I'm not sure where to put this, as it is not a game – at least not yet – but I still need some feedback. For a long time now I have been thinking about trying to run a Fantasy Intrigue type game using a system somewhat similar to the one Tjf is using in Stars Unending. The game rules: Success and failure will depend on dice rolls, with the base being d100+any modifiers (positive or negative) vs. the target roll. Said target roll could be a fixed value or an opposing dice roll. Examples: - trying to spot a trap – d100+any applicable skills, perks, traits and other modifiers vs a fixed number depending on how well the trap is hidden. If the player's result is equal or higher the trap is found (or the player realizes that there is no trap) - trying to sneak on a sleeping guard in the middle of the night – again d100+any applicable skills, perks, traits and other modifiers vs a fixed number - trying to sneak on a guard who is awake - d100+any applicable skills, perks, traits and other modifiers vs d100+any applicable skills, perks, traits and other modifiers the guard might have. If the guard's roll is low enough sneaking up on him might prove easier than if he was asleep - trying to seduce a woman who is faithful to her husband – you'll need multiple successful rolls (4 or 5, or even more), and each time she gets a significant bonus (for example +50) to her roll to resist the temptation - trying to seduce a woman who is unfaithful to her husband is likely to be much easier – you'll need only 1 or 2 successful rolls, and she gets a significant decrease to her rolls (for example -50) Character creation is still a work in progress, but it will be something like this: Spoiler: Character Creation Name: Nickname(s): Optional Race: Gender: Sexual Orientation: Appearance: (may use a picture in place of a description) Rank: * Villager – you start with your own home in a small village and little money. You can spend some points to give yourself a family, such as a husband/wife or a son/daughter (must be of legal age). You have the least responsibilities, but will be forced to obey the orders of those with a higher rank. Increasing your rank is difficult but not impossible. For example, you could seduce and marry the son/daughter of a rich person or a noble – though this will cause a scandal, especially in the latter case. A villager could be just a villager – such as a farmer – but they can also be something more, usually kept secret. For example, a villager could secretly be a spy, an assassin, a torturer, the bastard child of a noble, the legitimate child of a noble... * Rich Merchant – you start with a lot more money than a peasant. Again you can spend some points on traits to give yourself a family or some connections * Noble - being a noble comes with a lot of privileges, but also responsibilities. You can spend some points to give you some advantages and disadvantages. Expect to get targeted by other nobles for various reasons Religion and magic are integrated in society. Being a powerful mage or a high-ranking member of a religious order does not give you any special privileges beyond what is mentioned above. So a village priest or healer will get treated about the same as other villagers (they might get special treatment in their home village, but that's it) Background: Personality: Skills and Traits: By default you have 10 customization points you can spend on skills and traits. You can put 1 or 2 points in a skill, and you are allowed to have ONE skill at 3 points. Max level of any skill is 5, so you will get to increase your skills during the game Traits, unlike skills, have no levels. Their cost varies based on the effect of the trait. Traits can be hidden or known, and that affects their price. Not all traits can be hidden. Examples: * Large Breasts is a trait that cannot be hidden and costs 1 point. It will give you a bonus to all rolls when dealing with people who like large breasts * Anal Slut is a negative trait that can be hidden or known. It increases pleasure from anal intercourse. Requires actually having something inside the butt (doesn't matter if it is a finger, a cock, a strap-on dildo...) and does not apply to things such as giving a buttjob. Anal Slut (Hidden) gives you an extra customization point to spend; Anal Slut (Known) gives you TWO extra customization points to use – this is because if the character's weakness is known people WILL try to exploit it, such as trying to force the character to accept a bad deal while she's distracted by getting her ass fucked Hidden negative trait: +1 point Known negative trait: +2 points for traits that can be hidden, +1 point for traits that cannot be hidden Hidden positive trait: costs 2 points (because people not knowing about it gives you an advantage) Known positive trait: costs 1 point (people will be able to plan for it, negating some of the advantage) A trait that has a positive and a negative effect has a cost of 0, as the two balance each other Hidden traits should be listed in the character sheet as Hidden Trait. Skills can be the typical things: Seduction Persuasion Intimidation Haggling Diplomacy Magic – Arcane Magic – Elemental Magic – Celestial (also called Divine) – unlike the other two types of Magic this one requires serving a higher power. Most of the time said higher power won't care what you do as long as you follow certain basic rules, but occasionally you might be forced to do something you don't