So I'm trying to make a homebrew RPG system....

LOAD Cherry

Who wants to help? I am in over my head @_@

Haven

What kind of game do you want it to be?

glennmagusharvey

what is the purpose of your system?  is it to simulate combat?  to simulate social interactions on an individual scale?  to simulate social phenomena on a broad scale?  to allow people to indulge in fantasies, and if so, what kinds, setting-wise or content-wise?  do you want the system to be more conceptual or more simulational?  do you expect or desire for the players to attempt to find mechanical combos, or do you expect them to be more concerned with making the most of the flavor?  is this for existing characters, or original characters?  does it have a fixed setting, or is it meant to be a generic that could work for multiple settings?

LOAD Cherry

I want it to be able to have a similar level of combat to non-combat ratio as modern D&D, with skill systems for non combat situations and social interaction. In terms of the game, I want character creation to be somewhat flexible, with players being able to add elements of other classes to their primary class in order to allow their character to become more personalized to the player's wishes.

In terms of setting, I have one in mind, but the system should be flexible enough to fit multiple settings. The setting I had in mind was a modern fantasy with a fair amount of computer and information network components to go along with the social aspects of the game, but that needn't be a strict necessity for play in the system. But if the system has to facilitate the modern aspects I want to include (ie; social networking, product brands, firearms, even robots and what have you) I would rather the system be bent to those needs.

Ideally, the heart of this system should be customization. Not so unlimited as GURPS (which I have no intention of even attempting to emulate), but more than say D&D and Pathfinder. Each player should be able to make their character meet their aesthetic and mechanical preferences without being punished for their attempts to make the character their own.

LOAD Cherry

Here are my ideas regarding mechanics so far. I'm working on worldbuilding separately.

MadassAlex

Generally speaking, it's best to make rules, mechanics, and tools simple. RPGs have a lot of information clutter, which is why video game RPGs can do mostly as they wish, but tabletop ones have to compromise mechanically. I consider the d10 to be the best overall basis for a system with random elements, as each outcome on the die is a neat 10% chance, and everyone basically understands that off the bat. So it's worth thinking about whether you really need your outcomes to be separated into 5% chances. If your system requires that, by all means stick with the d20 basis, but there are strong alternatives.

On a related note, it's best not to use too many different types of dice. Another reason I favour d10 systems is that they tend to only use d10, which also means that each mechanic can be calculated for in exactly the same way. The more different die types you introduce, the more difficult it becomes for players to guess the likelihood of their desired outcome (d6, d8, and d12 are particularly guilty here). 

If you want high customisation, it might be best to ditch committed classes in the first place. Some of the most versatile RPGs don't use class systems as all, and you could easily attach some abilities to stat requirements instead (such as a certain tier of spells requiring X in the "Attunement" stat, or whichever). Alternatively (or in addition), some abilities could be linked to narrative context or narrative traits contained within a character. 

One of the greatest advantages tabletop RPGs have over their video game counterparts is how versatile they can be in the moment of gameplay, so you can have rules that pertain to very specific character actions, socialisation, and/or themed behaviour. I'd encourage you to divert a bit from the d20 system standard and consider how you might make your RPG reflect its setting. One way might be to have special mundane attacks, magical spells, and psi abilities work in overtly different ways rather than sharing too much. Perhaps special mundane attacks are variations on the standard attack option, but provide additional traits to the attack, such as a defensive saving roll against retaliation? Magical spells might have some kind of penalty relative to the degree of failure, making them high risk. Psi abilities might carry the cost of rendering the user temporarily psychologically vulnerable, perhaps with the risk of them acquiring a psychological disorder if that vulnerability is exploited.  

The d20 system is a really well-trodden road, and there are already one hell of a lot of published and homebrew systems for it. A sufficiently versatile homebrew system from the ground up would probably be more rewarding and end up being more representative of your narrative concept. 

LOAD Cherry

I'll think about all of that, thanks for the input. I just figured d20 would be easier to start with and then modify as necessary, because I've never made an RPG system before, which is something I needed to consider.

