Hi my name is Blood! I have a game I have been working on for a long time(albeit with a big break in the middle,lol),it was originally inspired to be a Deadman wonderland fan game but has since became so much more. It has now become a concept for a prison arena battle scenario not based on blood but different unique power sets. It's still pretty bare bones,as I'm a creator but have never been a gm(I originally began working on this with the intention of getting someone else to gm it so I could play,lol) I really need some testers who could help me with the actual mechanics of a good tabletop,I'm borrowing get heavily from the day system but it is also very Warden(This games Gm) driven. I really hope this sounds interesting too someone as I would love to share your creation so far.
As for what will happen,the game will be ran very loosely,figuring out tweaks as we go,I plan to alter things as we play with input from the testers,I am extremely open to any and all critiques as I really just wanna make a game that I want to play. I look forward to hearing get from you!!
sounds interesting, send me the game and mechanics and I'll have the answer for you. I've DMed Pathfinder and 5e if that helps.
Awesome,I'm gonna begin putting the rest of the info on here shortly. There is quite a bit of it,so it might take a little while. I'm going to put it up in pieces.In regards to your dm experience,it would help unfortunately while I love creating,I've never enjoyed the idea of being a Gm(I'm a player through and through) so the mechanics are kind of my issue. I think you will understand once you see what I have,thank you so much for the interest. I really want to finish this so I can play it.
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Prison Arena
Welcome to Hellgate(Insert your prisons name),the most expensive maximum security prison in the world.It is also the only prison to be turned into a coliseum-like amusement park where people come from all over the world to watch the worst their planet has to offer compete for their lives in a variety of battles and games.The inmates race through deadly obstacle courses,fight in battle royals as well as one on one duels filled with killer traps and even sometimes compete in silly but deadly mini games in between the bigger events.
The prisoners are all equipped with a micro-chip/neck meter combination that can keep them alive by healing anything that would kill them(doesn't activate for anything but life threatening injuries).The micro-chips are programmed to display 100 health points on the prisoners neck meter. It calculates damage for any injuries sustained by the prisoner then subtracts the number from the 100 health points given. When the number reaches zero the prisoner no longer has the protection provided by the embedded micro-chip.
Now we at Hellgate believe in providing our customers with a truly unique experience,to that end we have done many many experiments and have come up with all kinds of augmentations we can apply to our prisoners. You my friend are a detriment to your fellow man,you have been condemned,you are a new prisoner here,your gonna die here. At least you will be able to do things beyond your wildest dreams.
Okay so you want me to..
1. Create races with obstacles, duels and arenas?
2. Create NPCs?
3. Create abilities?
4. Is this a d20 system or do you want it to be?
5. Create a buy point system?
6. Other stuff?
As a tinkerer myself, and a creator of my own system as well, I'll take a look.
I've read through dozens of rpg systems and varients, and played a dozen or so and gm'd several.
@ DoubleGold,
Don't forget, there is a difference between the system rules and the character options, even when the latter has unique rules attached.
Starting to put up more info now,I got cut with a chainsaw at work so it kind of hampered me lol
The powers you can have are experiments that were performed on you against your will. To simulate this your powers are chosen with a d12 roll. The list coming is the powers in order.
(Starting with my personal favorite)(There's a lot of nesis's lmao)
Hydrokinesis:The ability to control water.Can change any aspect of the water being controlled,from its form,pressure as well as temperature. Can not create water.
Telekinesis:The ability to lift objects to with your mind.With practice can manipulate many objects at one time and can even make telekinetic traps.
Rune:Can create runes on any surface with a variety of unique effects. A jack of all trades can create runes to make spikes,poison gas,tentacles,webs and anything else that the mind can imagine.The weakness of rune is that the powers are much weaker then others of the same level. It is more of a utility power not really able to output much damage,relying more on unique tactics to win the day.
Metal control:Can bend,shape as well as control metal at will. Can even alter the density of metal within a certain radius according to the user's ability. With practice the radius grows in size and the power user gain s the ability to make metal constructs giving them temporary life. Can create machines at a incredible rate.
Smoke production:Can produce smoke out of any pore or hole on the users bocy. Can transform into some and increase temperature of smoke.
Terrakinesis:The ability to grow as well as control plants instantly. Can communicate with plant life in a limited way. Can create spores from their body with various effects.