want to Leadership Combat Tactics Etc. Or they can be sex-related, if you prefer: Cock Sucking Pussy Eating Titfucks Etc. Same with traits – they can be just about anything, such as: Scarred Face – a negative trait that cannot be hidden and makes most people have a negative reaction toward the character Unfaithful Husband/Wife – the character is married but is not faithful to their significant other. This is a hidden negative trait that can have quite the negative impact on the character's reputation if people find out about it. Anal Slut - a negative trait that can be hidden or known. It increases pleasure from anal intercourse. Requires actually having something inside the butt (doesn't matter if it is a finger, a cock, a strap-on dildo...) and does not apply to things such as giving a buttjob Sensitive Breasts – negative, can be hidden or known. Character's breasts are very sensitive. Character gets easily aroused whenever someone plays with them Ancestral Weapon – a positive trait that cannot be hidden and gives you a high-quality weapon Noble Bastard – the character is the bastard child of a noble, which has a negative impact on their reputation and some nobles will look down on them. But the character gets an extra point, so who cares, right? Betrothed – the character is engaged to someone and expected to marry them. This can have both positive and negative effects (though mostly positive). Breaking the agreement without a very good reason is sure to have negative consequences Childhood Friend – the character has a childhood friend. Can be taken up to three times Broken Promise – the character has broken an important promise. Sooner or later that is going to cost them... A pet – the character has a pet Charming – most people find the character very charming for some reason. Bonus when trying to persuade or seduce another character Intimidating – most people find the character very intimidating for some reason. Bonus when trying to intimidate another character Etc. As you can see just about anything can be a trait. IMPORTANT: You can spend up to 3 of your starting customization points to give (an) NPC(s) related to your character some traits and/or skills. For example, if the character is married you can spend a point to make the NPC: Faithful – the NPC will try to stay faithful to your character and will (try to) not cheat with other people Unfaithful (Hidden) – the NPC is secretly cheating on your character Tracker – the NPC is skilled at tracking, be it prey or people Loyal – the NPC is loyal and will (try to) not betray you. Doesn't stop them from cheating on your character. Etc. Of course, spending points on NPCs means less points for your character, so up to you if it is worth it. NPCs follow almost the same rules as player characters, except they can have more points. For example, an Elite Archer could have 5 points in Archery, 4 points in Longbows and 4 points in Short Bows, making him a huge threat when he has a bow available. Of course, the opposite is also true and an NPC can have less than 10 points. For example, the village idiot might have just 4 points. So, what do you think? Too simple? Too complicated? Any obvious issues or loopholes? P.S.: Remember that this is still a work in progress. Some parts of character creation might get changed, such as the Rank section and giving nobles the option to create a small army for themselves.
Physical traits costing points might be a bit of an issue. Skill at sex is something that points could cost, but I don't know about physical features or parts of the bodies needing to be something you have to invest into. Are the characters in question purely human or fantasy races incorporated if magic exists? Backgrounds might be a little limited for any outside context things (I'm thinking Valkyries, if that's a thing allowed. If just humans, I'll probably figure something else out. But even then things like mercenaries, foreigners, knights and all that aren't really addressed.)
Let me see if I got this straight. For character creation you start with 10 points. Those points can be spent on SKILLS and/or TRAITS. You can spend 3 points on one SKILL while all others max at 2 points (if you spend entirely on SKILLS). TRAITS can be either positive or negative, and selecting negative TRAITS reimburses points. Hidden positive TRAITS cost more than known ones, while hidden negative TRAITS reimburse less than known ones. You can also spend 3 points to give an associated NPC SKILLS/TRAITS. Is that right? ADDENDUM: Question: If you give the associated NPC negative traits (such as UNFAITHFUL does that reimburse points?)
I should probably reword that to make ti clear that physical traits cost points only if they have some effect on the game. If they have no effect and are just a part of the character description, then they are free. In the game I'm thinking of (still in the planning stages) humans and elves are the two most common races, but they are not the only ones, so you can be almost anything. Yes, that's correct.
Would unfaifthful innately count as a flaw though? If it doesn't hinder the character in anyway and the only "flaw" is them just doing things they planned to anyway at no disadvantage, can that be labeled a flaw? Just my thoughts. For a negative trait to exist it should actually impact the character negatively rather than just enabling them to do things anyway with no consequence. Just my own ideas on how that should work.