I'm not gonna set anything in stone right now. I first need to figure out just what the hell I'm doing before I commit to anything. It has to work, or indeed have any rules at all, before I can figure out all of that nitty gritty.

MadassAlex

In that case, the first thing to determine is probably how to measure success and failure. You could use the difficulty class system from D&D, but other RPGs use stuff like pools, wherein a number of dice are rolled separately against a (usually) lower threshold value and outcomes are based on the overall number of successful/unsuccessful rolls. 

One (often overlooked) advantage of d10 pools is how much bigger they feel than rolling a d20. When you're more powerful, or invest more of your character's power into a particular outcome, rolling more dice has more physical feedback overall. Rolling from a pool of dice also allows players to potentially select how many dice they might want to invest in a particular roll, so there's more possible representation of perishable or replenishing resources. 

I bring this up in particular because you expressed a preference for versatility and customisation, which is better served by things like pools of smaller dice and classless systems than the d20 standard, at least in my experience. 

glennmagusharvey

I got an idea depending on whether you want to incorporate something like this into your vision for your system.

Let people make themed character abilities.

This is a rather silly idea, but could feel pretty cool if done right, and you'd have to make sure they're viable and balanced.

But if you have some slate of elements or themes, you could allow people to come up with abilities -- such as slates of magic spells -- themed on their backgrounds, interests, personal affinities, and such.

Perhaps it's something that says something about their character. Say, one detective has wind powers because his thing is subtly uncovering secrets, while another is more interested in aggressively pursuing the cause of justice and instead has fire powers.

Mechanically, this means balanced and customizable slates of abilities, whose customizations could be used to tie into the narrative.

LOAD Cherry

MadassAlex said:

In that case, the first thing to determine is probably how to measure success and failure. You could use the difficulty class system from D&D, but other RPGs use stuff like pools, wherein a number of dice are rolled separately against a (usually) lower threshold value and outcomes are based on the overall number of successful/unsuccessful rolls. 

One (often overlooked) advantage of d10 pools is how much bigger they feel than rolling a d20. When you're more powerful, or invest more of your character's power into a particular outcome, rolling more dice has more physical feedback overall. Rolling from a pool of dice also allows players to potentially select how many dice they might want to invest in a particular roll, so there's more possible representation of perishable or replenishing resources. 

I bring this up in particular because you expressed a preference for versatility and customisation, which is better served by things like pools of smaller dice and classless systems than the d20 standard, at least in my experience. 

I was considering D6 pools for this very reason, as d6s are easy to buy in bulk, even if the math is, strictly speaking, easier with d10s. I'll look into how that system works though, if it needs the larger dice to function, d10s it will be. I'm given to understand World of Darkness works on a d10 pool system?

glennmagusharvey said:

I got an idea depending on whether you want to incorporate something like this into your vision for your system.

Let people make themed character abilities.

This is a rather silly idea, but could feel pretty cool if done right, and you'd have to make sure they're viable and balanced.

But if you have some slate of elements or themes, you could allow people to come up with abilities -- such as slates of magic spells -- themed on their backgrounds, interests, personal affinities, and such.

Perhaps it's something that says something about their character. Say, one detective has wind powers because his thing is subtly uncovering secrets, while another is more interested in aggressively pursuing the cause of justice and instead has fire powers.

Mechanically, this means balanced and customizable slates of abilities, whose customizations could be used to tie into the narrative.

This is what I'm hoping to achieve by having all the classes (which I am tentatively calling "Fields" now) I listed above. I don't plan on linking those fields to any particular sort of flavor outside of what their abilities inherently entail, so that players could define their characters without being restricted to follow the guidelines laid out by their field. The reason I want to stick to having predefined sets of abilities is so that players who are less familiar with pen and paper RPGs have a guideline for what their character's mechanical role is and what abilities they would be able to take advantage of.

As with any RPG, the player could come up with their own spells, psi powers, techniques or what have you, that they would have to run past the GM, and I intend to encourage this if I ever end up publishing the system. But I'd rather make that an option rather than a required part of the game.

Haven

Knightess Cerise said:

I'll think about all of that, thanks for the input. I just figured d20 would be easier to start with and then modify as necessary, because I've never made an RPG system before, which is something I needed to consider.

