IC is hereWhatever you desire...is in here.
Well, not yet, anyway. As I am still getting the rules out of the way, character creation can not really start yet.
If you do not know what
tower of god is, let me put it up in a short way. It's the ultimate dungeon. Thousands and thousands of chosen ones, take and fail the tests of the tower in an attempt to climb it, and get their wish granted at the top. That's the gist of it, reading the whole thing and learning about the details is pretty much optional. Most things will be explained in the rules anyway.
As by the nature of the game, there will not simply be a bit of PvP, it will eventually become the focus of the game. PvP and teamwork, because nobody can climb the tower alone. As such, participants should be prepared to occasionaly lose a character, simply because he, or his team, lacked what it takes to climb the tower. But do not be worried, climbing a floor can easily take a dozen to a hundred years, there is plenty, plenty of time of roleplay, teambuilding, intrigue, and really, the fake sky at the ceiling of each floor is the limit. It's not rare, but actually the usualy way for things to proceed, people giving up on climbing the tower, getting caught in entirely different affairs. So if you are the kind of person who constantly comes up with new character ideas but never really focuses on them for too long, this may just be the game for you.
Also, as by nature of this game, this game will be inheritly unfair. Not everyone starts with the same skills, equipment or talent. The strong proceed, and the weak fall. Not only that, but the strong can fall for having someone weak on their team. Or simply out of bad luck. Or they may be the strongest regular on their current floor, and immediatly get themselves killed finding the regulars on the next floor are much stronger than he thought. Or an incredibly strong, but stupid warrior may find that the test is a math puzzle. Someone who can't do a math puzzle surely can't be chosen to climb the tower, right
?
This game is very open to player participation. At any time people may come up and request to administrate a test, or be the guardian of an entire floor, to run either a small test they thought might be fun, or run a plot spanning several floors. In fact I will without a doubt run out of tests eventually
As things are not set in stone yet, I am very willing top adjust rule-heavyiness to the preferance of the majority of players. First of all, if all sides agree, any situation may be handled freeform, or semi-free with GM guidance. Though ultimately I have a system planned that could ultimately be compared with a sort of card game. Everyone has a repertoir of various offensive and defensive and utility skills, which are limited by their stats and skills, but ultimately designed by yourself. You have a limited amount of points worth of skills you can spend each turn, so for example you could play a Level 3 attack, and a level 2 defence, and clash against someone who play a level 3 defence and a level 1 debuff and a level 1 attack. This system could use dice, or even be entirely diceless, if you guys so prefer. Or we could do something entirely else if you guys want something less complicated.
Since this is a PvP heavy game, rules are absolute unless all parties involved agree things may be disgregarded. People may get very upset if the character they really like because someone, for any reason, changed or ignored a rule. Exceptions can be made if a player has taken the role of a guardian of a floor, since it is ultimately the guardians who decide on the nature of their floor, all the way to the rules of physics. However, such changes must be announced beforehand.
expect this post to be edited a lot, as I add things I forgot for now.
The tower: The setting of this game. It is divided into three segments, the outer, middle and inner tower. The outer-tower is the residential area, where the towers natives are born and die. The outer-tower of each floor is roughly the size of the north american continent. Normal residents are not allowed to leave the floor they live in. The middle tower is basicaly the stairs used to climb or descend the tower. Access is heavily restricted. The inner-tower is where those chosen by Haedon, the guardian of the first floor, take the tests in order to climb the tower. This is also where they live between taking tests.
Guardians: Supernatural entities that govern over the shinsoo of each floor. It's them who administered the tests of the very first people who climbed the tower. By now, this duty has mostly been taken over by now by people who have risen in power and influence, and have become the rulers of a floor.
Regulars: Natives of the tower chosen by Haedon that are climbing the tower by taking the tests. You guys are regulars.
Irregulars: Those that actually opened the gates of the tower from the outside world. The first people to climb the tower for example, now the heads of the ten great families. New irregulars are exceeeeedingly rare, and arer a symbol of fear, as the few known irregulars are crazy powerful, and all brought chaos to the tower.
