Making your own fantasy RPG mechanics? /gdg/ Game Design General

Veeky Forums, I've been working on some worldbuilding for awhile now. It wasn't originally for an RPG, it was just something that I could post without too much explanation because it was heavily based on classic D&D 3.5e, with standard races and classes and themes. But as I got into it, I started to really personalize it and now I'm at the point where the setting no longer works for D&D, either 3.5e or 4e or 5e.

So now I'm wondering if I want to make my own custom system for it. I can see that I would totally disqualify most magic systems because I want to do a specific thing with my magic, for example. But the problem is that the basic conflict resolution mechanic is still rolling dice against one another, and in that respect I don't see any reason why I shouldn't use d20 or even just wholesale lift Warhammer Fantasy's mechanics minus the psychic stuff. Like, aside from magic and maybe naval combat, I feel like the stuff I'd come up with would only be a reskin of d20 and it'd just be super-gimmicky, like Dungeon Dice.

Veeky Forums, is there any reason to make a new system or should I just try to fit my setting into a pre-existing one?

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Crosslinking to my own /gdg/ question:
Always the first question when thinking about homebrewing a full system is "Who is this for?"

If it for yourself and you group, adapt an existing system. If its something that you want to share, or you really can't fit into another system, then go ahead. Or you could just do it because you want to. Just remember its easier to pitch new parts of a system that players are familiar with, than a whole new one, even if 90% of it is derivative of an existing system.

That said, in your instance, I'd say use an existing system, even if its a generic D20 system over something like DnD, and focus on replacing the magic system. Don't try to sell it as a new game to your players, make sure they know its X system with new magic rules. If it goes over well, then consider expanding, implementing changes to other parts to fit your needs better.

I migrated from 3.5 to my own system years ago OP, simply because I hated its race, class and some minor scale problems, the key is making it at least a little translatable. NEVER make your stats only work in your own quests. I briefly added Mana, which was the worst thing ever, simply because I had to homebrew every spell over again.
Your gonna need a little conformity, just for that sake of effort.

Yeah, I think I'll do that then. At least at first. I'll run with it and see how it feels, and if I like it I might put it on Veeky Forums like that.

I'm mostly doing it for myself, but to share. I just have had these ideas for this setting and for making my own RPG for a while, and I figured I might as well start on them instead of just sitting around waiting for people to respond to my resumes.

>simply because I hated its race, class and some minor scale problems
Exactly my issue and why I made my setting in the first place.
>NEVER make your stats only work in your own quests
What do mean by that? Don't add stats that only work in this one game?

Between the Morlocs and the Cultists I would say you have to decide if the Cultists will just be an antagonist faction for flavor, or if you want them to be something players can play against one another.

Is there a reason why the Morloc faction is more interesting than the Cultists?

Are racial bonuses a good idea or a bad idea?

They can be good, but like any mechanic it really depends on the context. Something like "can breathe underwater" can be a nice touch, because it's situational enough to not be abused every session while being potent enough to make it worthwhile to use.

Personally, I'm not a fan of flat attribute bonuses/penalties though. It just seems to encourage min/maxing more often than not, but it's also a bummer if your race say gets a bonus to Charisma but it's already your dump stat thanks to your class.

Well, you infer that a melee horde would make for a better contrasting playstyle, but it depends too much on your system/mechanics. On the other hand, you could refluff the cultists for them to be short-range/melee fighters and have the best of two-worlds (their powers are easier to come by, what explain their high numbers, but it has its downfalls such as range and/or power).

It's better to keep the stuff you make compatible/balanced with your source so you can "import" more material without having to worry too much about balancing and tinkering with it...

Racial "bonuses" are a good idea, they make your race mechanically relevant and different from the next one. As stated flat attribute bonuses penalties are usually a bad move, but you can make it a little better by offering "different options/variations" for each race, making it so that it becomes mechanically efficient to make different builds/classes with the same race.

