does the pilot go in 10' armor? His knees are in the hip joint).
Edit: I just don't want to risk throwing the math out. The suits are roughly balanced between movement and damage, and would hate to have to come up with something new.
Are you using some sort of system where each suit has X slots of this type and Y types of that type? If so, using something like that with just straight forward costs for the parts wouldn't be too bad. How detailed are you talking when you say "too detailed"?
If the part descriptions is too complex, I favor using a fluff paragraph for description, then a paragraph for crunch, and following up a simple cost/type line.
Edit: What sort of math are you talking about? Is it something like the cost math that 3.5/Pathfinder use where you have to worry about it scaling for level appropriateness?
A part of the main complexity issue, which doesn't take up a lot of print, but I perceive as conceptually difficult for people to get, is the idea that the size of a weapon and where it is mounted both have to be specified. So a gun a small suit holds and the shoulder gun of a larger suit might be equal in size, but that doesn't make them the same.
You would think that things like this would go without saying but for whatever reason, players really start trying to power game AND carry out the rule of cool at the same time when they see powerarmor construction, so I have to be very clear - and more clarity means more words means more noise means more pages means less is read.
I really feel the Paizo writers. They do a good job.
There are other problems and complexities. It is way more work than making a character. Characters take like 5 minutes tops. They take less than a minute if you kind of know what you want.
What I need is a real long hard look at it and narrow this down. It is worse than battletech right now.
You could always have sized item slots and then use sized options for your items along the lines that weapons usually do. That will give you some degree of control on sizing while still keeping things easy to use.
Powergamers can always be an issue, the problem with doubling down on them is that very often one can end up hurt one's own product simply by either making things to clinical and blah or just too plain complex.
5 minute character creation is pretty fantastic, having to spend half an hour to an hour on your armor puts you into the same category as other systems (or even ahead in many cases).
This is how I am visualizing how you're doing things. Would I be close?
Medium Kodiak Armor. Base Cost: 1st Born Child.
2 Medium Ranged Slots (Shoulder)
2 Small Ranged Slots (Chest)
2 Medium Versatile Slots (Wrists)
1 Medium Back Slot (Back)
Phlebotinum Gun:
Fires magnetically cased Phlebotinum ammunition. Lorem ipsum yadda yadda yadda.
20ft increment out to 10 increments. Deals 2d10 piercing damage and counts as awesome for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Can be manufactured for small or large size, dealing 2d8 or 2d12 damage respectively.
Medium/Ranged Slot. Cost: Arm and Leg
I would say the steps to the process should easily fit on 2-4 pages. Additional pages for options, modifiers, equipment, etc is cool. But the bulk of the work should be done with just a couple pages, mabe more if you have some large tables.
Some exceptions, like say you have to pick a chassis, turning then to the chassis section where each one gets it's own page isn't a big deal.
Tristram wrote: You could always have sized item slots and then use sized options for your items along the lines that weapons usually do. That will give you some degree of control on sizing while still keeping things easy to use.
Powergamers can always be an issue, the problem with doubling down on them is that very often one can end up hurt one's own product simply by either making things to clinical and blah or just too plain complex.
5 minute character creation is pretty fantastic, having to spend half an hour to an hour on your armor puts you into the same category as other systems (or even ahead in many cases).
This is how I am visualizing how you're doing things. Would I be close?
Medium Kodiak Armor. Base Cost: 1st Born Child.
2 Medium Ranged Slots (Shoulder)
2 Small Ranged Slots (Chest)
2 Medium Versatile Slots (Wrists)
1 Medium Back Slot (Back)
Phlebotinum Gun:
Fires magnetically cased Phlebotinum ammunition. Lorem ipsum yadda yadda yadda.
20ft increment out to 10 increments. Deals 2d10 piercing damage and counts as awesome for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Can be manufactured for small or large size, dealing 2d8 or 2d12 damage respectively.
Medium/Ranged Slot. Cost: Arm and Leg
Close. The only thing missing is that you buy the slot. Each chassis gets X mounting points. Things you pick with mounting points have a credit cost.
Right now you pick the frame's size, followed by the leg style, purchase armor, engine and booster. Calculate how much energy you have left. Purchase hard points and equipment.
