The Gamers: Decent Into The Abyss (Custom System Creation.)

Nemo of Utopia

Nemo of Utopia

CHYOA Guru
Here's a link to the start of the comic the game will be based on:

The Gamer

This thread is to be a discussion group for creating our new "The Gamer" based custom system.

To start with we need to settle on the following areas. (As posted by Funatic in the interest check thread...)

- Base Stats
- Base MP/HP
- The Regeneration System
- Stat Points per Level


Here are my proposals for those items:

Base Stats:

Power: spiritual stat: determines potency when using supernatural abilities.

Strength: Physical stat: determines potency of your muscles and carrying capacity.

(Base carrying capacity: 0.5 Kg per point: double that if you are willing to take the "Encumbered" condition, double again (×4) if you are willing to take the "Heavily Encumbered" condition. For short periods you can lift (barely) eight times your base, but by "short" we mean less than 30 SECONDS. Magic items, skills, and special effects/events can greatly increase these limits.)

Dexterity: Mixed Stat: determines potential for use of agility and fine motor skills.

Stamina: Physical Stat: determines potency of your lungs, heart, and other internal organs.

Intelligence: Mental stat: determines how easily you learn new skills and memorize information.

Wisdom: mental stat: determines your "street smarts", ability to recognize lies/falsehoods, social traps, and your long term planning abilities.

Charisma: mixed stat: determines your ability to interact with others, quickness of wit, ability to adapt to changing conditions quickly.

Perception: Mixed Stat: determines acuity of all forms of sensory and extra-sensory perception.

Luck: Spiritual Stat: determines how likely random events are to turn out in your favor.

Sexual: Mixed Stat: determines your personal appearance, ease of interaction with those you find attractive, sexual potency, ability to sire/conceive/bear children, and ability to make sexual advances towards your preferred partners.

A 1st level character gets 100 points to distribute among the ten stats.

Base HP/MP:

Base HP is 20: it increases by the sum of your Charisma, Dexterity, Sexual, Strength, and Stamina stats each level.

Base MP is 20: it increases by the sum of your Power, Luck, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma each level.

Regeneration System:

Unless you have specific ways of increasing your regeneration speeds HP regenerates 1 point per hour of total rest. MP on the other hand regenerates 1 per MINUTE of total rest. More activity reduces the speed at which Hit Points regenerate by 100% Per 10% of strenuous action during that period, which can and easily does push the gain into negatives. When you take enough damage to put you at 75% or less health you become winded, the more you take the worse it becomes, eventually knocking you unconscious (if your HP reaches 0). HP can go negative, and when it reaches 50% of its max value negative you risk dying. If it reaches 100% negative your death is automatic.

MP takes a similar reduction from strenuous activities, but there are no effects from it reaching 0 other than you having no mana available. It can go negative but only matters if you reach 50% negative at which point you pass out. If it reaches 100% negative however you die... (This is how people die of exhaustion.)

Stat Points per Level:

Just like in the Manwha this game is based on your get 5 stat points per Level, however, also be aware that mono-focusing like the Manwha protagonist has is dangerous. Jihan in this system would be barely able to hit small targets like humans with his top tier powers with the stats he has during the ARC COMPANY incident in the Manwha.

Leveling up progression:

The basic rules for Leveling up Skills, Stats, and all other abilities are the same:

The cost in accumulated XP to level up any ability is (Current Level × Current Level) × (Type Modifier + Special Modifier†)
†(s):(if any).

Type modifiers include, but are not nessecaraly limited to:
Character Level (10,000)
Base Statistics (1,000)
Star Skills (1,000)
Special Skills (500)
Specific Skills (200)
Starter Skills (100)
Traits (1,000 + Special Modifiers‡)
‡(There always are special modifiers for leveling traits: and not all Traits can be leveled. As an example: the Gamers Mind and Gamers Body abilities which all standard player characters have are non-leveling traits.)

So, with the basic idea explained, what does everyone think of the system so far?
 
I am heavily against the -Health. This is based on The Gamer, your HP hits 0 and that is it, you explode into shards SAO style (No idea how The Gamer would actually die). Similarly i don't see the point of 'Strenous Actions' reducing Regeneration rates. We might not be able to nail down the exact Formulas the Manhwa uses but this just doesn't happen in The Gamer. It also makes the whole premise more REALISTIC, which i detest. Finally it doesn't make much sense with Gamer's Body and Gamer's Mind blocking body and mind fatigue.

In Stats currently Charisma is king as it not only increases HP and MP but makes Non-Player Interactions easier. This seems weird to me. I suggest that Charisma doesn't increase HP. I also suggest that Wisdom and Strength instead increase respective regeneration rates and that base regen is 1% of Max Mana per Minute as it would make big Mana Pool builds more feasible.