Rankers: Those that managed to pass the test on the 100th floor of the tower are acknowledge by the ruler of the tower as Rankers, and are given positions of power and influence within the tower. Note, the 100th tower is not the top. The current "top" is the 135th floor, which nobody has been able to climb so far, as the guardian of that floor is exceedingly hostile. It is unknown how many floors the tower actually has, and if everything you desire is truely to be found at the top.
Shinsoo: An energy that exists within the tower, and sustains your body eventhough there is no air or water. The higher you go in the tower, the denser the concentration of shinsoo, which eventually becomes so viscous you can barely move in it. When manipulated properly, shinsoo can achieve effects which are basicaly best described as magic. The higher you go in the tower, the less likely you are to find someone who was able to climb without learning how to manipulate it. By using shinsoo a lot, your life span expands, and eventually, you stop aging completely.
As this is a PvP game where one is absolutely at an advantage for gathering information and formulating plans on that, players may want to keep their character sheet secret. In that case, feel free to leave as many fields as you desire filled with
, but make sure to PM the actual, filled out charactersheet to me. As things are revealed in-game about your character, a player is obligated to add the information to the public character sheet.
Name:
Gender:
Level and Rank: You start at level 1, without a Rank.
Description: Your physical appearance, and visibly worn items, assuming you can not yet afford a proper arms inventory.
Backstory: Well, your backstory, or as much as you want to reveal of it anyway.
Position: For now, the desired position, the actual position assignment will happen in-game. More on that below.
Health: Your health goes here. As I have yet to make tests on damage-ranges in this system, I have set decide on base health and increase.
Stats: Your stats go here. Detailed explanations of what the stats are and what they let you do below. In the beginning, the maximum you can have in a stat is 3, and the minimum 0. With every level, the limit increases by one. With every floor successfully climbed, the limit also increases by two. Finaly special circumstances, like rising in rank, may increase the maximum. Stats determine your passive potential, and always clash, no matter if a technique has been used. As such, someone with 3 points in offense will always have an advantage over someone with defence 2, as long as this person is not actively defending himself, while someone on a high level and 10 points in defence will usualy not even bother defending against someone with just 3 in offense.
In the beginning, you have 10 points to distribute between these stats.
Offense
Defence
Agility
Shinsoo, offensive
Shinsoo, defensive
Observation
Techniques: The most important part of your character, combat wise. More on that below.
Inventory: Here goes your possessions. By default, people start with a pocket, and one more item of their choice. More on that below.
Perks and Flaws: Here goes unique stuff that sets you apart from others beyond mere skills aquired over the years. As the tower is very diverse and phenomenaly huge, the possibilities are basicaly endless, though ultimately require GM approval. You are not guaranteed to have any perks at all, nor are you obligated to have flaws. Perks and Flaws can and will be aquired in-game.
Basicaly speaking, position are the roles one takes in a battle, assuming you are in a team. They mostly stem from tradition, mimicing the first people who climbed the tower.
Fisherman: Usualy considered the strongest position (which is up to debate), Fishermen are those that directly engage the enemy in short to small-range combat, using weapons and shinsoo-techniques that reinforce their body. They must maintain a careful balance of offense, defence and agility in order to be effective.
Spear-bearers: Ranged combatants which excel at artillery support, but are (usualy) not as strong in close combat. Neglectings defences and agility for pure offense, spear-bearers can be quite devastating. Also they are are not limited to spears, as the name suggests.
Scouts: Nimble and evasive, scouts usualy act as exactly what their name suggests. They must be able to think on their toes and if need be, act in different positions as required.
Light-bearers: A teams tactican and support with a lot of utility. Using items called light-houses, they gather information about the enemy and formulate the teams battle-plan. They combat abilities are usualy below any other position, but their shinsoo-controle is only second to the wave-controler.
