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[TolyK]

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind.

[Person]

Roll to Make an RTD

Could be interesting. Care to elaborate further?

Roll To Dogfight

I'd like this, but you'd have to have some sort of way to tell where everything is. Abstraction probably wouldn't work very well.

Roll to PEASANT ADVENTURE

What sort of peasant adventure do you mean? While amusing, the cowardly peasants one sort of lacked a goal. Or do you mean an actual bog standard adventure, but you start with no skills or items. That has potential for fun.

As an aside, I'm working on a rather interesting idea right now, but I don't think it's quite ready yet.
But, I do have one that I feel like dumping.
Roll to defend the fort/castle/etc. Either have one team attacking, and one defending, or both teams doing both. One side would probably win once the other runs out of resources, because otherwise defending forever would get boring, as well as make no one want to join the defending team.
Essentially, each player would play a commander of some sort. Classes/specialties/skills like engineering/archery/leadership/bartering/etc might be fine. Under their command would be a bunch of bog standard soldiers. It's the goal of both teams to outfit their people with weapons/armor/siege weapons/etc, and eventually overpower the other team.
The tech level could be whatever, but medieval would probably work best. Granted, gunpowder MIGHT find its way into the game, and basic machines could be possible on high rolls. The catch is that making anything consumes resources(which would probably be separate types, like wood/stone/metal/etc), and while given enough time, trade may be possible, it isn't recommended because you'll almost certainly be ripped off.

[Spinal_Taper]

Roll to Shonen: This seems more like a system than a game

Character Gen overview:
You would get 12 power points, which you could assign to either physical attributes or powers. The powers would be effected by the attributes, so if you made yourself stronger, your Ultra-Punch, or whatever you decided to name it, would become more powerful.

Attributes:Bulging muscles! Battle auras!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The four attributes would be strength, endurance, agility and spirit.
Strength would determine just straight out power. Lifting boulders, punching through walls, it's all in here.
Endurance would, unsurprisingly, increase how much you can endure. Wanna sprint for miles? Wanna survive nuclear warfare? Here's your answer.
Agility determines dodging, sprinting speed, and precision strikes. If you want to be one of the nerve-cluster bashing, limb disabling martial artists, this is your answer.
Spirit is the same as ki, chi, chakra, spiritual pressure, whatever you want to call it. Beams of energy, balls of power, this is vital to them.

Attribute bonuses use fractions. For example, your +1 bonus occurs at 6 points. At 3 spirit points, you'll have a 1/2 chance of a +1 bonus to an energy blast.

Spiritual Powers: You can't have Shonen without energy attacks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Afterwards, you need three suggestions for powers. For instance, you could have a fireball, a typical energy beam or just flight. Of course, points would have different effects on different powers. For instance, a stun ability having its power upgraded would make it stun longer, but doing the same to an energy blast would make it burn things better.

Powering up:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 Gaining power is different in this. There's no levels or experience, instead you will gain power points directly from events in the story and from killing things. If you don't get it, I'll explain it. Were you resurrected recently? That's a point or so. Did you just learn that you're the chosen one? That's quite a few. Hey, did that man just unlock your hidden potential? There's some more power points for you. Did you just train for a few years? You'll gain some power! So, in short, if a plot or character important event occurs, chances are, you'll gain some power.

Powering Up: Benefits

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So, what are you going to do with all this new power? Well, it's just like any other RPG, you put it right into your character. You can either give him a boost, his powers a boost, or give him a shiny new power.

Temporary power gains: Drama!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Every good character has balanced traits, and you guys have good characters! In accordance with this, playing to your characters motivations will grant them bonuses, but if it goes against them, they'll get a penalty. For example, if we were to borrow a rather tired plot, if Dan was fighting Stan, his brother who has become evil, his hesitance to kill his brother will reduce his rolls. If Charlie, an anti-royalist rebel, fought Elise, the Queen, he would gain power due to his goal, to kill her, being right there.

TLDR:I don't want to wade through all that fluff, Spinal!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I made up a game, and I modified the RTD rules quite a bit.
In short, here are the changes:
Your abilities grow with you
RPing and character development gives you power
Character traits have effects on fighting.

Criticisms on how I wrote this, the mechanics, whatever all welcomed.

[IronyOwl]

Roll to Shonen: This seems more like a system than a game

A lot of this seems vague. For instance, you mention experience and levels, but not how much of one is needed to get the other. You mention levels can be spent on powers, but not what kind of ratios or how those stats are calculated (what, exactly, does increasing a power's range with 3 level points do, for instance?).

