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Initiate
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Last Login: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 3:55 AM
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I've recently finished writing a low fantasy system, which among other differences has a slightly warped look at skills, and I am intrigued what people would think of it.
Firstly, there are no combat skills, since the martial abilities of a character are dealt with using a different setup.
In total, there are only four skills:
Craft (making things);
Learning (knowledges and specific training);
Survival (wilderness lore and other ranger-esque stuff);
Wyrd (the magic one, which I will come back to later).
A player creates Traits that fall under one particular skill, such as Ironmonger under Craft or Tracking under Survival. Traits are worded by the player, too: Tracking could instead be the Relentless Bloodhound Trait. Players can take Traits which have no system effect too, called 'descriptive' Traits, such as Smells Like an Animal under Survival. Descriptive Traits should be physically represented where appropriate, especially in the case of mannerisms or tics.
If using a Trait which has a system effect, the level of the overall skill is used to determine the character's ability. The value of each skill is equal to the number of Traits the character possesses.
For example, a character has the following Traits under the Survival skill:
1. Cunning Tracker [System: Tracking]
2. Herbalist [System: Herbalism]
3. Born Woodsman
4. Smells Like an Animal
And therefore their Survival skill is 4, and so all uses of Cunning Tracker or Herbalist use this value.
Characters will be described to others by their Traits, so players are encouraged to word them appropriate to their character. Descriptive Traits are not supposed to increase a skill in and of themselves, but rather are the result of increased investment in that field. They may even be worded detrimentally, since they always increase the skill level, such as a character developing Pale Skin due to their diligence in Learning. Descriptive Traits can be given freely by the Refs for decent costume or a good performance, as a reward to players that strive to make their character that much more memorable and interesting.
All Wyrd Traits are descriptive, and certain spells use the Wyrd rating as the strength of the spell. Wyrd descriptive Traits are intended to be 'odd' behaviour or dress, or strange tales about them.
Traits are not allowed if stupid or pointless, such as Thinks he is a Tree or Secretly God-King of the Universe, but apart from that there is a lot of option, I think.
Starting characters will have either 2, 4, 6, or 8 Traits to begin (and only witches can get Wyrd ones), with my initial ideas for XP costs set to:
Descriptive: 1 XP
System Trait: 3 XP
Ok, so does everyone understand that? Is it complete shite?
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Heroic Knight
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 11:21 AM
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Lets see if my alcohol addled brain can handle this...
I buy 'Follows tracks' [Tracking] for 3xp, I then buy, 'Eyes of the hawk', 'Like a fox' and 'Moves without sound' for 1xp each giving me a total [Tracking] skill of 4. If I then buy 'One with the surroundings' [Hide] for 3xp I use [Hide] and [Tracking] at 5?
So if two players have respectively 'All nighter' [Scholar] and 'Hit the books' [Scholar], each with 3 supporting descriptive traits, could they combine for 8 effective traits?
Is this the intent? Allowing me to fast track up with descriptive traits to be ace at a couple of things or to slowly become ace at many, many things?
How is the opposition task system designed? Would a lock be 'Well made' [Blacksmith], 'Intricate' [Locksmith], 'Shiny', 'Big' and 'With impressive detailing' for a total of 5 effective traits versus being bashed or picked?
__________________________
"Plan B is we swear fealty to the Dark Lord."
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Initiate
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Last Login: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 3:55 AM
Posts: 2,
Visits: 95
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I buy 'Follows tracks' [Tracking] for 3xp, I then buy, 'Eyes of the hawk', 'Like a fox' and 'Moves without sound' for 1xp each giving me a total [Tracking] skill of 4. If I then buy 'One with the surroundings' [Hide] for 3xp I use [Hide] and [Tracking] at 5?
That's right : )
So if two players have respectively 'All nighter' [Scholar] and 'Hit the books' [Scholar], each with 3 supporting descriptive traits, could they combine for 8 effective traits?
Combining Traits uses the lowest appropriate skill level, plus 1 for every assistant, to limit the numbers somewhat. In this case the combined effort is worth 5.
I like only a few numbers, and preferable low ones at that!
Is this the intent? Allowing me to fast track up with descriptive traits to be ace at a couple of things or to slowly become ace at many, many things?
Oh, yes- plus the character description is developed too. One thing I don't think I was clear on is that everyone knows the Traits of everyone else. They don't know any specific system effect or which skill they are under, but the plain text would be made available to everyone. For example everyone would know you as:
Jon - Eyes Of A Hawk; Follows Tracks; Moves Without Sound; One With The Surroundings; Like A Fox
This I think encourages people to think about their character's description and history, not just skills and abilities. Plus, the wording of certain Traits would obfuscate somewhat their effects, to keep people guessing about what you can do.
How is the opposition task system designed? Would a lock be 'Well made' [Blacksmith], 'Intricate' [Locksmith], 'Shiny', 'Big' and 'With impressive detailing' for a total of 5 effective traits versus being bashed or picked?
The idea of using Traits to describe objects never really occurred to me, as I was intending using just a number, but I actually quite like the idea, since it means the character creating an object has also written a telling description for it. The task opposition system is simply compare values, greater wins, defender wins on a tie. I've mentioned I don't care for numbers, right?
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