You got to keep in mind, whenever you add something, its not in a vacuum. Like what user said, he added Mana to his game. This means its another piece that you have to balance against all factors. So unless you are doing so from the start, it means adding it will throw off balance to everything else. For example, levels and attribute points are designed around having so many stats. If you add another one, you have to take into account not just how does this affect the limited resourced the game gives you (attribute points) but also how changing things to accommodate this new stat affects everything else.

Its a skirmish wargame, players make armies based on the factions and play commander. What makes the Morlocs more interesting is that it expands the world. There are other things than just the demons and humans fighting back against the demons. For example, there's also angels, but their force is a skew list, so not good for a core release.

Yeah, sorry, hard to get a lot of details typed out on a phone. For the mechanics, I'd say that it favors close range shooting over the rest. You suffer range penalties the further away the target is, and melee is much more powerful but you run the risk of the enemy attacking back. Its a near-future earth, so almost everyone has a form of firearm on the human side. The Cultists aren't that must different, though a lot less powerful.

So both sides, the general feel is numbers, but not powerful individually. Key difference is the Morlocs are almost pure melee, while the Cultists have range and some leadership tricks. All their leaders have increased morale abilities and can buff nearby troops. Morlocs are a much more straight forward force with some reliance on coordination, like the core troops can gang up on a target to get bonuses.

Is designing vidya RPGs more Veeky Forums or Veeky Forums?

Programming and playtesting: Veeky Forums

Tossing ideas around: Veeky Forums

8 or less on d20.

I was planning on mods being common enough that you could fairly easily have +5-10% on a couple of things you wanted to be good at, along with borrowing advantage/disadvantage from 5e.

I was also thinking about having a meta currency that could swing your odds. Currently thinking they would subtract d4 from your roll, so an additional 5-20% swing in your favor if you really need it. None of this is set in stone, of course.

I want them to work together and/or plan ahead so that they have advantage

>8 or less on d20.

Yeah, no, that's kind of really low. That's lower than the average stat, like Commoner-level low.

If you're going percentage based bonuses, that's still only going to be rolling 9s or 10s. For adventurers, I feel like that's uncommonly weak.

I understand you want them to work together, but there should be a better way than saying
>If you split the party you're fucked

If advantage is relatively easy to acquire, then sure.

Make sure to make complementary actions easy to pull off. Two attacks is better then advantage on one attack, but if a follow up attack on someone attacked earlier in the round grants advantage, then you'll see a lot more focused fire.

Although I imagine that, since you sound crunch heavy, you'll be using flanking.

Yes.

Stats at chargen were ~20 + 2d10, you could purchase up to +20 per stat. Added to that is the max +20 skill bonus. Then you start adding test modifiers.

That's what I'm thinking. The Cultists are also a lot more fleshed out. They were part of the original 4, but talking over on /awg/, people there seemed more interested in the Morlocs, which is still in early concept stages.

Yeah but that's just more reason to hold the Morlocs back and tease them for future expansion.

But Dark Heresy worked on a d100 system. That seems like it'd offer more opportunity for players to roll under than a d20 system because of the way the dice are designed.

assuming no mods on your check, I feel like most rolls in DnD require 12 or higher. Although if I follow this metaphor through to its logical conclusion, I'm essentially capping characters at a +2 mod. Which is weaker than most adventurers tend to start in DnD games I've played, but still higher than your average commoner (who I assume would have a couple attributes at +-1 and most at +0).

It seems I didn't explain my intent enough. I said that you could fairly easily have a 5-10% bonus on several skills, but I did not intend to set that as cap on the skills. Rather, I meant to imply that you could have an even higher bonus (capped by character level), but it would mean neglecting or weakening other aspects of your character. Sorry, its been a long day.

I certainly agree it feels low, which is why I asked the question.
I am planning on making advantage really easy to acquire. Possibly as easy as having the ideal tool for the job, or someone competent helping you.

Is there a guide on how to write a rule book?

Like a style guide or a layout guide?

I'm sure there is, but I feel like most of the tools, especially the free tools, are really obtuse in laying out pages.

