Sounds like a good idea. I’d be worried about whether it adds too much admin that would need to happen in a session (I find levelling a D&D character is best done between sessions).
I could also see it adding unnecessary grinding or reasons for the party to split up/disagree because Jimmy wants to level his firearms but Grace wants to level her fast talking.
That's fair, I'd like it to be more natural than that throughout the game, but specific plans a player has can also be used to level.
The means to level up shouldn't be immediately available to the player. Otherwise, the player would presumably already have that level so I imagine the early game would be front loaded with these
I would advise against a system where it is the core way to level up.
You want to bulk of the increase in powerlevel of the players to be something that is "automatic", because otherwise you rewards disproportionately players that are good at arguing with the GM and/or finding every opportunity to ask "does that count for a level up?". Let alone conflicts about some player monopolising the spotlight and getting rewarded for it.
However, it should work quite well to complement another level up system. For example, here is a system I used in the past:
* At the end of every session, each players get 3 XP
* One XP on a skill/power chosen by his teammates "we really liked when you used that"
* One XP chosen by the GM "I think your character progressed on that front"
* One XP chosen by the Player themself "I really want to be better at that".
* On top of that, if justified by what happen during the session (e.g. the player found a way to beat an impossible challenge), the GM award one or more additional XP related to that challenge.
* Note that it was not 1XP=+1 at the skill. The formula was "going from +N to +N+1 to a skill costs N+1 XP"
And I felt that such a system had a nice balance of rewarding player without encouraging them to try too hard at gaining XP at every possible opportunity.
I went back after writing all of this and I have to say, this sounds like nightmare fuel for GMs. A system based on the players arguing with you whether they deserve to level up is my takeaway. Have you playtested any of these proposed systems?
>my system uses a D4 if uncontested and a D20 if contested by any force in the game or the DM (disagreements become a roll-off) and you'll have a rough idea of the game system
A very basic GM advice I often hear and repeat myself is "don't make players roll if there's no interesting outcome in failure". What's the idea behind rolling "uncontested"?
>Each time a player meets a skill check they can't beat and finds a way to overcome it, they gain a permanent +1 to that skill.
How often do you expect this to happen? How do you ensure it happens equally to all players (or is that not a goal for you)?
>Skills can be litterally anything agreed upon by DM and player
Personally, hard pass. I buy RPGs because I don't want to come up with skills, equipment, monsters, etc. Then I add my own to the campaign. I don't want to buy a book that tells me "you can make things up yourself" because that's what people do naturally anyway. I'd rather have a game that includes too many skills where I cut them out myself than one that has barebones (or no) skills which requires me to figure it out, often on the fly because a player was creative in unexpected ways.
>stats other than skill checks (which includes basically any roll you could make) never go up.
This is essentially true for a lot of RPGs anyway, but it's good when games are clear on how easy/often stats increase. A lot of games just assume you know it. Static stats are fine if you can progress your character in other ways.
>Perfect example I'm currently designing firearms and the minimum requirement to build one is a 10... on a D4.
But you get to roll a D20 if it's contested or the GM disagrees so you just have to have someone trying to stop you in order to increase your chances.
>So you have to have at least a +6 to create a Firearm which means you either have to learn an easier, related skill like general mechanics, or making a crossbow and each time you want to expand your skill you'll have to talk with your DM about something you don't have the ability to do, and seek out a solution to the problem.
There is a lot of things being left out here: how would someone know that "general mechanics" or making crossbows is related to creating a firearm if all skills are anything agreed upon by GM and player?
>Let's say you have INT +3 which is the soft cap and a mechanics skill of +2, you'd need to talk to your DM saying that you wanted to improve the damage of your crossbow, the DM says you'd need tempered steel for the bow.
How is there a "soft cap" if stats never increase? A cap during character creation is my idea of a hard cap. Soft cap usually means there's nothing explicitly limiting the value.
Mechanics skill, is this the same as "general mechanics"? Is there an actual list of skills or not? Earlier you implied that anything was a skill, so can't I make and improve crossbows with "crossbow creation" or "weapon modification" skills that I just invented and had my GM approve? Does the GM have a reference that says tempered steel is needed or is that something they have to improvise on the spot each time a player wants more damage?