Irontruth wrote: I would say the steps to the process should easily fit on 2-4 pages. Additional pages for options, modifiers, equipment, etc is cool. But the bulk of the work should be done with just a couple pages, mabe more if you have some large tables.
Some exceptions, like say you have to pick a chassis, turning then to the chassis section where each one gets it's own page isn't a big deal.
Thanks, yeah, it would be nice to cram everything besides purchasing options onto the first 2 or 3 pages. Ideally, I want everything including the primary and secondary weapon and have all the points spent. Then, if they have points left because they underpurchased other things, they could then go on to the additional options.
Woah, you even have them buying hardpoints? How do you have that set up, per section or for the whole unit?
With the degree of complexity you are going with I am starting to see while there is so much detail. I'm thinking you need some well designed tables to mitigate the complexity of this.
Tristram wrote: Woah, you even have them buying hardpoints? How do you have that set up, per section or for the whole unit?
With the degree of complexity you are going with I am starting to see while there is so much detail. I'm thinking you need some well designed tables to mitigate the complexity of this.
Yeah, I have but don't know how to use Excel.
You don't need to have Excel, Google Docs has an option to create charts in their word documents. I'm using it for my Tome of Battle adaptation to Pathfinder rules. I suggest just foing a mockup of some basic stuff, then tweak the table until it covers what you want. After that it just flow along nicely.
Tristram wrote: You don't need to have Excel, Google Docs has an option to create charts in their word documents. I'm using it for my Tome of Battle adaptation to Pathfinder rules. I suggest just foing a mockup of some basic stuff, then tweak the table until it covers what you want. After that it just flow along nicely. Thanks for the tip!
Is this ment to be more of a class or equipment anyone can buy?
The mix and match component sounds similar to the summoner. Have you considered writing it up in a similar style?
Have you considered making it a supplement apart from the main book? Or doing basic stuff in the main book and making an expanded set of options in a supplement? Consider including the base options and rules in the expanded option. As much as I hate paying for the same material twice, if it is an inexpensive, PDF, it might be nice to have all the material in the same place.
I was really turned on by the concept of it being used in fallout games. I love that universe!
I also really like the idea of being able to customize the suite. That is one of the reasons I love the game front mission 4 and why I also love the summoner/eidolon.
I love love to see any samples of both this work and the book of nine swords stuff you did.
Raymond Lambert wrote: Is this ment to be more of a class or equipment anyone can buy?
The mix and match component sounds similar to the summoner. Have you considered writing it up in a similar style?
Have you considered making it a supplement apart from the main book? Or doing basic stuff in the main book and making an expanded set of options in a supplement? Consider including the base options and rules in the expanded option. As much as I hate paying for the same material twice, if it is an inexpensive, PDF, it might be nice to have all the material in the same place.
I was really turned on by the concept of it being used in fallout games. I love that universe!
I also really like the idea of being able to customize the suite. That is one of the reasons I love the game front mission 4 and why I also love the summoner/eidolon.
I love love to see any samples of both this work and the book of nine swords stuff you did.
Thanks. I think you might have me confused with someone else - I didn't do any Book of 9 Swords stuff. Wish I could claim I did.
It will only be a couple of weeks until I put a PDF of this up for sale. I'm running a game with this system right now which is covering my play test. The only big hurtle is rewriting the suit design, which I think I just hit the nail on the head of.
I don't want to make a separate supplement for this. In previous games, designing power suits / kill bots with these rules has been the main fun people playing engineers have, sense starship engineering is mostly a glossed over story element - and people who liked the old system, really liked it.
Raymond Lambert wrote: I love love to see any samples of both this work and the book of nine swords stuff you did. It's still very much a work in progress, I'll pass you a link to the Google docs page once it's a little further along.
I do have to add that I am using two disciplines that have been made by the guys over at Libram of Battle (Iron Tortoise and Raging Storm) in addition to the originals. Here's their stuff: http://sorcererstudios.com/forumdisplay.php?3-Libram-of-Battle
Back on subject; If you aren't using the armor stuff as a common core concept, then Raymond may be right. Using just the bare-bones stuff in the main book and the nitty gritty details in a separate book would allow players to quickly look over just those rules if they needed. (and makes for easier printing if they want a hard copy of their pdf)
Edit: @cranewings: You swordsage'd me as I was typing this! I hope whatever you figured out works for you, best of luck!
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