I actually quite like the way it's been designed thus-far; that said, alterations can be made. I would like to suggest additions. Instead of just SKILLS and TRAITS, you could change TRAITS to PERSONALITY TRAITS, then add PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS and ASSETS. Instead of having 10 points to spend across all categories perhaps give each category 3 points. If you want more points, you can select negative stats in any pool and take them as UNIVERSAL points. There should be some limitations on this as you shouldn't be able to select "MAGIC" as a negative SKILL. (Either you can use magic or you can't.) But you could say drop TACTICS to increase MAGIC. Another restriction could be you can't drop any SKILL more than once and you can't reduce more than 2 stats per pool. So you'd have: SKILLS: Talents your character has learned, honed, mastered, and actively practices; as well as ones they're bad at. (Woodworking, Warcraft, Logistics, Blacksmithing, Diplomacy, Bargaining, Scrutiny, Tactics, Combat etc...) PERSONALITY TRAITS: Qualities of the character's behavior that provide positive or negative affects on rolls to exploit or be exploited by other story characters. (Faithful, Unfaithful, Deception, Trusting, Leadership, Submissive, Loyalty etc...) PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: Physical traits of the character that provide bonuses or penalties (Large Breasts, Scarred Face, Tall, Muscular, Physically Weak, Small Penis, Poor Health etc...) ASSETS: Things your character possesses that provide an innate bonus or penalty to associated rolls (Ancestral Weapon, Land, Title, Cursed Artifact, Demonic Pact, Childhood Friend, Pet, Broken Promise etc...)
No, it wasn't there when I was quoting the post, so thanks for pointing out the addition. Yes, that's the idea. Well, a lot of traits – positive and negative – are situational. For example, let's say that a noble's personal bodyguard is Loyal. If someone attempts to get them to betray their master, then Loyal will come into play and be beneficial. But if no one tries that and instead the bodyguard is assassinated as a way to send a message to his master, then Loyal was just a waste of a point. The same goes for any negative traits. While I will try to put all traits to use, in the end a lot depends on player decisions. So yes, you could go the whole game without a flaw having a negative effect on your character. The reason I kept it all in one is to allow a bit more freedom. Want to have a plain-looking character that does not have any notable physical characteristics? You can do that. Would you rather have no notable personality traits? Sure, that's fine. Want to start with no assets? You can do that... One thing you brought up that I really should have thought of – especially since I have seen the same used in the Cogent Roleplay system - is having the character be bad a certain skills. So you could put a skill at -1, making the character very bad at a particular skill (gets a negative to any roll involving that skill) but giving you an extra skill point to use. I'll take some time to think about this. Thank you for the feedback so far, guys. You've given me some stuff to think about.
I haven't had time to give it a proper look over, but so far it looks like a really interesting system. I'm not sure about having physical aesthetic choices being traits though, such as large breasts, etc. I tried it in the medieval game I gm'd a while ago, and found it mostly just restricted people and didn't add much to player experience.
Would an associated NPC have a hard cap of 3 SKILLS/TRAITS or could you in theory load one down with a maximum of 3 positive and negative ones? Because I have a character forming in my mind that I'd like to do the latter for.
Yeah, this is why so far the plan is to let players choose the character's look freely and spend points only if a particular trait has an effect on some of their rolls. But this part is not final and I might change it, so we'll see. It will be some time before I feel ready enough to do an interest check, so no need to rush with character creation. As for your question, that is one of the things that are not final and I am still thinking about. The way things currently are you can do what you described, giving an NPC 3 positive and 3 negative skills/traits, with any additional ones chosen the GM (i.e. me) based on what is known about the character. For balance reasons I will probably put a limit on how many negative traits you can pick for your character and NPC(s). Else you can give yourself a dozen negative traits to get a dozen extra points. Again, thanks for the feedback, guys. I see there are some things that still need work before I try using this system in a game.
I'd say maybe a kind of fourth bracket for what skills allow your character to more uniquely do as say combat manuevers. Like....say you might have lightning magic as a skill, and while a generic lightning blast isn’t anything specific, a more defined mechanic like: Lightning Javelin: Roll a 1d20 accuracy roll(Target 5). If it hits, this attack pierces armour. Final Light: A player can take another turn after they attacked, and all hostile targets are treated as weak to electric damage during this turn. After this turn ends, if any enemies are still remaining, the player loses. For more specific combat attack like that, they might need a different way of defining them I mean, but a passive improving battle abilities would be a regular skill would be something like: Thirst of the swarm: This character receives bonuses to combat rolls for each other allied Vampire character currently engaged in combat with them. Must be a Vampire to use this skill or receive any bonuses from it.
