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Cerulean Image RPG System; Long-running WIP of mine
Topic Started: December 1, 2014, 1:51 am (268 Views)
Knight of Tigers
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Cat-Eared Complex Blitzkreig from the South
This is a system I've been working on for a while now with a twofold purpose: firstly, to stat and balance out my characters in a unified setting; and secondly, to potentially run it in a proper roleplaying capacity.

I may or may not get to the setting itself in a later post. However, the only ready-to-evalate materials I have right now are the basic mechanics (in this post) and the Fire-Emblem-esque weapon/magic circles (in the next post). Please let me know what you think, any ideas for improvements or additions or if there's any details I've missed and need further explanation.

Attributes

Aspects and Skills

Despair/Hope Dice

Vitality and Wounds
Edited by Knight of Tigers, December 8, 2014, 6:26 pm.
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Knight of Tigers
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Cat-Eared Complex Blitzkreig from the South
Weapons

Magic

Elemental Sub-Wheel


Regarding Shifters and magical beasts: Natural weapons such as claws, fangs, etc. are neutral weapons. Dragon breath attacks are considered Elemental or Divine magic, depending on the level of the dragon’s divinity. Dark dragon breath attacks are considered Dark magic.

Regarding Divine magic, Dark magic and death/undeath: Yes, Necromancy is a function of Dark magic. No, death spirits are not Dark, they are Divine, as death is a natural process. As a result, yes, undead will still take double damage from divine 'death' spells/abilities; there's a long explanation involving how Dark magic 'programs' an alteration into the life/death state and how Divine magic forces the the alteration to accept that it's a self-contradiction, but it's a bit complicated.

Using an advantageous weapon/magic increases the attacker's final result by 2 and reduces the defender's final result by 2. Furthermore, defending against damage from an advantageous weapon/magic cannot reduce that damage below 1.
Edited by Knight of Tigers, December 8, 2014, 6:02 pm.
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
I'd love to play something like this, although I would definitely need some examples with step by step explanations. I think I understand it so far--it's basically a different spin on D&D style gameplay, right, with dice being rolled to determine whether an action succeeds or fails and stats, aspects, so on and so forth granting bonuses to those rolls like trying again and taking the best result or adding one roll to another?

It does seem complex at first glance, but after I read it through another time or two I think I should have it sorted. Maybe give an example of a character built with the system, and then run them through a few challenges? Combat's an obvious one, but maybe some other things too--How to solve a puzzle, how to overcome a terrain obstacle, and things like that?
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Knight of Tigers
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Cat-Eared Complex Blitzkreig from the South
Essentially, yes, it's a kind of tabletop system like D&D... but as far as tabletop systems go, it's quite far removed from the d20 system.

It does seem a little complex, and I spent all night wondering about a few problems, not the least of which regarding whether both Effort (size) and Exhaustion (stock) will both be increased using the same chargen point pool, or if they’ll be increased using separate pools, or if Exhaustion is intrinsically tied to how high your Effort is. Similarly, how do above S Rank attributes factor into derived stats, whether just adding more adjustments really reflects having a superhuman attribute, and stuff like that. I'm actually considering replacing the adjustments gained through S+ Rank attributes with just flat bonuses (+1, +2, +3, etc) to the final result. EDIT: Decided that was a good idea and ran with it.

Honestly, most of these problems come about as a result of the recent change in my system from a straight no-frills "roll x number of successes to pass the test" type to this experimental stock deal, and the resulting conundrum of losing in-between Ranks (C+, B+, A+, etc) and the flat numerical associations therein.

... If anyone's keeping up with all that jargon. Ehe.

ANYWAYS. Babbling over, mechanical stuff below.




MECHANICAL STUFF
Here's a quick breakdown of how to roll for a given test or conflict:

1: Decide Exhaustion expenditure (attribute)
2: Find the Effort of the dice you're rolling (base attribute + Wounds)
3: Roll
4: Add Skill bonus
4: Apply effects from Aspects

ALSO. Regarding Derived Stats, when it says something like (Tough+Will), that's referring to the Effort of each attribute. So if you have d8 Toughness and d10 Willpower, that translates out to (8+10). Maybe it was obvious, but it's something I should have made absolutely clear from the beginning to avoid confusion.




As a side note, I should have mentioned before, mechanical inspirations come from Classroom Deathmatch, Don't Rest Your Head and FATE, foundational inspirations come from Fire Emblem (obviously) and my own worldbuilding stuff (double obviously).

I will post a sample character and some example tests later, possibly tomorrow. I am currently out of town (hence why it took so long to respond), and may or may not have the opportunity to get something together. As it stands, I don't actually have a character generation draft ready, but I reckon I can retool the one from the previous 'edition' to work more or less the same; I just have to figure out what to do with the split between Effort and Exhaustion... Maybe make it 2 chargen points per Rank and 1 point per Exhaustion?