I'm not gonna set anything in stone right now. I first need to figure out just what the hell I'm doing before I commit to anything. It has to work, or indeed have any rules at all, before I can figure out all of that nitty gritty.

I think going with the d20 system is a good idea. It gives you a solid shell of resolution mechanics, which saves you a lot of time trying to tweak the math, so you can get to the core of what you want the system to do.

Aside from that, looking at what you have so far, I think streamlining all the major categories into one or two classes each and then letting all the variants be represented by options you can take as you level up would make it easier for players to decide where to start. (Maybe along the lines of "Strong Fighter, "Finesse Fighter", "Tricky Wizard", "Blasty Wizard", "Telekinesisicst", and "Telepath"? Planning names, of course.)

Information age fantasy has a lot of potential. How would that represented mechanically and to what degree? Do the different classes interact with technology in different ways, would there be a separate advancement system for that, or is that what you would mainly use Skills for?

LOAD Cherry

Well, the whole classes ("fields") thing is a work in progress, but I don't think that the possibilities I wanted to make available to the player can be simplified into six large categories so easily (Maybe 9 or 12 would work, though). I think there is some room to collapse fields, but I wanted to put every conceivable build target or skill set on paper. Not to mention I feel like making the fields too internally flexible makes them easier for a new player to make a misstep during character building. Not to say I don't want any flexibility within each field, but rather I want the customization to be coming from the player's melding the abilities of multiple fields into a single build.

(Not to mention part of how I'm differentiating psi from magic is that psi is inherently less flexible, but less resource intensive as well. If the psi fields are made too general, this aspect of design is lost and it just becomes magic with a different flavor.)

As for the mechanics of information age fantasy, I haven't lined that out. I think that there would be aspects of each class field that interract with technology in some fashion, and I figure it would very much be something all players regardless of field should be able to interact with, so it would probably be some combination of skill ranks and the equivalent of feats.

LOAD Cherry

So I'm thinking of making the dice rolling for this system be roll xd6 and sum up the highest 3, for the most part. It has my preference for the following reasons.

• d6s are easy to buy in bulk, with most gaming stores selling boxes with anywhere from 10 to 36 of them.
• As mentioned above, the feeling of rolling lots of dice has good game feel.
• In addition to this, by using a sum of  highest x rolls system, player growth is marked by an increase in consistency approaching higher levels of performance within the same area, where a raw d20 roll with modifiers is just as inconsistent, but the results are simply larger.

Granted it has the following cons

• DCs are harder to increment. 
• On a d20 with bonuses roll, assuming a strength bonus of 0, a level 1 character with a full BAB needs to roll a 16 to hit a character with an AC of 17.  That character at level 2 with a full BAB needs to roll the same number to hit a character with an AC of 18.
• On my system, assuming that all modifiers come in the form of extra dice, it takes a bit more math to figure out how much harder a check is. A character rolling 4d6 highest 3 is more likely to meet a DC of 14 than a character rolling 3d6, but how much more likely is not as simple. This makes ad-hoc DC adjustments harder to implement without fixed number bonuses.
• More consistency might actually be more boring for players, perhaps?

All pros and cons aside, here's a chart of roll results by how many d6s were rolled with accompanying power level table. 

MadassAlex

Knightess Cerise said:

10d6: h3- Deific. Failure is impossible. Death is inevitable for all who oppose Them but Their own equals. To obtain this power from a mortal birth is achieved only once in the lifetime of a universe. To gaze upon one of this power at work would strain the comprehension of a mortal’s perception of reality. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Under no circumstance but the most absolute and dire reaches of the GM’s ire should any character, player or otherwise, be of this ability.

'-'

Looking good. Your scale should provide plenty of room for balancing. Additionally, your could look into the inclusion of re-rolls as a mechanic or bonus (this might be a good option for weapons, abilities, or some kind of abstract attribute). 

Haven

Knightess Cerise said:

• More consistency might actually be more boring for players, perhaps?
  

I don't think this is true, people get excited by the possibility of success. Failure is boring.