Otherwise seems alright, though the rage/despair thing seems a bit tacked on. How frequently is something like that going to come up? Some sort of broader motivation/demotivation system would probably be better.


In other news, I've stumbled across an unusual problem for that MC-ish RPG-ish game I'm working on. Skills, specifically what noncombat skills there should be.

I started with the obvious of basically a DF-style system- mining, woodcutting, collapsing gemcutting and gem setting into jewelcrafting, and so on, but hit two major snags.


First of all, I'm unsure if constructing buildings should be a separate skill from constructing furniture, whether weapons and armor should be separate from crafts, and so on. DF Masonry covers both building stone structures and making stone cabinets, for instance, and I'm not sure if that's a good idea here or not. I'm having difficulty figuring out where the proper line for separate skills is.


Secondly, I'm unsure of this dilemma as it relates to less orthodox materials. Bones, for instance. In DF this was fairly simple as there wasn't anything to do with bones other than make crafts out of them, but I'm thinking bone structures or statues, while not necessarily a good idea, might be viable here. So... should they be separate skills, then? Or should their relative rarity/lack of utility mean they're collapsed into much fewer or just one category?

[Dermonster]

Collapse it, but then sort it by material.

Like, you need x much metalsmithing experience to make iron stuff, practice on copper.

[monk12]

Collapse it, but then sort it by material.

Like, you need x much metalsmithing experience to make iron stuff, practice on copper.

This, but I'd flip it. Organize everything based on material- stone, wood, metal, bone, cloth, gem, etc. Then divide those materials into things you can make out of them- Stone might go Furniture->Construction->Crafts->Bodywear, while Cloth might go Bodywear->Crafts->Furniture->Construction.

To address the "furniture vs construction" question, I'd ask how significantly do those things differ. Is there quality levels, such that it is possible to make a really nice chair (but maybe not a wall,) or is it all pass/fail? What kind of mechanical benefit does furniture confer- are we talking like a Sims thing where it fills needs, or does it fill needs for NPCs, or is it just necessary to do things (workbenches et al.) If the only furniture you're contemplating is workbenches and storage and the like, they can probably be collapsed under Construction.

Obviously, the above only applies to the "makin' stuff" skills. Depending on how you want to work it, you might have it arranged such that attempts to try a task without appropriate skill are doomed to failure (making a stone hat without any skill in Stonework would autofail) or you could make it so that tasks without skill are just much more likely to fail, or that tasks with skill produce better/useful results. If you've had more thoughts on what exactly skills do for a player mechanically (or have already mentioned it and I glossed over,) I would be most keen to read them.

[IronyOwl]

Collapse it, but then sort it by material.

Like, you need x much metalsmithing experience to make iron stuff, practice on copper.

What, like, all the way? Metal skill lets you make metal walls, statues, goblets, helmets, swords, and decorations?

Not sure I like that. Almost like just having skill at manipulating a chosen element.

This, but I'd flip it. Organize everything based on material- stone, wood, metal, bone, cloth, gem, etc. Then divide those materials into things you can make out of them- Stone might go Furniture->Construction->Crafts->Bodywear, while Cloth might go Bodywear->Crafts->Furniture->Construction.

This is... interesting, but I'm not sure I want something as complex as a progression chart for each skill (though, if there's only like 5 that's less of an issue...).

To address the "furniture vs construction" question, I'd ask how significantly do those things differ. Is there quality levels, such that it is possible to make a really nice chair (but maybe not a wall,) or is it all pass/fail? What kind of mechanical benefit does furniture confer- are we talking like a Sims thing where it fills needs, or does it fill needs for NPCs, or is it just necessary to do things (workbenches et al.) If the only furniture you're contemplating is workbenches and storage and the like, they can probably be collapsed under Construction.

Ah. Yes, I suppose this requires some context.

In theory the players could probably just wander off and do whatever, but the default idea is basically for them to create their own little village, so the Sims thing is probably fairly accurate for both players and NPCs. I'm still working out the details, but the general idea is that the players give themselves nice stuff for various benefits, and then give their NPC mooks nice stuff either to similarly motivate them or increase their efficiency, or because NPC mooks start grumbling and not working or somesuch if their stuff starts seeming too paltry compared to other peoples' stuff.

As for quality levels, yes but I'm unsure of the specifics. More on that below, but essentially, I'm not sure if every item will be subject to some sort of quality modifier based on raw worksmanship, or if that'll only apply to specific luxury items where half the point is how great it is.