Supersoldier:The Supersoldier is a human at peak performance. Their Strength,Speed,Intelligence,Endurance and charisma are naturally much higher than a normal humans(manifesting in +2 to all stats at the character creation). Their bones are 3 times harder than a normal humans.(manifesting in higher starting health)
Pyrokinesis:The ability to manipulate fire. Can control it's shape,temperature as well as creating a lot of inferno from a tiny spark. The Pyro kinetic suffers no burns or pain from fires.
Shadowstalker:can produce shadows.Has the ability to teleport between shadows as well as give some limited life to shadows.
Energy production:can produce energy out of hands,mouth,eyes and feet. The energy can be used in many different forms as well as being searing or concussive.
As interesting as that is, perhaps we should start at the beginning.
What are the core rules?
Things like what powers the players will get are not core rules and are not even fundemental to a system. Player options need to come last so they can be built on a solid foundation. Otherwise you end up with a complete mess of dissimilar and dysfunctional mechanics, the primary problem addressed by d20 that made it so unbeatable in the first place.
In designing the core rules, we need to know what constraints, abilities (I.E. allows spellcasting, allows technology, etc), traits (roll lots of dice or just one, pass-fail-crit or descriptive results, etc), and foci (story, agency, or combat tactics) you want for the system (as opposed to a particular scenerio you want to run with the system).
Psychokinesis:Has the ability to cast illusions. Can sense as well as exploit fears,even making them come to life. If the opponent fails the save rolls against this characters illusions they can do real damage to their body.
Savage:The Savage can transform his body/body parts into many different things as well as grow new ones. All the users transformations are geared toward monsters. From razor claws to giant fangs,horns or tusks,as well as demonic looking tentacles,scorpion like tails,or even wings. With practice can hold multiple transformations at once even transforming the whole body.
All that stuff is what I'm still working on,as I said I'm a writer,I've always created story lines,characters and worlds. The numerical mechanics are what I'm needing help with. I'm gonna continue putting up my skeleton to show what I have,so I can give a good understanding of what I need.
This itself isn't a specific scenario it's the core of where the game will begin. It can be any named prison but it's always a prison. There's not just battles,there will be obstacle courses,death foot races,silly but deadly events.
The concept will be the players imagination mixing with the wardens(gm) imagination. The powers are to be mixed with a large number of unique items,where the characters will combine items and the like to create techniques,strategys.In example:my favorite the hydrokinesis power. I would get some kind of sealable containers to fill with water and place on my body. Then I would use pressure control to fire them off like bullets. As I said I'm more of a player/writer but I would love to figure out how to make this a workable thing so I can play it. That is literally my goal,to play this game.
I'm gonna put up character creation then explain the stuff I it.
To begin creating get your prisoner roll a d12 to select your ability. Once you have your ability choose how you want your 10 free Stat points to be allocated,all stats start at 1.
Pick 2 technique points which go towards what you can do with your power easily.Get +1 for each rank.
Next pick 2 fav,ranks and 1 dis,rank. Each rank in a particular fav,or dis adds a +1 or -1 respectively to any rolls concerning them.
Examples of fav/dis include:
+1 to dodge rank:1
+1 to disarm rank:1
-1 to intimidation rank:1
Technique and Rank Scale
1 point rank 1
1 point rank 2
2 points rank 3
2 points rank 4
3 points rank 5
3 points rank 6
Fame starts at 0.
Add 500 Battle points to your character sheet.
Last but certainly not least fill min your description. Every character starts with a blue-grey prison uniform with bare-feet.
What is it?
Battle Points-Battle points are the currency for prisoners and the only way prisoners can access the arena shop and gain the items they need.
Fame-Every competition,every fight,every event can gain you recognition. According to how the judges grade you,how the crowd reacts to you and how much your involvement changed the course of the event. The higher the players fame the harder competitions they can enter,the harder the competitions the higher the battle points awarded.As the prisoners fame rises they are given access to better parts of the prison,some parts of which were even built to function as small towns and communities. The best parts resembling luxurious castles and huge properties.Their lives improve with their fame.
Hunger-It represents how hungry you are. You must eat at least twice a day,if you fail to do so by the end of the day you will lose 25 hunger points for each meal you missed. If you hit zero all your stats will be cut in half and you will run at half speed with a chance of falling unconcious.