Although on that note, are you familiar with Dungeon World (or other "Powered by the Apocalypse" games, like EmFury)? It's a d6 system, I think its ideas might help with some of the things you're thinking about here. It also has a really good "if you fail, stuff still happens" mechanic (which is a nice distinction from other systems which can be like "if you fail, nothing happens and you just feel kind of bad").

Alduin

If it's running on d6es, consider checking out Burning Wheel.

LOAD Cherry

Burning Wheel seems pretty neat, but it seems like Dungeon World's system is more similar to what I'm trying to go for, if not perfect.

I think that now I will start trying to figure out game play.

LOAD Cherry

Originally the three mental stats were Intellect, Insight, and Influence. And while I thought that bit of word play was cool, it might be confusing if abbreviated.

Which do you guys like better?

• Intellect (IT) vs Cunning (CN)
• Insight (IS) vs Wisdom (WS)

Influence stays because I don't want it to be conflated with physical attractiveness like Charisma sometimes is in other games. I want it to be a measure of all  of the factors that go into influencing people, or in the case of psychics, the world itself.

Alduin

Not sure why WIS is still there, tbh. I never understood the Int/Wis divide in D&D.

LOAD Cherry

I do. Wisdom can be about understanding things that are not immediately obvious with concrete observation. It's about sensitivity and understanding in a natural, intuitive way. There are a lot of characters in fiction, and indeed people, who have learned a lot through education, but still can't pick up on subtle social cues, or maintain awareness of their surroundings when they are focused on something.

Intelligence is objective knowledge that deals in truth. Wisdom is subjective perception that deals in feeling.

Alduin

One could say that being able to pick on subtle social cues is a form of Charisma, and awareness of surroundings could just as easily go into Intelligence. Most of what WIS does can be co-opted by those two stats.

LOAD Cherry

One could say that, but I'm also a fan of symmetry, and figure that AP, the resource which characters use for things like spellcasting and psi should be based on its own stat like HP is based on vitality. And If I make it based on Cunning/Intellect spellcasters will always have an edge over espers, and if I make it based on influence, the reverse is true.

Alduin

Your call.

LOAD Cherry

So far my feedback is in favor of making the three mental stats Intellect, Insight, and Influence respectively.

Which makes that silly writer part of me kinda happy

MadassAlex

In theory, I prefer those words, too. But when trying to communicate those stats in short form, you'd end up with "Int", "Ins", and "Inf". Ensuring that every stat starts with a different letter (insofar as it's reasonable) helps players remember and distinguish between those stats. 

LOAD Cherry

I have similar misgivings, so what I'm gonna do is use the two-letter abbreviations, and if it proves to cause communication issues curing playtests, I will change the names to their more easily distinguished counterparts.

glennmagusharvey

or maybe T S F for inTellect, inSight, and inFluence

Salix Babylonika

Definitely not.

LOAD Cherry

Reducing it to single letter like that causes confusion as to which is S, Insight, or Strength, and Insight doesn't start with so people would assume strength.

So far for intelligence the only terms I like are

• Intelligence
• Intellect
• Cunning

and for wisdom

• Wisdom
• Insight
• Clarity
• Sensiblity [Thanks to GMH]

If there are more intelligence synonyms that sound good, I'm all ears, because if we can get [Blank], Clarity, and Ifnluence going, that'd be ace.

glennmagusharvey

for Wisdom/Insight/Clarity, what about Sensibility?

glennmagusharvey

Also I happened to dig this up at the moment:

I once started writing up a little thing, hoping to stat out YouTube Poop characters.  Here's how I formatted their stat blocks:
* Power
* Defense
* Speed
* Cleverness
* Sensibility
* Social
* special skills (a list)

Unfortunately it's still that six-stat system, and I can't seem to quite get away from it.  At least I switched up the first few a bit.  But these were meant more for like, a collectible card game sort of thing, rather than role-playing.

