I have a crafting system I'd like critiqued. Long story short, I tried making a crafting system for a Dwarf Fortress game, and quickly realized that the usual quality tiers basically meant everything but Masterpieces were placeholder garbage while you leveled. It also meant that the best at a given skill would often be the only one worth having perform it.
Roll | Chance | Name | Effect |
20 | 5 | CRIT! | +2 XP; Artifact based on materials, surroundings, crafter, tools, etc. |
17-19 | 15 | Bonus | +1 XP; Stylized Item |
11-16 | 30 | Good | Material, Item, Style, Motif |
5-10 | 30 | Poor | Material, Item, Style |
2-4 | 15 | Malus | Material, Item, Style; Clothing Wear |
1 | 5 | FAIL! | Material, Item, Style; Injury |
Material and Item are fairly self-explanatory. Material is Stone, Wood, Bone (including shell, horn, etc) and so on; whatever the item is primarily made of. Item is Goblet, Plate, Ring, Sword, Turban, and so on.
Style is the item's general shape, how it handles edges and corners, what it does to get from one segment to another, and so on. Two items of the same Style would be recognizable as coming from the same crafter or culture; Organic, Graceful, Flowing, Industrial, and Like Electrified Syrup Frozen In Mid Thrash might all be Styles.
Motif is an item's innate decorations. The little Skulls or Dolphins around the rim, the Cloud shape around the handle, or the giant Squares on the sides would all be Motifs.
Stylized Items are items which are shaped like their Motifs. A table that actually looks like a swarm of grasshoppers, a dolphin head you can drink out of, and a sword shaped like a bolt of lightning would all be Stylized.
XP is used to purchase Specializations, which are all of the above: Materials, Items, Motifs, and Styles. For instance, a character might have:
Materials: Stone, Wood
Items: Goblets, Swords
Styles: Melting
Motifs: Badgers
So they could make Goblets or Swords out of Stone or Wood. Since they only know one Style, everything they make would look like it's Melting a bit. Since they only have one Motif, any decorations they produce would feature Badgers. For a point of XP, they could gain a new Specialization in any of the above categories; learn how to work with Cloth, figure out how to craft Tables, devise a new Twisting Style, or master the art of decorating things with Bees, for instance.
So the above solves several problems; notably, any item you make is theoretically worth something even if you've got a poor roll or better crafters running around, since poor rolls mean side effects and less decoration (which isn't always a bad thing), and being a better crafter means more options rather than objectively better products. At the same time, higher rolls are still generally better, and being a better crafter is still something to aspire to.
I'm a little concerned that it might not be freeform enough for items that aren't being mass produced, though. Suppose somebody gets a boar's tusk, pearl, and giant eagle feather, for instance, and decides they want to make a cool spear out of them. Other than keeping them on hand waiting for a CRIT!, I'm not sure what you'd do with that.
Any thoughts on any of this?