Wave-Controler: A rare, and hard to describe position, due to the huge differences between individual wave-controlers. They directly controle shinsoo without requiring an items to do so, and by sheer nature are versatile. One wave-controler may be able to out-fight a Fisherman through superior reinforcement, while another may change the entire tide of the battle by just very subtly altering the flow of shinsoo.
Ultimately, to climb the tower, everyone will have to be able to exceed in all of these positions.
The most stats are what limits what kind of skills and techniques you can use, and to what extend. For each of your stats, you have an arsenal of techniques based on that stat. Each technique has a rank, regarding on how powerful it is. The maximum rank a technique can have is your stat+1. However if it is a technique that falls in line with your position, the limit is level+your level. The sum of all ranks of techniques belonging to a stat may be no larger than that stat times three. For example, if you have an offense of 2, your offensive repertoir is worth 6 points.
This means, for example, if you are a spear-bearer level 1, with 2 points of offence, you can have either 6 rank 1 technqiues, or maybe three rank 2 techniques, or one rank 3 technique, a rank 2 technique and a rank 1 technique, as long as the sum is 6 or less, and that rank 3 abilitiy is suitable for a spear-bearer (so for example, ranged).
Offense: Offensive techniques focus on dealing physical damage primarily, and bypassing the enemies defences and dodge attempts secondarily. For dealing damage, this is the best stat, though for trying to bypass enemy defences, agility is superior.
Examples:
Punch to the face! - Rank 1: You are dabbling in the arts of striking weak points of the enemies anatomy, in this case the face. This technique adds 1 point to your offensive potential.
Kung-Fu of the lonely mountain - Rank 3: The flowing fighting style of the masters from the lonely mountain is not only deadly, but also precise! This technique adds 2 points to your offensive, and decreases the enemies dodge by 1!
Defence: Defensive techniques focus on reducing incoming physical damage primarily, and shinsoo damage secondarily. So even if you use a defensive technique to defend yourself from a shinsoo attack, you will still block some of that damage, but less so than if you had used a defensive shinsoo technique. Note defence *reduces* incoming damage, but does (usualy) not negate it entirely, unless you have very strong defences. For that, you'd need to dodge the attack. Defence also allows counter-attacks.
Examples:
Duck and cover! - Rank 1: You are dabbling in the arts of protecting your weak points by covering them with your hands! This technique adds 1 point to your defensive!
Riposte! - Rank 3: Using the enemies momentum to your advantage, you try to lead his attack away from you, and him into your own weapon! This technique decreases incoming damage by 2, and adds 1 point to your offensive.
Agility: Agility techniques focus primarily on both trying to dodge incoming attacks, and preventing the enemy from dodging your attacks, as well as various evasive utility techniques based on movement. While very important, this stat does basicaly nothing on its own.
Examples:
Stumble out of the way! - Rank 1: You are dabbling in the arts of predicting the trajectory of the enemies attack, and quickly removing yourself from that trajectory. Add 1 to your dodge chance.
Sukuchi! - Rank 3: Move behind the enemy in an instant, not only making it a lot easier for yourself to avoid his attacks, but leaving him an easier target for you! Add +2 to your dodge chance, and decrease the enemies dodge chance by 1!
S.Offensive: Offensive shinsoo techniques vary a lot, ranging from trying to outright damage the enemy by shooting lasers at him, to restricting someones movement, or buffing someones offensive capabilities.
Examples:
Pew Pew! Rank 1: Shoot at the enemy with beams of light, making a satisfying beam sound. Add +1 to your s.offensive.
Explosive 3-point attack! Rank 3: Altering the flow of the shinsoo in the enemies body, you don't just slow their movements, you also explode them..a little. Decrease the enemies hit-chance and dodge chance next turn by 1, and add one point to your s.offensive.
S.Defensive: Defensive shinsoo techniques range from creating barriers, to healing someone or increasing their defensive capabilities. Both offensive and defensive shinsoo abilities however are mostly limited by imagination. A scout for example might use shinsoo to turn invisible for a short duration, or create illusions of himself to confuse the enemy.