There's the Tri-Stat system that went with:
* Body
* Mind
* Soul

And if you want to be even more "gamey", then Pokémon has a relatively basic stat layout -- I'll include one more item here just for the sake of completeness:
* HP
* MP
* attack
* defense
* special attack
* special defense
* speed

LOAD Cherry

Hmm... On one hand, Cunning, Sensibility, and Influence sound good together, but on the other, Sensibility doesn't particularly convey one's ability to perceive the supernatural or unseen very well, in my opinion. Another good option, though, I'll add it to the list.

glennmagusharvey

fyi also i ninja'd you

LOAD Cherry

I noticed. A three-stat system doesn't really make a lot of logical sense, because if someone has an absurd "Body" stat, they're not just strong, but fast and tough as well, and that's pretty meh.

The game-y system doesn't work super well either because characters will be doing more than just fighting, and they need to be able to determine their abilities for what they can do outside of combat as well as in. I could hypothetically make a separate stat block for their abilities outside of combat, but then that's more stats than strictly necessary.

Six stats are fine, I think.

glennmagusharvey

Fair enough.  I just wanted to throw in some more ideas, though I knew they weren't necessarily applicable.

LOAD Cherry

More ideas are always welcome. Even if I'm not always initially receptive, they help me think.

Hexartes

I have an RPG I'm kinda working on and the system I use is dividing the stats into three categories: Physical, Emotional, and Mental, and the stats are:

Strength
Dexterity
Finesse

Initiative
Adaptability
Resilience

Knowledge
Perception
Cognition

LOAD Cherry

Ah, like WoD?

glennmagusharvey

Another couple thoughts:

1. alternative to Dexterity: Nimbleness

2. in Final Fantasy IV, black magic was cast using the Wisdom stat while white magic was cast using the Will stat.  perhaps you could divide (part of) mental stats between worldly knowledge and idealistic desire, in some way?

Alduin

Knightess Cerise said:

Ah, like WoD?

That was my first thought too...

Hexartes

Alduin said:

Knightess Cerise said:

Ah, like WoD?

That was my first thought too...

Not sure. I haven't actually played many tabletop RPGs.

Fossilmaiden

The one difference is that WoD is Physical/Mental/Social instead.

glennmagusharvey

Fossilmaiden said:

The one difference is that WoD is Physical/Mental/Social instead.

Physical
* Strength
* Nimbleness
* Resistance
Mental
* Knowledge
* Desire
* Awareness
Social
* ???? i haven't a thought about this just yet off the top of my head.  Leadership?  Intimidation?  Glibness?

Fossilmaiden

Strength
Dexterity
Stamina

Intelligence
Perception
Wits

Charisma
Manipulation
Appearance

are the official ones.

glennmagusharvey

The more I think of it the more I think it makes sense to have some distinction between "wisdom" as in worldly smarts and good sense, and "will" as in one's drive and energeticness and willingness to push hard on things and "hope against hope".

Perhaps "smarts" would be better for that first one, actually. So it represents both intelligence and wisdom, rather than trying to draw a line between book smarts (which could be represented by specific skills) and good sense.

Another possible name for "will" is "faith", actually. And if you reversed it, perhaps "cynicism".

glennmagusharvey

Or, perhaps, have intelligence, wisdom, and will as mental scores, then charisma separately, possibly as an optional score depending on whether people want to intensely roleplay their character interactions vs. letting mechanics speak for them

Hexartes

Well I guess it kind of speaks to what divisions you find important?

The mechanical assumptions made by DnD include the idea that general physical fitness is deserving of half of the six attributes and that the sum total of your ability to appeal to others can be more or less governed by a single score.

Personally with my own stat blocks I don't feel the need to differentiate between strength and constitution, which speaks to my own assumptions about what divisions are necessary.

I do think it's important to distinguish between wisdom and willpower though. Plenty of people are wise pushovers or stubborn idiots after all. But I can't think of many people who are ludicrously ripped but can't take a hit.

MadassAlex

There's the individual perspective element, but the mechanical needs of the game are also important. In Dark Souls, "Endurance" governed both stamina (the replenishing resource used for attacks, evasions, and blocks) and maximum equipment burden (which influenced your agility while under burden of equipment). This was too powerful, and subsequent games introduced the "Vitality" stat, which independently governed maximum equipment burden. 