The Exp Numbers are really high for no apparent reasons. We might as well cut a 0 of everything. Also not sure how this is supposed to work. If you run Skills, Levels and Stats (<--I also don't understand what this is doing here) over the same formula one of them will always be the most efficient by a country mile. Also the formula will grow out of control pretty fast with all those multipliers. I mean level 2->3 is at least four times the EXP of 1->2 if i read this right. You know because 1x1 is 1 and 2x2 is 4 and that is then multiplied with the Type and Special Multiplier sum.

I am generally not liking this system as it is very far fetched from the original. I know being the literal Protagonist Gamer doesn't work because we all would turn into OP Brotherfuckers within 20 Minutes but this just doesn't feel right.
 
You know, those are all good points.

Some of them I have answers for, some partial answers; some not so much; and would welcome suggestions on all of them.

1: Regarding the negative HP/MP issue; total agreement, but, counterpoint: Gamers Body/Gamers Mind aren't the free ride they are in the comic (You guys aren't THE Gamer, just A Gamer...) once you have those abilities these "fatigue" Type tracks stop affecting you, but conversely it's like you say, drop to zero HP... "BOOOOM!" (Zero MP just means you're out of juice...)

Now why am I not saying to scrap the idea completely? This system we are designing is supposed to be expansive, eventually there will be supplements for all kinds of Abyss residents, everything from Chihon Bu/Dan Li style MA fighters to Alchemists, Necromancers, and Druids, back to guys like that one poor mercenary idiot from the fight with The Company... Unlike you they all have to deal with those problems.

2: with respect to leveling up progression. You're right, remove the squaring at the start of the formula; and drop all exp costs by a factor of 10.

The reason I don't suggest dropping them by a factor of 100 is two fold:
2A: people like big numbers.
GMs like the granular nature for handing out minor Role Play awards, and players like them because it makes them feel accomplished.
2B: leveling should require effort.
As we have seen in the comic Jihan leveling both powers and levels themselves is a matter of constant grinding, just like a MMORPG. If it's too easy to level abillities then you would do as you have said and zero everything but one stat.

3: Stat Distribution: part one.
Speaking of which, I think we should change stats up a bit, you get only 50 points to distribute at 1st level, but conversely start with a 5 in everything, and furthermore can't start with anything higher than, say, 20?; 25?; 30?; what says the hive mind?

4: Stat Distribution: part two.
I agree that having Charisma factor in to both HP and MP was a mistake.

To Explain my reasoning: I was viewing CHA as your "force of personality", which allows you to shrug off pain and draw more deeply on spiritual energy.

Here's my idea for a fix: Instead of CHA I propose we make PER grant more MP, representing your ability to identify and tap the energy around you.

[Y/N/M?]
 
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1. I think you should keep the -Health Mechanics for the NPC's. They are very much in line for everyone else but the Player in this case, as they are still (mostly) humans. Same for the Strain mechanic. As i said, they make thing more realistic, which is fine for everyone but the Player.

2. I wouldn't want to drop two 0 either. That is where numbers get to small and the finetuning gets hard. These numbers seem fine to me for now (Closer Inspection might reveal some more problems but that is the case for pretty much every Pen and Paper System designed ever).

3. I was originally gonna adress that too because having 0 strength (for example) sounds very weird. On that nore: You might want to increase the Base Carrying Capacity because current base would be 2,5 kg weight liftable. Even as a person of very lean build i can lift more than that without being inconvenienced. Back to the topic though: I very much support a Base Statline and with the 50 Statpoints you are giving us that would mean we start around level 10, which makes sense if the chacracters spent at least a few hours in the Grand Labyrinth.
 
Oh, actually, that reminds me, for the purpose of the first playtest of this system, (When it gets to that point...), the characters would start at 6th level. So you actually would begin with 50 points to distribute as a starting character then 25 gained by levels. (Which you could put wherever you want...)
 
Funatic said:
1. I think you should keep the -Health Mechanics for the NPC's. They are very much in line for everyone else but the Player in this case, as they are still (mostly) humans. Same for the Strain mechanic. As i said, they make thing more realistic, which is fine for everyone but the Player.
Click to expand...

Glad you found my reasons acceptable.

Funatic said:
2. I wouldn't want to drop too 0 either. That is where numbers get to small and the finetuning gets hard. These numbers seem fine to me for now (Closer Inspection might reveal some more problems but that is the case for pretty much every Pen and Paper System designed ever).
Click to expand...

True Dat!

Funatic said:
3. You might want to increase the Base Carrying Capacity because current base would be 2,5 kg weight liftable. Even as a person of very lean build i can lift more than that without being inconvenienced.
Click to expand...

With regard to this: true, what about 2 Kg base and all else remains equal? That makes a 5 around 20lbs, which reflects that 5 is not the actual baseline, 10 is, and 40lbs is about the upper limit for an average (out-of-shape) modern person to lug around unencumbered...
 
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