Examples:
magic bandaid! Rank 1: Manipulate shinsoo to lessen bloodflow and close a small wound. Heal someone by 1!
Structural reinforcement! Rank 3: Reinforce the fabric of your clothes to temporarily make it like steel. Increase your defense by 3.
Observation: A peculiar stat indeed, observation deals primarily with increasing the effectiveness of other techniques and planning. Most obviously one could use an observatuon technique to watch out for a moment of weakness in the enemies movements, to land a critical blow, or obvious tells before an attack to make dodging easier. You might however also use an observation technique to gain information on what techniques someone is going to use *before* you have to make your own decisions. Likewise you may spend observation techniques to prepare yourself, and create an advantage in the following turns. Most notably, observation bonuses can easily be shared with team mates, at minimal cost.
Examples:
Think ahead! Rank 1 - Instead of focuing on the enemy in front of you, you focus on your plan! Next turn, increase your combo-size by one!
Skillful prediction! Rank 2 - At the beginning of the turn, only declare the use of this technique. The enemy has to reveal two techniques from his combo before you make your choices for this turn.
At the beginning of combat, the parties involved PM their moves (if they care for secrecy) to me. To make a proper move, you choose some of your techniques, to a total maximum of 6 points worth of rank, this is your combo. Maximum combo size can be increased through exp, items, or temporarily be increased or decreased via buffs. For example, with these 6 points, your combo could consist of a rank 2 offensive move to deal damage, a rank 2 agility move to decrease the enemies dodge-chance, and a rank 2 agility move to increase your own dodge chance. Or a rank 3 offensive shinsoo attack, and a rank 3 defensive shinsoo technique. Or a rank 1 observation technique, a rank 2 defence, and a rank 3 agility technique. As you progress and learn more and more techniques, and your combo size increases, possibilities become endless.
Improvising: You are not limited to the techniques you have actually mastered. If you have a good enough idea of what you have to do, and are physicaly capable of doing so, you may attempt to improvise that technique on the spot (may need GM approval). An improvised technique will always be weaker than if you had trained it.
Trying really hard: Sometimes what you have is just not strong enough. You can choose to leave spots in your combo open, for example only take two level 2 techniques, leaving you with 2 open spots. Two open spots can be sued to boost one of the techniques you used by a rank.
When all moves and their respective targets have been declared, they are matched against eachother. First, if the attack can be dodged, you begin comparing agility, and the modifiers to the dodge rolls through techniques. The differences of these factors add a bonus or malus to the standard dodge roll, which is 15 or higher on a d20.
Example: The attacker has an agi of 2, and used a technique that decreases the enemies dodge chance by 1. The target has an agi of 3, and focused very hard on evasive manouvers this turn, gaining another bonus of 3 points. The difference is 3 points in the targets favour, which is added to the base roll - he now manages to dodge the enemies attack on a 12 on a d20. As you can see, dodging the enemies attack in this system is not very likely, and I am putting this up to majority vote. The reasoning I dont want dodging to be very likely is simply, if evading the enemies attack completely is easy, battles become a lot longer, and a lot of focus would go into countering agility. It's your call though, dear regulars!
When a move has hit, one compares offense and defence of attacker and target, including techniques and equipment. If the defender has used both a defensive technique and a defensive shinsoo technique, they will be drawn towards the corresponding attack type of the enemy. However if you are only attacked by one type of attack the whole turn, then the non-corresponding technique will add to your defence by half its value.
Example: The attacker has an offense of 3, uses an offensive technique that adds 2, and has a weapon that adds 2. The defender only has a defence of 2, used a defensive technique worth 2, a shinsoo defence worth 2 (in this case 1), and wears no armor. The difference between offense and defence is 2, the defender has taken 2 damage.
