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So a few months back I was reading Kirth Gersen’s fantastically written Kirthfinder series and got to thinking that if I was to build a d20 system, how would I go about building it. With a lot of soundboarding with Christos Gurd and Dayton Johnson I think I’ve hammered out something worth looking at.
It’s called “Saguenay” (originally called “Scottfinder” as a bit of a homage). It’s an update to Pathfinder (and even a bit of 3.5) that introduces a few new aspects (kind of like what Little Red did with Necropunk). There are more shared party resources, kingdom building rules integrated into all levels of play (and mixed with some narrative aspects), a new more organic magic system (spells are more utilitarian, work on a resource rather than being vancian, and scale with level and resource investment), and a new class dynamic (you select 1 of three paths: noble, champion, or squad).
Thematically it’s got elements of the lost in fantasy trope, is more political, it’s very high fantasy, and is more “orderly” (as if the universe was kinda mildly lawfully aligned). Plus you can straight up play as a dragon. How cool is that?
Normally we design kind of behind closed doors, but I kind of wanted to open this concept up to the public. I’d say it’s 20-30% done, but a lot more has been short handed out in note form.
I’m going to open these documents to public editing (I can always revert them or change them if something gets messed up) and the like, so please feel free to provide feedback on the documents, post here to help contribute, or just give us some feedback. Small edits are fine (spelling and grammar stuff), but please post potential contributions here.
I’m intending on making as much of this open source/public domain as I can if/when it is finished.
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Hey Scott, sounds intriguing. Nice to hear Christos is on board.
So what is the proposed aim of Saguenay? Will it be a published work? For purchase? Or free like your Dune PDF?
[EDIT - never mind - you already answered that!]
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Before you settle on that name, I will post this.
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Maybe it refers to THIS? [EDIT - in a way it does - the introduction of the game document details the mythic land of Saguenay and how play is conducted within the framework of the political approach to the game.]
I'm not fond of the name personally, regardless of where it derives from, but that isn't a real issue. :P
I'll check out the link….
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Ha! Squad - a bit of Synergist with a dash of Battlelord… ;)
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Liking it Scott - shades of Necropunk (demonshells!!!), and Eberron (crests).
* I like the Harry combat maneuver. I've thought recently about a sacrifice/use of an iterative attack to deny one of your opponents….
* I don't see spell points in the Nobles 1st level ability write-ups, though it appears at 1st level in the progression chart. I would hope to get a crest at 1st level as well - I'm not one for dip avoidance, and all for getting to play with my toys at first level….
* No alignment! YAY!!!
* No undead. BOO!!! (There is till Necropunk….)
I think I intend to "publish" it at some point, but not as like as a paid product or anything. If it does get "published" it would be a free product (more as a way to distribute it) and it would also be available for free in one form or another on the web (whatever PDFs I do available on the web, maybe a wiki? A website?).
Yep- it was named after the Kingdom of Saguenay. I am not so in love with the name that it has to stay that. It actually went though like 4 name changes. Open to suggestions.
A crest should give them their spell points but your right- I should define spell point values at 1st level for noble. I forgot that I didn't transfer my notes on average spell point values over to noble.
The demonshells are going to be SO much fun to stat up. In fact, I can't wait for like all of the champion stuff.
The crests actually came out of a need for something to represent (physically) noble blood. I thought about doing wings, or a magic weapon, or special eyes, but ultimately when I added in the racial variance- I went with something more "general". It kind of accidentally bumped into Eberron in that fashion (though the dragonmarks ARE pretty cool).
Squad is still a WIP but yeah- they are very tactically minded. The real challenge is going to be defining equipment restrictions for them.
So alignment has been replaced with corruption points. Doing stupid/evil things is kinda karmically bad. This kinda flows into the narrative mechanics that corruption points provides so I see it as a bit of an upgrade (and hey- you can mitigate those corruption points anyway).
So there are no "undead". I want there to be very little resurrection magic in the game and make life and death more of a concrete "thing". I DO intent to have facsimiles (like plague affected races with a diminished mind).