In any case, since tabletop games are so abstract, you could many different stats to achieve the same ends. Perhaps "Intelligence" governs martial understanding as well as other understandings, so characters with a good value can buy skills/feats that provide things like more defense (knowing how to take a hit and recover), attack effectiveness (knowing how to make optimal attacks), and so on. Against things like bladed weapons, understanding how to minimise contact with an opponent's weapon is realistically worth far more than more muscle mass, which the edge of a sword or axe cares nothing about. 

I suppose my essential point here is that there's a massive diversity of correct ways to do this, and that the experience one wants players to have should be one's predominant guide. 

LOAD Cherry

glennmagusharvey said:

Or, perhaps, have intelligence, wisdom, and will as mental scores, then charisma separately, possibly as an optional score depending on whether people want to intensely roleplay their character interactions vs. letting mechanics speak for them

Kexruct said:

I do think it's important to distinguish between wisdom and willpower though. Plenty of people are wise pushovers or stubborn idiots after all.

Influence here is flavored as your ability to exert your will on your surroundings and self. This includes persuasion and self-motivation. Insight/Wisdom is your ability to understand the truth behind deception or unbridled emotion, which is why it's what I use for mental defensive rolls. After all, understanding is the first step to overcoming fear, in my experience. (Also, to be entirely honest, it's a game balance concern, because if influence was the bonus of mental defensive rolls, psychics would be leagues above any other class in resisting mental attacks. Even if say, spellcasters, had the same base bonus progression. Granted that kind of makes sense flavorwise... I'll think about it.)

I don't like the idea of optional stats, which is why Charisma kind of bugs me in DnD proper, because its only use is for skill checks and class features, while every other stat determines something else about the character.

Kexruct said:

Well I guess it kind of speaks to what divisions you find important?

The mechanical assumptions made by DnD include the idea that general physical fitness is deserving of half of the six attributes and that the sum total of your ability to appeal to others can be more or less governed by a single score.

Personally with my own stat blocks I don't feel the need to differentiate between strength and constitution, which speaks to my own assumptions about what divisions are necessary. But I can't think of many people who are ludicrously ripped but can't take a hit.

Constitution isn't just taking a hit. It's the ability to endure physical stress. A lot of people who are very strong probably can't run a marathon, while a lot of marathon runners are physically fit, but not so strong as to dead lift 300 pounds.

Also, I don't think it's sound game design for both attack AND "defense" to be based upon a single statistic. (Just look at what happened with Psychic types in generation 1 of pokemon!) Because then it becomes too easy for anybody to tank, and who would ever play a fighter when the cleric who put an 18 in Strength for the hit point bonuses can also turn her enemies into paste.

MadassAlex said:

There's the individual perspective element, but the mechanical needs of the game are also important. In Dark Souls, "Endurance" governed both stamina (the replenishing resource used for attacks, evasions, and blocks) and maximum equipment burden (which influenced your agility while under burden of equipment). This was too powerful, and subsequent games introduced the "Vitality" stat, which independently governed maximum equipment burden. 

In any case, since tabletop games are so abstract, you could many different stats to achieve the same ends. Perhaps "Intelligence" governs martial understanding as well as other understandings, so characters with a good value can buy skills/feats that provide things like more defense (knowing how to take a hit and recover), attack effectiveness (knowing how to make optimal attacks), and so on. Against things like bladed weapons, understanding how to minimise contact with an opponent's weapon is realistically worth far more than more muscle mass, which the edge of a sword or axe cares nothing about. 

I suppose my essential point here is that there's a massive diversity of correct ways to do this, and that the experience one wants players to have should be one's predominant guide. 

This more or less helps sum up everything I said and then some.

Hexartes

Well FWIW I'm trying to design a system not primarily based on combat that encourages well rounded characters as opposed to min-maxing, so the division between endurance and strength is less important.

LOAD Cherry

That's a fair trade off. If there's no combat emphasis, it becomes a non-issue. That said, one should assume their players will always figure out how to break their game and decide whether that kind of exploitation should be allowed or not.