And thats the basics, for the system that uses the least amount of dice. In this system, the health basis is 10
Alternative: medium dice. Damage is not flat numbers, but 1d6, for each point of offense going on. In this system the health basis is 30.
Alternative: lots of dice. Dodge rolls become AGI+MODd6 vs AGI+MODd6, meaning a lot more dodging will happen. Offense vs defence becomes OFF+MODd6 vs DEF+MODd6, and the result is the damage dealt. This system has probably a very heavy variance in results, so frankly I am not sure what health would be in this.
Pockets: Pockets are small, floating balls with various uses. First off, owning a pocket allows you to understand all the languages spoken in the tower. It can be used like a phone, has a timer function, can store small items and provides a weak lightsource. By giving it a command, it can be turned invisible, to float around you without being annoying when you don't need it.
Observers: An item usualy used by scouts, these small floating eyeballs can be controled using your shinsoo to scout dangerous or hard to reach areas. They too can be turned invisible, however someone skilled as detecting shinsoo will be able to sense them.
Arms inventory: A mobile weapon stand to put your weapons in. As the above, can be turned invisible. If you do not own an arms inventory, all your weapons must be carried visible on your body (unless small and easy to hide)
Pipe: Basicaly an arms inventory for Spears that are to be thrown, and ammunition in general.
Armor inventory: As above, but for armor.
Lighthouse: The standard equipment of the Light Bearer. These floating cubes offer a great deal of utility, and my laziness compells me just to link
this and
this Reel inventory: They are not called fishermen for nothing. A reel inventory can be used to attach a weapon to a line, to be retrieved after being thrown. Commonly combined with a Hook, to catch enemies and draw them in. Spearbearers rarely use this, as few reel inventories have enough reach for the long distances a spearbearer covers.
Swords, Axes, Hammers etc: All those kinds of weapons exist in the tower. However they become rarer the higher you go, as a high surface area makes them difficult to use in very dense shinsoo.
Needle: A weapon used for stabbing and cutting in high shinsoo densities
Hook: A weapon shaped like a hook, to be used with reel equipment.
Bows, guns etc: All of these kinds of weapons exist in the tower. They are just not very traditional.
Spears: The traditional weapon for ranged combat.
Wands: Weapons that manipulate shinsoo, even if the wielder can't. What kind of technique they use is built-in, and can not be changed easily.
Shinsoo Bombs: A ball containing concentrated shinsoo, which explodes on impact. As they are not cheap, those who use it better learn how to craft them.
Compression weapons: A weapon that has been compressed can grow much larger on demand, allowing for higher range and bigger damage. However if you are not strong enough to wield it, such a weapon will slow you down, as the weight of the compressed item does not change.
Ignition weapons: A weapon that contains a spirit. On command, such a weapon can *Ignite* and increase drasticaly in power. Those are very rare for regulars to possess. Rumors are, experimentation allows humans to become living ignition weapons.
Other strange stuff: Shinsoo has few limits what it can be used for. Many items have strange, ridiculous effects, that can never be summarized here.
Unless your starting equipment is in any way special, just assume it adds 2 points worth of an effect.
Upon gaining exp, you can spend it on these things:
Increase a stat: Costs new level in points (so to raise a stat to 4, you pay 4 exp)
Increase your health: Costs new level of health/2 rounded up in points. (so increasing your health to 11, you need to pas 6 exp)
Learn a new technique: Costs 1 exp per rank. Note, this can only be bought if your repertoir size allows for this.
Upgrade a technique: Costs 1 exp per rank. note this can only be done if your repertoir size and your stats allow for this.
Upgrade repertoir size: Add 3 more spaces to the repertoir of a certain stat. Costs 2 exp.
Upgrade your combo size: Add 1 more space to the combo. Costs 10 exp for doing this first time, 15, 20,25 etx for further increases.
Aquire a special skill: Varies, discuss with GM. usualy expensive.
Aquire a special item: Turn exp into money! Varies in costs and depends on GM.
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Topic: Tower of God - OOC (Read 5303 times)