My dad, an avid roleplayer himself, is here with me, so I might run it by him and see what he thinks.
Edited by Knight of Tigers, December 3, 2014, 10:14 pm.
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Knight of Tigers
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Cat-Eared Complex Blitzkreig from the South
EDITS
Attributes section of Post 1; changes to S+ Rank Attributes, Initial Skill Points and Skill Growth.
Advantageous weapon mechanics in Post 2.
MAJOR OVERHAUL REGARDING THE FUNCTION OF SKILLS AND WOUNDS, INCLUDING CHANGING THE TIER I-III SYSTEM TO A RANK E-A SYSTEM LIKE ATTRIBUTES
Rolling mechanics detailed in Post 3


BUYING SKILLS

Buying a Rank E Skill during character generation costs 3 Skill Points. You also acquire one new Rank E Skill any time you earn a new Aspect during play.

During character generation, you can use your Initial Skill Points to increase the level of your Skills. The cost of raising a Rank E Skill to RANK D is 15, and the cost of raising a Rank D Skill to Rank C is 30.

Skill Point cost to increase Skill Rank
Rank E -> Rank D15
Rank D -> Rank C30
Rank C -> Rank B45
Rank B -> Rank A60



SKILL GROWTH

"That's great! But how do I make my Skill better during the course of the game?" you may ask. That's where Skill Growth comes in.

Every time you use Skills during a game, note down which Skills you used and how many times you used each one. At the end of each session, you can make one Skill Growth roll for each Skill you used per number of times you used them. If you succeed the roll, that Skill gains 1 Skill Point for each success.

Example: During a game, Rachel (our example character who you'll be introduced to later) used her Acrobatics skill once and her Dark Magic skill twice. This means she can make one Skill Growth roll for Acrobatics and two for Dark Magic.

The roll you make to determine whether or not your Skill has grown is performed with percentile dice. The number you must roll equal to or under to succeed is your Skill Growth derived stat (which is 30+(Knowx3)%). This means that, depending on your Knowledge Rank, your Skill Growth will be anywhere between 42-76%.
Edited by Knight of Tigers, December 8, 2014, 6:09 pm.
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Knight of Tigers
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Cat-Eared Complex Blitzkreig from the South
EDITS
Other magic types can perform elemental damage sub-types, i.e. elemental curses (Dark) or emotions expressed as elements (Empathic).
Skill point cost for buying Skills during character generation has been reduced from 5 to 3.

ACTUAL CHARACTER GENERATION RULES

Took me long enough. There’s four steps to character generation (not including fluff):
- Attributes
- Derived Attributes
- Aspects
- Skills

Attributes all start at Rank C and 5 Exhaustion. You have 12 points to distribute in any way you wish. It costs 2 points to increase an Attribute’s Rank, and just 1 point to increase its Exhaustion. You can also lower Rank or Exhaustion as you wish in order to gain an equivalent number of points.

Derived Attributes are just basic math. Remember, when it says something like (Tough+Will), that's referring to the Effort of each attribute. So if you have d8 Toughness and d10 Willpower, that translates out to (8+10). Furthermore, if you run into fractions when dividing, round up. Lastly, all characters have one Dead box after all their Wounds. There is no way to increase this; there are no such thing as degrees of death.

Aspects start off in the following way:
1 Defining Aspect: Defining Aspects are the core of who your character is. This is the core component or summary of their concept. You should only ever have one Defining Aspect.
0 Power Aspects: Power Aspects are used for any character with supernatural abilities. It is not mandatory to have a Power Aspect, but if you are a spellcaster or have any other kind of supernatural ability, this should be reflected with one of these.
2 Trait Aspects (two separate ones!): These are the general types of Aspects that were explained in the Aspects section above. Character traits, talents, careers, and ties to people, places and objects all fall under this category.
1 Disadvantage Aspect: Exactly as it sounds. Everyone has a flaw, and this is yours. These Aspects are rarely used by the player, and are mostly there to guarantee that a player doesn’t miss out on gaining Hope Coins. You’re welcome to have more than one Disadvantage, but you must have at least one.
The content of the Aspects is entirely up to you, but these are the mandatory bare minimum. You then have 5 Aspect boxes to allocate as you wish, to either improve existing Aspects or buy new ones. Don’t forget; even a non-Disadvantage Aspect may work against you, but that’s not a bad thing! Try to leave a bit of room for the GM to exploit weaknesses; you’ll get Hope Coins out of it, after all!

Finally, Skills. This has all been mentioned across previous posts, but let’s consolidate all that information here. To find how many Skill Points you have to spend, multiply the Effort of your Knowledge Attribute by 5 (Rank C Knowledge will land you with 24 points, for example). From there, you can buy Rank E Skills at a cost of 3 Skill Points per Skill. You can increase the Rank of any of your Skills for the standard Skill Growth cost (from E to D is 15, D to C is 30, and so on), or put a few points towards advancing the Skill even if you don’t have enough to rank up all the way. It’s unlikely you’ll start off with a slew of Rank A Skills, but don’t worry; you’ll build that up over the course of gameplay.

Let’s have an example character! Meet Rachel Harding, a librarian who specialises in Dark magic and fighting with combat strings.

Name: Rachel Harding
FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF DESCRIPTION STUFF GOES HERE
Attributes

Aspects

Skills
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
I'm gonna try and make a character using this system, once I've read through it again and am sure I understand it. It may not be completely serious, though, more along the lines of "Name: George McSword Class: Paladin Ability: Behead Monster" type stuff, but hopefully it'll be another helpful example of how the process goes.
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Systematic made by Phaede of the SZ..