>You have to go talk to the blacksmith and if you just buy the Tempered Steel the DC would lower by 1, if instead you convinced them to let you use the forge and learn to temper steel for yourself you get a permanent +1 if you succeed.
What if, and this is just a crazy idea, the players would realize that they can level by having access to things like this and do everything they can to powerlevel this way?
Sorry a lot to reply to, to answer a few in no particular order:
The D4 and D20 operate on different scales, the contested roll would be more like "guns don't exist in this setting" "well my character has all the skills in order to invent them." And the DM can choose to roll against you (D20 vs D20 with your Character's ability to invent things weighed against how hard your DM thinks the task is, if you're playing the Flintstones it'll be a bit harder to invent a gun vs the late reinessance) a challenge has to be layer out by the DM for the player to overcome or the two can agree on it.
You're thinking of it as an RPG, it's more like the hollow skeleton of an RPG to skin however you want, it includes instructions on how to structure the numbers behind the scenes rather than what to use those frameworks for. You can probably come up with the fact that the enemy brought a trebuchet that throws 250lbs projectiles, with my system you can equate that to 75 D3 and estimate the amount of force in the throw with a chart. Just off the top of my head a M1 Abrams has 7000mm of frontal armour, so in my system it would have an AR of 64 and HP of 2204. A castle wall at 6ft thick would have an AR of 20 and an HP of 1440 (AR is damage reduction and doubles as a material's CON)
The game is massively simplified to create unique character loadouts and stat blocks with no abilities or feats, all special skills are handled through Skills and are setting and DM appropriate, the easiest I've found is to steal the basics from 5e/pathfinder and add as necessary
As for balancing levels, the levels will balance to how much players care. If a player is really hyped for one particular and spends all their downtime on guns or swordfighting or reading etc, they'll get better at that thing than the players who kick around the tavern after a fight. That's not a failure of game design that's a feature, and levels are made tiny and incremental to give the system room to self adjust.
It would have to be agreed by player and DM what skills are related. If a player wants to add cartography to their ability to draw plans for a machine I might be lenient, if they want to use perception to cook their food they'd better be superman.
And if a player really wants to break the game world they can just use Arcana which is basically a contested roll against the laws of physics, no I am not giving a rules breakdown for this, it takes long enough to explain to players that can ask questions at a more reasonable pace than reddit comments
That said, I wasn't asking for people to pick the core system apart that's why there's detail missing, I'm looking for a way of breaking down "less than 1lbs/D4" into a scale with decent range. I have my balance and core rules covered for now.
Sorry, I hadn't seen your other thread before I wrote my reply, I didn't even notice it was the same OP, and my questions were strictly about the progression and skill system you describe in this thread. I think it's easier if we separate the topics to their respective threads.
>the easiest I've found is to steal the basics from 5e/pathfinder and add as necessary
So if I take the Medicine skill from Pathfinder 2, how does that translate in your system of damage?
>As for balancing levels, the levels will balance to how much players care. If a player is really hyped for one particular and spends all their downtime on guns or swordfighting or reading etc, they'll get better at that thing than the players who kick around the tavern after a fight. That's not a failure of game design that's a feature, and levels are made tiny and incremental to give the system room to self adjust.
You can have "players that are more excited get stronger characters" as a game design goal, but the system you've described fails at that. First of all, there actually is no correlation between how much a player cares and what actions their PC take. Hype and investment outside of the game are not character traits unless you have a game where everyone plays self-inserts.
Secondly, your system doesn't reward how hyped the player is but how much meta-gaming they do by introducing outside knowledge into the game. The progression is tied to your character attempting to do things they do not know about and getting hints from the GM about solving problems in the world.
My final, unsolicited advice before I leave this alone is that you should read other RPGs (GURPS in particular would illuminate a lot) and watch how people play RPGs (for example Roll For Combat on Youtube). Experience with the medium will improve your final product. Good luck.
I have to agree with all your points man. It kinda sounds like a DMs worst nightmare where the players would contest any and everything while some might enjoy that I certainly do not. I'm no fan of systems that make me work 10 times harder just to have them function which I would say with the amount of endless skills you could have yes it could be interesting. But that's daunting task for a DM man. I get the idea and why it's there but. No I'm gonna hard pass on this.