Obviously, the above only applies to the "makin' stuff" skills. Depending on how you want to work it, you might have it arranged such that attempts to try a task without appropriate skill are doomed to failure (making a stone hat without any skill in Stonework would autofail) or you could make it so that tasks without skill are just much more likely to fail, or that tasks with skill produce better/useful results. If you've had more thoughts on what exactly skills do for a player mechanically (or have already mentioned it and I glossed over,) I would be most keen to read them.

As with everything, that's not completely nailed down yet, but for gathering and combat skills, at least, skill level equals magnitude of the effect. Combat damage is the difference between the attacker's and defender's rolls multiplied by the attacker's attack skill, for instance, and the average amount of material collected will generally be equal to whatever skill someone's using to gather with. In either case, equipment or other conditions can raise or lower that.

In the case of construction/crafting, things get a bit trickier because I pretty much have to come up with an arbitrary scale at some point, ie a Small Tent requires 10 points of construction or a Pristine Ruby requires a magnitude 15 crafting roll. The original intent was pretty much just that, mundane constructions required a certain number of points and materials dumped into them, luxury/fancy works allowed a certain number of rolls to hit whatever value they'd hit, but I'm still pondering the specifics. For instance, it's also occurred to me that perhaps every player construction/craft should be swingy and unpredictable, and if you want a reliable design you need to assign NPCs to the task.

[Toaster]

That knocked into my head a much simpler construction RTD, one that is essentially a sandbox world.

The players would start in a blank world with nothing but grass, dirt, or other similar natural elements.  Rolls would be to construct something.  One player may roll to dig out a burrow in the dirt, while another may elect to weave grass into a basket.  Each item would be rolled for and constructed in a quality according to the roll.  As tools were built, better materials could be created.  One player may make a shovel to dig out dirt faster, while another makes a hammer for carpentry.  Once there are refineries and steel mills, cities and great wonders would appear.

Time scale would be plenty arbitrary, since it's no fun having one player build his hundredth grass basket while you're still putting up the first floor of your log cabin.


A minor skill system would be in place, where each level would cost 10 more xp to go up.  XP would be given to your action equal to your natural roll, assuming you accomplished anything at all.  I'd give a bonus of something like half or a third of a roll per rank, where a half rank would give a 50% chance of a +1 and so on.  Penalties would be applied if you had insufficient tools for the jobs (but no bonuses for great tools- bonuses only come from stats.)

Given the above, a slightly nonstandard roll system would be needed:

0 and below:  Complete failure to accomplish anything.
1:  A shoddy result- something ugly that doesn't help you if it's a tool.
2:  Something mediocre- marginally useful as a tool.
3:  A very plain result that does what it is supposed to do and nothing else.
4:  A workable design with a nice touch or two.
5:  A pleasant construction that is thoughtfully designed.
6:  A marvelous work.
7:  A truly grand work of grander scale than originally designed.
8 and above:  Epic overshoot.  A result far more than was originally designed, possibly with unintended side effects.


There's no goal, as players can just do whatever they like, and work together or alone as desired.  Time and distance scale, again, are arbitrary, so if a player wants to build a replica Titanic while using the steel mill that's nowhere near the ocean, whatever.

[Scelly9]

Sounds cool.

[Spinal_Taper]

Ignore this. I'm retarded. I like Toasters idea, but I have one question. Would there be any outside influences?

[IronyOwl]

Needs some higher goal or foil, I think. Raw sandbox tends to get kind of boring.

[Toaster]

What, then?  Add in a populace that appreciates the constructions?  Split into teams?  Randomly put in a waitlister to cause havoc?  Keep score?  Let the players build their own teams/contests?

[Mullet Master]

Alright, here's an idea I'm kicking around.

No Mercy! : The Cobra Kai RTD (based off Karate Kid)

You play as a member of Cobra Kai during its darkest times, right after the Tournament of the first Karate Kid movie. As a hapless evildoer, your Sensei John Kreese sends you on missions of revenge against everything. Expect brutal combat, shameless one liner repeating, and awful 80s references

I'm thinking typical gameplay will require a balance of character development/leveling up (training, etc) vs. doing what the hothead Karate Sensei asks, along with some larger group missions every five or so turns. Penalty for disobeying Sensei Kreeses orders will be

No Mercy.
 

[lawastooshort]

brutal combat, shameless one liner repeating, and awful 80s references

That sounds very interesting.

[IronyOwl]

Seeing the Cobra Kai RTD makes me miss Order of the Kai RTD.

Dwarmin! What're you up to these days...? :3