New RPG Playtest Interest Check


Recruitment


Hello everyone,

I have been working on writing an RPG ruleset+campaign setting and I think it's ready for a public PBP playtest. My game is called Athakhis, after the planet it's set on.

Athakhis is a rules light, tactical, sword and sorcery RPG. It's set on a post-apocalyptic desert planet. You play a human with genie blood who has access to a few elemental magic powers. The setting strives for a non-European flavor, instead drawing influence from North African, Middle Eastern and South/Central Asian history and mythology.

Intellectual properties that have influenced me in creating Athakhis are Al-Qadim, Mad Max, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Avatar: the Last Airbender, One Thousand and One Nights, Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad movies, and Robert E. Howard's Hyborean Age.

Athakhis Setting Document

What I'm looking for right now is people who might be interested in checking out the setting and rules by playing through a short adventure set in and around Ahgradin.

The rules are so simple that I will teach the specifics after I select players. The core mechanic focuses around resource management in the form of pools of six sided dice. Outside of combat it plays very similarly to Pathfinder or D&D. Combat in Athakhis is like combat in RISK in many ways, it's about energy management and not extending oneself too far. It also utilizes the RPG standard five foot grid and tokens/miniatures to simulate battle, going for a skirmish wargame kind of feel.

I'm looking for 4-6 people ideally. If reading through the setting document gives you a character concept, go ahead and post it. I'll monitor this thread for any questions people might have. If I see enough interest, I'll go ahead and make it an official recruitment with more specific submission guidelines. Thanks for checking out my game!


Sounds pretty interesting. I'll try and post a concept soon.


Hi, I've read part of the document earlier and will finish reading it as soon as I get the chance, but so far I'm hooked! I'd love to take part in your playtest.


Definitely interesting. Still reading, though.


Read through the document and I am indeed interested.

As for concept, I have one that I like as of now.

It would be an Enlightened Judge, most probably a wise and kind one but severe with the judgemebt he imposes, specially those related in any way to the abuse of the Unenlightened. He would be a promoter of "Teach them with your actions, not with your words", a believer that each person has a path to enlightening but they need guidance.
As for "mechanics" you said you drew some inspiration from Avatar, and that's where this character would fall this character: a bender of some kind. Part martial artist, part "mage". Full awesome.


I should say a bit more about mechanics. Because the rules are so simple, the PCs will be much more "sameish" than they are in PFRPG. Every basic character is the same mechanically, they are differentiated through how much energy they have (how many dice are in their pool), their Aspect (Strength, Speed, Endurance or Intuition) and their Powers. A starting character is going to have an Aspect, and a starting Power. A max power character could have up to four Powers.

So you won't be able to gain the full flexibility a bender has in Airbender, but you'll have access to Powers which use all of the five elements. The PCs are more like traditional comic book heroes who are badass in a fight, but might only have a couple of 'superpowers'.

As far as physically fighting goes, all characters with the same sized dice pool are equally good at fighting. Ranged attacks are powers, but in melee everyone is essentially equal. Gear has no combat function in this game, so equipment doesn't affect things as much as PF either.


Also, I didn't mention this in the original post for some reason, but I am developing this game for the Roll20 marketplace, and specifically to be played using Roll20. So, all combat maps as well as the rules wiki and a copy of your character sheets will be stored in a Roll20 campaign I've set up for this. We will do rolls and gameplay here on the boards though.


Dotting for interest. Will read through the document tomorrow.

I love Al Qadim, I own a copy of Arabian Nights, I love the sinbad stories; I think this could work out nicely.


I'm definitely intrigued!


Alright, so I think I have an idea:

A geniekin child soldier mamluhk who fought in the rebellion, lost the rest of her squad in the fighting, and is now disillusioned with the current rule fifteen years later, and is looking for work.


oh. I'll have to drop out then. I don't have roll20. Hope you guys have fun :)


Well, Roll20 is free to use as a player. As long as you have unrestricted access to the web on a desktop browser it should work fine for you, ULTRAGEEK. If you can't access for whatever reason, then I understand. Thanks for showing interest.


The Doomkitten wrote:

Alright, so I think I have an idea:

A geniekin child soldier mamluhk who fought in the rebellion, lost the rest of her squad in the fighting, and is now disillusioned with the current rule fifteen years later, and is looking for work.

Sounds great :) If she's a mamluk, who is her owner? Or has she since been freed? It would be somewhat unusual to have a geniekin slave, but less so in the mamluk orders.


I would think that her owner was killed in the chaos of the rebellion, along with the majority of her order. Part of her personal arc would be to restore it to its former glory.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Hm, this sounds intriguing. Are you sure you're not going to shoot yourself in the foot via the fact that anything you post on Paizo's messageboards becomes their property?


Eh? The only thing posted here would be the text of our gameplay. If running a 3rd party published adventure as a PBP on these boards doesn't make the adventure Paizo property, then I should be fine I think. All we'll be doing here is the equivalent.


So far I've seen two actual character concepts. Anyone else inspired to the point of a character idea? If I can get two more we'll give this a whirl.


It definitely looks cool, but I'm also going to pass due to roll 20. I primarily play on mobile and roll20 doesn't have a good mobile format.


That's true. I do have pro subscription, so my players have access to the mobile version, but it wasn't great last time I tried to use it.

Well, looks like I'm not seeing enough commitment for an actual game, unfortunately. I'll leave this up here, but unless I see more interest I don't think this will become an actual game.

Community / Forums / Online Campaigns / Recruitment / New RPG Playtest Interest Check All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.