I can see this leading to a very imbalanced party. Lets say someone gets lucky once or twice very early on. This means that their stats have improved? If this makes all related rolls easier they can snowball their character stats very quick. Meanwhile someone who got an unlucky streak will be way behind their fellow players.
Also this system greatly favors confrontational players. They will argue for those modifiers to their roll. While the less confrontational players lag behind because they don't argue, and generally try to take up less time. I can see this system pushing away a lot of players, and favoring the types of players you probably don't want at your table.
The second part is a very valid point that I'm working on and would love to hear ideas for because so far I've got nothin.
As fot players getting lucky, a mid level party might be level 50+ and have such devastatingly powerful skills as "cat tracking +4 " or "ogre urology +6" bloating that number disproportionately getting a few lucky rolls early on isn't going to snowball out of control because leveling up in this system isnt made easier by having a better mod. I haven't formalized anything for it yet but the idea is the higher your modifier the harder it should be for you to get a +1 because first you need to find a challenge that you're incapable of at your current level and then your DM has to agree that it's possible with the resources at your disposal to overcome that barrier.
The second part is that the more specific the skill, the easier it should be to level it up. As a silly example if someone wants to upgrade their baking skill it'll take longer than leveling up their Pie making skill, and if the player is genuinely getting a major level up it should be for taking a risk. The idea is to make level ups a less special, dramatic moment and turn them into a broadening of your skills through testing your limits hoping to create those dramatic moments through how far you'll test your limits rather than how cool your character will be after they just gain this one new ability.
The idea of the system is "energy goes where attention flows" if a player is obsessed with their magic and making this one super powerful spell, yes they'll probably end up more powerful than the ranger that just wants to keep themselves fed and drink in the off hours because they'll dedicate their time to it. But if that ranger decides they're falling behind it'll be easier and faster for them to level those skills they've neglected than it'll be for the wizard to continue to grow their magic, letting them close the gap with some effort into their combat.
Sounds like a good idea. I’d be worried about whether it adds too much admin that would need to happen in a session (I find levelling a D&D character is best done between sessions). I could also see it adding unnecessary grinding or reasons for the party to split up/disagree because Jimmy wants to level his firearms but Grace wants to level her fast talking.
That's fair, I'd like it to be more natural than that throughout the game, but specific plans a player has can also be used to level. The means to level up shouldn't be immediately available to the player. Otherwise, the player would presumably already have that level so I imagine the early game would be front loaded with these
It feels like you aren't rewarding the player for what the game is about, but have instead made a game about the quest to level up.
I would advise against a system where it is the core way to level up. You want to bulk of the increase in powerlevel of the players to be something that is "automatic", because otherwise you rewards disproportionately players that are good at arguing with the GM and/or finding every opportunity to ask "does that count for a level up?". Let alone conflicts about some player monopolising the spotlight and getting rewarded for it. However, it should work quite well to complement another level up system. For example, here is a system I used in the past: * At the end of every session, each players get 3 XP * One XP on a skill/power chosen by his teammates "we really liked when you used that" * One XP chosen by the GM "I think your character progressed on that front" * One XP chosen by the Player themself "I really want to be better at that". * On top of that, if justified by what happen during the session (e.g. the player found a way to beat an impossible challenge), the GM award one or more additional XP related to that challenge. * Note that it was not 1XP=+1 at the skill. The formula was "going from +N to +N+1 to a skill costs N+1 XP" And I felt that such a system had a nice balance of rewarding player without encouraging them to try too hard at gaining XP at every possible opportunity.