I don't know how to turn the bullet points into a rule book text, how to write an introduction and all the "fluff" text around each mechanic.

I'm almost picking my AD&D books and "rewriting" them just replacing the mechanics.

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On some of the previous thread they suggested using Scribus for software...for instruction on how you should write it look for a /gdg/ thread on the archives, on the resource list there is a manual about writing rule books/manuals

I would reccomend going with Morlocs then, even if the cultists are more fleshed out. Despite of hating GNS theory it applies to this example, in my interpretation boardgames/wargames are very "gamist" niches, so you need to include the Morlocs faction to expand on the gaming experience, you may add Cultists later as an important faction, but game-wise the Morlocs are more important.

I'll pull together more info than just these vague descriptions when I get home. I have a full prototype army list for the Cults and a playtest force for the Morlocs, plus the background notes on each of them.

I've yet to find a free one that isn't a pain in the ass to format with, but I've yet to look at the pure formatting and layout ones yet.

I was hoping there'd be a thread like this. I'm homebrewing a sci-fi fantasy RPG with a swashbuckling theme to it and I've just realized that the dice system I'm using is absolute garbage.
Any suggestions for a dice system that can accurately represent the excitement of a duel (active defense, situational advantages on attacks, dramatic setpeice fights), but won't make the PCs into gods with exploding dice stacked upon +30 bonuses to every action upon reality warping magics?

I always feel opposed rolls is the best way to represent a clashing and dueling feel.

Only a dice system will not be enough to achieve your goal. In general there are only 2 dice systems, Roll Above/Under (Roll one or more dice and try to roll above or below a target number) and Dice Pools (Roll a pool of dices and count only those above/below a certain value as sucesses).
This is your chance to roll a certain value on most traditional roll under/above systems:
anydice.com/program/a04b
(I recommend taking a look at the Graph option and the At Most and At Least section)

Generally speaking, most rulebooks have character creation, skills, then mechanics and fluff. If you're talking about writing style, be omniscient and matter of fact. You can include examples too.

An intro should, in a good rulebook, bring the setting to life in a concise manner and tell players what makes your game different from all the others.

You'll probably want some system for bonuses to opposed dice rolls being rolled by the player(s) and GM.

You could also incorporate a pseudo-tactical system where players can select where their actions are in certain zones to show what they're focusing on at the moment, the advantages/disadvantages of the strategies they've chosen and how the choices made interact with each other.

I feel embarrassed to admit, but the idea of opposed dice hadn't even crossed my mind.
I originally had a dice pool system, but that wasn't panning out too well, plus I was having issues with having a damage system that meshes well with the dice rolling system.
Thanks for the suggestions, I think what I'll do is have the GM (me) roll an amount of dice equal to the difficulty and make the player try to beat that number with their roll, or just use a 3d6 roll under system like GURPS. I think d10s are the best idea for the former option if I decide to go with that, but I feel like that may make things too random and I do want the character's skills to be important.

How would it be less random if you didn't use d10s?

Veeky Forums, I want to make a game that really captures the feeling of being stuck in a dismal village as the fog pours in through the black wood as twilight rises. What mechanics would do that?

I almost finished writing an RPG.

I want to make the final document look nice. I can draw, write, and operate QuarkExpress, so content and technicals are not a problem, but I struggle with actual design like arranging the text, tables and pictures so they look nice, are readable, and don't clutter the page.

Also, how to divide the book into chapters? In what order should the system, chargen, and in-detail ability descriptions appear?

So, any advice and examples of well-designed rulebooks are welcome.

Hard to say. 4e and 5e D&D have really readable books, but they're noticeably bland. 3.5e D&D really set the standard for good looking rulebooks, but the order of chapters was unintuitive.

FFG's WH40k RPG and SWRPG books look good but they have some weird ideas about sidebars.