Level up- when leveling up a prisoner gains a technique point,a fav rank point,a attribute point
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What you have is not a skeleton, it is a skin.
Take Mario, give him a striped shirt and have him rescue a fellow prisoner from the prison warden. Have you changed how it plays or even what makes it fun? Not one bit. He still runs to the right, jumps on enemies, leaps over chasms, and sinks into things to go elsewhere.
The prison concept is not a system, it is dressing for the system.
Think of it like a book. On one hand you have the story being told, that is your prison idea, but on the other hand, you have the language and format the book is written in, that would be the system.
Much like how you can have dozens of genres of stories all written in 3rd person, past tense, american english, so too is a system simply a methodology to inform and not the story itself.
Yes, a system can have more or less support for a particular story, but the system is never the story itself, much like how some stories are better with 1st person, present tense.
Lmao,ha the was pretty cool,you helped me understand that perfectly. So I guess I need to pose a new question what path do I need to take in order to somehow make this a playable skin so I can be apart of this story?
First is to identify what you want play to focus on.
For example, tactics and strategy, exploration of the lore/situation, exploration of the powers and abilities ("What are these powers, what can we do with them, and in what ways can we use them?"), acheiving an "end game" goal (I.E. escape the prison, or die in flamboyant and hilarious ways).
You can have one or multiple, but you shouldn't have too many.
Now, you can include elements outside the foci, but the foci is what the players should be engaged with most of the time.
The foci serve a purpose, they are what everything else revovles around. Similar to a horror book being about the scares or being about the antagonist's character (or something else).
Example, when I want to play a game about strategy and tactics, I play 4e, but when I want to have a game about character agency, I'll play d20 or savage worlds instead.
The foci us what you want thr players to be doing or thinking about 80% of the time.
In my mind the focus was never to escape but to make it to the top and live out their lives in the luxuries providing to he best of the best in the prison. It's all about your scores that the judges give you mixed with how pumped you get the crowd. Although if players wanted to try to escape I suppose that's always a option as I want this to be as u restrictive as possible. I expect it to be a very heavy Gm game where it's less about finding the correct answer to a solution and more about coming up with unique ways to interact with the world around them.
I would want it to be a decent mix of rp and combat.
Well, let's break that into bullet points.
- player goal, improve social rank
- plenty of options for creatively interacting with the world
- freedom of player choice
- good mix of rp and combat
The first one is going to be a challenge because the moment you say "prison," players are going to assume escape as the goal. We can work with it, but it won't be easy and likely few others picking up the game would get it right. However, we could also generalize that, so it could be your prison idea or gladiator or other similar concepts. Generalizing will make the system more solid and flexible, but then you'll need to still find ways to get your players to go along with such a contradictory to stereotype player goal. I already have ideas for this but those will have to wait till later.
The second and third bullets will come into play later in the design process.
The last point means we need the most basic mechanics to be flexible enough to handle more than just combat, and believe me, unified mechanics in this regard will be a good thing. You could in theory have different mechanical foundations for the different encounter types, but unified mechanics will be needed to provide that flexibility mentioned in bullet point #2, not to mention making the game easier to learn and play.
So, the most basic core mechanic would be the equivalent of d20's d20.
To make our decision here we should review your experience with other systems and then brainstorm ideas.
So, the first thing, what other systems have you played, and what things have stood out about them that you loved or hated?
I'd just like to jump in here and suggest Savage Worlds as the system to use. Most (if not all) of BloodYakura's "powers" can be represented by SW's Superpower Companion (especially, if in his mind, you can activate the same power multiple time during a battle, which d20's magic system won't let you do). His Fame can be Charisma, and his Hunger can be implemented by Fatigue. And since a starting SW PC starts out with $500, you could just directly rename "available cash" as Battle Points, especially since they're used to buy stuff.
Just throwin' it out there...
That depends, though it is one of the reasons I was asking what systems he knew and what he liked or didn't like.
If SW is a new system for him, making his own would actually be better in the end despite the extra work. Building from other systems he knows might still be viable depending on what they are.