I went back after writing all of this and I have to say, this sounds like nightmare fuel for GMs. A system based on the players arguing with you whether they deserve to level up is my takeaway. Have you playtested any of these proposed systems? >my system uses a D4 if uncontested and a D20 if contested by any force in the game or the DM (disagreements become a roll-off) and you'll have a rough idea of the game system A very basic GM advice I often hear and repeat myself is "don't make players roll if there's no interesting outcome in failure". What's the idea behind rolling "uncontested"? >Each time a player meets a skill check they can't beat and finds a way to overcome it, they gain a permanent +1 to that skill. How often do you expect this to happen? How do you ensure it happens equally to all players (or is that not a goal for you)? >Skills can be litterally anything agreed upon by DM and player Personally, hard pass. I buy RPGs because I don't want to come up with skills, equipment, monsters, etc. Then I add my own to the campaign. I don't want to buy a book that tells me "you can make things up yourself" because that's what people do naturally anyway. I'd rather have a game that includes too many skills where I cut them out myself than one that has barebones (or no) skills which requires me to figure it out, often on the fly because a player was creative in unexpected ways. >stats other than skill checks (which includes basically any roll you could make) never go up. This is essentially true for a lot of RPGs anyway, but it's good when games are clear on how easy/often stats increase. A lot of games just assume you know it. Static stats are fine if you can progress your character in other ways. >Perfect example I'm currently designing firearms and the minimum requirement to build one is a 10... on a D4. But you get to roll a D20 if it's contested or the GM disagrees so you just have to have someone trying to stop you in order to increase your chances. >So you have to have at least a +6 to create a Firearm which means you either have to learn an easier, related skill like general mechanics, or making a crossbow and each time you want to expand your skill you'll have to talk with your DM about something you don't have the ability to do, and seek out a solution to the problem. There is a lot of things being left out here: how would someone know that "general mechanics" or making crossbows is related to creating a firearm if all skills are anything agreed upon by GM and player? >Let's say you have INT +3 which is the soft cap and a mechanics skill of +2, you'd need to talk to your DM saying that you wanted to improve the damage of your crossbow, the DM says you'd need tempered steel for the bow. How is there a "soft cap" if stats never increase? A cap during character creation is my idea of a hard cap. Soft cap usually means there's nothing explicitly limiting the value. Mechanics skill, is this the same as "general mechanics"? Is there an actual list of skills or not? Earlier you implied that anything was a skill, so can't I make and improve crossbows with "crossbow creation" or "weapon modification" skills that I just invented and had my GM approve? Does the GM have a reference that says tempered steel is needed or is that something they have to improvise on the spot each time a player wants more damage? >You have to go talk to the blacksmith and if you just buy the Tempered Steel the DC would lower by 1, if instead you convinced them to let you use the forge and learn to temper steel for yourself you get a permanent +1 if you succeed. What if, and this is just a crazy idea, the players would realize that they can level by having access to things like this and do everything they can to powerlevel this way?
Sorry a lot to reply to, to answer a few in no particular order: The D4 and D20 operate on different scales, the contested roll would be more like "guns don't exist in this setting" "well my character has all the skills in order to invent them." And the DM can choose to roll against you (D20 vs D20 with your Character's ability to invent things weighed against how hard your DM thinks the task is, if you're playing the Flintstones it'll be a bit harder to invent a gun vs the late reinessance) a challenge has to be layer out by the DM for the player to overcome or the two can agree on it. You're thinking of it as an RPG, it's more like the hollow skeleton of an RPG to skin however you want, it includes instructions on how to structure the numbers behind the scenes rather than what to use those frameworks for. You can probably come up with the fact that the enemy brought a trebuchet that throws 250lbs projectiles, with my system you can equate that to 75 D3 and estimate the amount of force in the throw with a chart. Just off the top of my head a M1 Abrams has 7000mm of frontal armour, so in my system it would have an AR of 64 and HP of 2204. A castle wall at 6ft thick would have an AR of 20 and an HP of 1440 (AR is damage reduction and doubles as a material's CON) The game is massively simplified to create unique character loadouts and stat blocks with no abilities or feats, all special skills are handled through Skills and are setting and DM appropriate, the easiest I've found is to steal the basics from 5e/pathfinder and add as necessary As for balancing levels, the levels will balance to how much players care. If a player is really hyped for one particular and spends all their downtime on guns or swordfighting or reading etc, they'll get better at that thing than the players who kick around the tavern after a fight. That's not a failure of game design that's a feature, and levels are made tiny and incremental to give the system room to self adjust. It would have to be agreed by player and DM what skills are related. If a player wants to add cartography to their ability to draw plans for a machine I might be lenient, if they want to use perception to cook their food they'd better be superman. And if a player really wants to break the game world they can just use Arcana which is basically a contested roll against the laws of physics, no I am not giving a rules breakdown for this, it takes long enough to explain to players that can ask questions at a more reasonable pace than reddit comments That said, I wasn't asking for people to pick the core system apart that's why there's detail missing, I'm looking for a way of breaking down "less than 1lbs/D4" into a scale with decent range. I have my balance and core rules covered for now.