>Is a 40% base chance of success too low?
>8 or less on d20

Excluding trivial tasks of course.
Your base success chance is more going to determine how competent "average" is or how challenging the "average" task is. Like, you could make stabbing a goblin the baseline average, and it would be quite different than if just one peasant sucker-punching another peasant is the baseline average.

With most things like that, I'd recommend testing and seeing if it gives you the results you want. Just looking at the numbers only gets you so far. You'd also want to consider what scale the bonuses are on: if it is >8 on d20 for unarmed combat but >18 for attacking someone with a sword, then that value means something vastly different than if it is >8 for unarmed combat but >10 for attacking with a sword.

You'd also want to consider exactly how "trials" are going to work out. If it is just roll one d20, then a small bonus with high chance of failure is going to be less attractive. If most attempts at an action involve several rolls and only one required for success (perhaps you roll five times, with how many successes determining how well you did) then having a lower chance of success on an individual roll is not as bad.

I guess the best advice would be to look at how some other books have laid out their outline, see which ones you liked, and use something similar. If you enjoy a mood-setting story or setting description, followed by character creation, followed by further rules, then try that layout. If you prefer explanations with how the mechanics generally work, with examples of play alongside each rule, then go with that.

Most of the time, I see character creation described early so that players can have a good idea of what a character looks like and what they can do, then followed by explaining how the various skills and abilities work.

Back with an actually gameplay question now. I've gotten the choices for my basic resolution down to 2.

Option A:
>Models have an Attack and Defense stat that determines how many dice they roll
>Each player rolls a number of D12's and chooses the highest
>If the attacker rolls equal to or higher to the defender (or if in combat, whoever rolls highest), the attack hits
>Damage is resolved by rolling an amount of dice equal to the weapon's profile, adding strength
>Rolling over the model's armor causes damage
Pretty straight forward, and kind of standard.

Option B:
>Uses an universal resolution system that just trades stats out as needed
>For attacking, player A rolls a number of D12's equal to a weapon's stat that needs to roll the model's attack to be a success
>Player B rolls a defense pool using defense stats
>Unmodified rolls of '12' count as 2 successes
>Each success the defender rolls cancels out one of the attacker's
>The remaining successes are compared to the model's armor, and any over it are a point of damage
>Power of the weapon modifies the number needed for 2 successes, i.e. Power 1 means rolls of 11+ count as 2
>Melee is both models roll attack rolls, and the player with the most successes hit, reducing them as if the other roll was a defense roll
A different take, little hard to grasp at first because of how abstract it is, but using a universal system means most tests would be easy to do once you get the core concept down.

Sorry if not that clear, was rushing to type it out before the thread died.

So if a unit's armor is higher than the strength of the weapon, it won't cause damage?

Option B almost sounds like Risk. Except it sounds more complicated.

Okay, so Option A is about rolling two opposed d12s, then whoever wins rolls for their "attack" depending on what they're rolling for. If it's higher than the target's armor/relevant stat, it doesn't work?

And Option B is rolling Xd12s based on the weapon stat, or attribute number, against the opponent's number of d12s, and the goal is to stack successes until you overcome the enemy's defense?

Option B sounds more interesting, but somewhat complicated.

What was the question?

Yeah, I rushed it. Let me write out examples:

Options A:
>Model A attacks Model B
>For simplicity, let's say its a ranged attack with no modifiers
>Model A has an Attack of '2', and Model B has a Defense of '2'
>Both models roll 2 D12's and chooses the highest
>Model A rolls a '10' and a '2'; Model B rolls an '8' and a '7'
>Its 10 vs. 8, so the attack hits
>Model A is using a weapon with 2 Strikes and a Power of +1, while Model B has an Armor of 8
>Model A rolls a '11' and a '3', which the Power turns into a '12' and a '4'
>It causes one point of damage, since the 12 beats the Armor of 8, but the 4 doesn't

Option B:
>Once again, Model A makes a ranged attack against Model B without any modifiers
>Model A has 3 Strikes and a Power of 1 on its weapon and an Attack of 6+
>Model B has a Defense of 7+ and a Protection (work in progress name) of 3, and an Armor of 1
>Model A rolls an '11', '6', and '1'; Model B rolls a '10', '6', and a '2'
>Model A scores 3 Successes, the Power of the gun means that the '11' counts as 2; and Model B negates 1 of those Successes
>Model B's Armor of 1 absorbs 1 of the Successes, leaving 1 to get through
>That last Success becomes a point of damage
Option B will have slightly better offensive stats all around, mainly because of modifiers and the fact that melee is going to be offense against offense. Its a bit like Deadzone's system.