Sorry, but I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree that making his own system would be easier than learning SW. I've created a fantasy-roleplaying system, and the first several months of using it entailed "debugging" the system, and making sure everything's balanced, and making lots of changes. I think the learning curve for SW is short enough that it would be quicker to learn than to debug a new system, especially if it's a mash-up of different systems (leading to the old "oil-and-water" problems). And altho SW isn't *perfectly* balanced, it's been around long enough that most of the kinks have been worked out. Also, seeing as the OP is more interested in *playing* the game, why take the time to create a new system?
But, that's just me...
I've played pathfinder as well as read a lot of dungeons and dragons stuff. I've been apart of alot of freeform which probably contributes to me being crap at mechanics,lol.I think I like the idea of creating my own system. With the way sage put it no matter the work it takes,when it's finished I will have a skeleton that I can make many different skins for. That sounds truly exciting!
@zen
Running a game well, and allowing a lot of flexibility and creativity in particular, takes a lot more in depth familiarity with a system than simply being a player would. Designing a system, aloe or with help, goes a long way towards having that familiarity, not to mention having the comfort level to adjust and adjucate as needed (something that is quite hindered for many gms even for d20 which expounds greatly on doing so).
@yakura
What are the things you like most and dislike most about Pathfinder?
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Here are some resources for you to explore, but I'd really like you to watch this first video in particular. It is one of the Extra Credits youtube videos. Now Extra Credits generally focus on video games, but about 80% of what they discuss is just a good for GMs and tabletop games as well.
So that first video is about what makes players roleplay.
here
The rest of this stuff is good helpful reading or watching, and I highly recommend looking over Extra Credits entire collection, but this is just some highlights. I don't expect you to go through this stuff very quickly. Take your time so you absorb and understand it without burning yourself out on it. As we continue, I won't assume you've seen any of it, so no pressure.
You should definitely enable failure to spur character growth as well as to "always fail forward,"
here
Quest design, of course, this is good for scenerio design and how you want players to know what to do next,(two parter)
here
here
Choke full of articles that I'd make required reading for any GM or design course,
here
For a bit of insight into d20 (of which pathfinder is a varient), read this for some perspective on d20's design,
here
What I'm reading sounds more like an mmorpg than a tabletop or paper and die roleplay.
Like a grind without a deeper story.
Probably because you can't definitely finish it. Getting to the top is the goal for every player, so that then creates conflict in between players.
Most probably because it started as a Deadman Wonderland fan game, it sounds a lot like a shonen.
It would be interesting to add the aspect that your crime determines your 'class skills'. Though I guess if its DMW based then they might be innocent.
I'd be interested in seeing what the leveling system is for each power. Some sound really unbalanced. Like why can one person create smoke or spores from their body but the water person can't even when the human body is mostly water?
It would be interesting to see a multi talent tree or something similar. Lead to combining of abilities, like gestalt or VMC.
I would like to see what you habe before I keep spouting stuff you might already have XD
If you don't like to GM, you are unlikely to succeed at building your own game system. It's like someone who doesn't like drawing (and doesn't know how) declaring their goal for December to be a self-portrait sketch, because that would be cool to have. Sure, a self-portrait sketch is cool, but the person in this fake story is only going to end up with a :) if they don't enjoy drawing.
Building a game system is a large undertaking. What you are describing designing is an adventure or campaign scenario, and you've put very little work into it. The lack of work you've invested makes it clear you will never finish building your own functional game system (functional meaning anyone will want to GM it or play it with you).
If you ever seriously want to design your own game system, learn to GM one yourself first. Learn all the rules and strategies from both sides of the GM screen. Then you will be closer to having the experience necessary to understand what goes into a game system. If that doesn't sound fun, consider facing reality. You'll never create from-scratch french toast if you never learn to bake bread... but you can do what most people do and just buy the bread from the store (or in this metaphor, use an existing game system).
As for writing this scenario for an existing system, go for it if you're enjoying it. That's the kind of thing that GMs enjoy doing (so maybe you would enjoy being one after all). As a GM, I write scenarios that I would love to play in. That's part of the passion. However, don't expect to get this right the first time or anytime soon if you've never done it before.
Try not to be discouraging. Lots of people tend to think it is really difficult, but mostly it is simple but takes lots of iteration. Besides, start small with minimum viable product, then add small bite sized pieces. Very doable.