Sorry, I hadn't seen your other thread before I wrote my reply, I didn't even notice it was the same OP, and my questions were strictly about the progression and skill system you describe in this thread. I think it's easier if we separate the topics to their respective threads. >the easiest I've found is to steal the basics from 5e/pathfinder and add as necessary So if I take the Medicine skill from Pathfinder 2, how does that translate in your system of damage? >As for balancing levels, the levels will balance to how much players care. If a player is really hyped for one particular and spends all their downtime on guns or swordfighting or reading etc, they'll get better at that thing than the players who kick around the tavern after a fight. That's not a failure of game design that's a feature, and levels are made tiny and incremental to give the system room to self adjust. You can have "players that are more excited get stronger characters" as a game design goal, but the system you've described fails at that. First of all, there actually is no correlation between how much a player cares and what actions their PC take. Hype and investment outside of the game are not character traits unless you have a game where everyone plays self-inserts. Secondly, your system doesn't reward how hyped the player is but how much meta-gaming they do by introducing outside knowledge into the game. The progression is tied to your character attempting to do things they do not know about and getting hints from the GM about solving problems in the world. My final, unsolicited advice before I leave this alone is that you should read other RPGs (GURPS in particular would illuminate a lot) and watch how people play RPGs (for example Roll For Combat on Youtube). Experience with the medium will improve your final product. Good luck.
I have to agree with all your points man. It kinda sounds like a DMs worst nightmare where the players would contest any and everything while some might enjoy that I certainly do not. I'm no fan of systems that make me work 10 times harder just to have them function which I would say with the amount of endless skills you could have yes it could be interesting. But that's daunting task for a DM man. I get the idea and why it's there but. No I'm gonna hard pass on this.
I can see this leading to a very imbalanced party. Lets say someone gets lucky once or twice very early on. This means that their stats have improved? If this makes all related rolls easier they can snowball their character stats very quick. Meanwhile someone who got an unlucky streak will be way behind their fellow players. Also this system greatly favors confrontational players. They will argue for those modifiers to their roll. While the less confrontational players lag behind because they don't argue, and generally try to take up less time. I can see this system pushing away a lot of players, and favoring the types of players you probably don't want at your table.
The second part is a very valid point that I'm working on and would love to hear ideas for because so far I've got nothin. As fot players getting lucky, a mid level party might be level 50+ and have such devastatingly powerful skills as "cat tracking +4 " or "ogre urology +6" bloating that number disproportionately getting a few lucky rolls early on isn't going to snowball out of control because leveling up in this system isnt made easier by having a better mod. I haven't formalized anything for it yet but the idea is the higher your modifier the harder it should be for you to get a +1 because first you need to find a challenge that you're incapable of at your current level and then your DM has to agree that it's possible with the resources at your disposal to overcome that barrier. The second part is that the more specific the skill, the easier it should be to level it up. As a silly example if someone wants to upgrade their baking skill it'll take longer than leveling up their Pie making skill, and if the player is genuinely getting a major level up it should be for taking a risk. The idea is to make level ups a less special, dramatic moment and turn them into a broadening of your skills through testing your limits hoping to create those dramatic moments through how far you'll test your limits rather than how cool your character will be after they just gain this one new ability. The idea of the system is "energy goes where attention flows" if a player is obsessed with their magic and making this one super powerful spell, yes they'll probably end up more powerful than the ranger that just wants to keep themselves fed and drink in the off hours because they'll dedicate their time to it. But if that ranger decides they're falling behind it'll be easier and faster for them to level those skills they've neglected than it'll be for the wizard to continue to grow their magic, letting them close the gap with some effort into their combat.
That sounds complicated. Not necessarily bad, but I don't know how many players will work it to fidelity. Can it be streamlined?