My question was which sounds like the more interesting and has the room for more development of the choices. For damage needed to remove the model, the average is going to be 3 for a man-sized model. Using the line of sight size to also act as the model's wounds.

Uh, I'm confused by Option B. I feel like you're mixing powers and defenses and protection and strikes really awkwardly. It seems really complex.

How do you think it should be cleaned up, if it would be worth it?

i prefer option A because the sheer amount of stats in B will make shit complicated

I disagree with and , looking only at the example it may cause some confusion, but just by taking a look at . Overall, it looks a lot more interesting than Option A.

>>Attacker roll (Strikes)d12 and count rolls above (Attack) as successes, rolls above (12-Power) count as two successes
>>Defender rolls (Protection)d12 and count rolls above (Defense) as successes, rolls above (12-Armor) count as two sucesses.
>>Damage is (Atk. Successes) - (Def. Successes + Armor)

Ops, just made one mistake, there is no: "rolls above (12-armor) count as two successes"
...but I think you could make it work this way for consistency

I am designing a board game based on MOBAs like dota and lol
i am having trouble on actions and their resolution and so far i made up 3 options.

Option A:
Everybody draws action cards and skill cards
skill cards give a number to use with action cards.

Option B:
Actions are freely chosen and effects are static

Option C:
a combination of the 2 above where you draw skill cards and spend them to fuel actions

Input would be appreciated

Each hero have a Speed stat. Quicker heros act first. On the combat phase, each hero puts a card face down the intended maneuver. When all is set, reveal the cards based on the speed stat with .

Maybe not one but 3 cards on order, so a common approach might be engage-attack-retreat or power-attack-retreat.

How are you dealing with the board itself? Hexes, squares or zones? Personally I would go zones and call each full turn a quarter of day. Will explain more if wished.

Please do
the board is in zones of 2 bases 3 lanes and 2 jungles between lanes

I mean, despite LoL's insistance on skillshots, mobas are more about team play and valuation/tempo with some matchup knowledge and personal skill thrown into the mix than the pure guess games facedown cards are for.

Also, I like "face down card" systems, but they are hard to handle with multiple players. Especially indicating which direction you move with the card. The Street Fighter RPG had an interesting solution, where you'd announce at the beginning of the turn how fast your action would be, then you'd place your cards face down, so you'd know which order to reveal them in.

You could also put it on a timer; I had a system like that in the works, but never really done much with it. Maybe now that I'm finishing up my other projects.

You could also scope out a bit and focus on the archetypes and maneuvers over the exact powers and positioning. I.e. you could have "juke" and "farm" or "aggro" cards, and you'd build your hero combining them. Items and talents would then modify the effects of these cards or let you thin/rearrange your deck.

Or you could just copy something like Strike!.

Go on about strike!
I have a pdf but didnt read a lot

Combat system starts about 90 pages in, that's what you need.

It's just a really simple system with classic D&D style actions (roll initiative, attack-move-bonus, reactions, etc.), but characters are built by marrying a Role to a Class; So you know how the 3 ninjas are 3 different roles in LoL? It's kinda like that, you could make an Archer/Defender, Archer/Leader, Archer/Blaster. Class gives your mostly active benefits/powers to use, while role nets you passive stuff.

Roles and classes are set up so that their powers combine well. Positioning (both of yourself and the enemy) is key to land AoEs and control their attacks.

It's a simple, effects based system that covers a lot of breadth.

Thank you for input
i understand what you said and i have the basic idea of what to do