I needed a basic mechanic when devising my system, and in deference to my D&D roots I was initially compelled to make this a 'dice + stat > difficulty' system, a method that has worked well for me in the past. It was my initial plan to use four stats to define characters and a series of classes to define them and give them unique suites of skills. This was an entirely acceptable system and I'd done alot of work on it, including an interesting magic mechanic. However it still felt clumsy, the attributes were too broad and the classes largely similar to one another.
In response I cast my net out wide and looked for inspiration, something simple, quick but comprehensive. I was also determined to only use d6 since the more exotic types of dice are at a premium in our group and I didn't want to burden us with the need to buy more. Considering all this I began work on a system using the time honoured method of defining the difficulty of a task by a number of successes gained by rolling a certain amount on a number of dice, in a similar manner to 1st Edition Exhalted.
This in itself is not the most original of systems, but for my purposes it could be easily adapted for our setting, is fairly comprehensive and modified by our relativly inexperienced GM to sort all kinds of situations.
The system (as yet lacking the poncy moniker I usually give my game systems) works as thus; characters are principally composed of a series of skills, lacking any definable attributes such strength, in favour of a focus upon having the necissary training. In terms of assigning 'dice' characters have character points (Cp) which are used to buy dice for skills and also dice for their Hit Points, raising their Hp by an additional d6 at each level.
The basic cost is thus:
Number of Dice / Cp Cost
1 /1
2 /2
3 /4
4 /8
5 /16
etc
Skills will be capped at a maximum of 5 dice to avoid mass rolling, though Hit Points can continue to be raised past this point.
Actions
Actions are a simple test where a difficulty is given (a number 1-5) and the character must roll a number of dice equal to their relevent skill, say a character has Climb 3D then they would roll 3 dice when attempting to climb something. Sometimes this can be an opposed roll (such as a guard searching a room and a character trying to hide from them) in which case both characters would roll their relevent skill dice and the one who scores more successes would be successful.
In combat this system remains the same, with characters needing to score a number of successes equal to the targets Def (which is initially 1 + their armour bonus, to be discussed later). This is not an opposed roll, as might be logical, as this leads to too much dice rolling and would necessitate the presence of an 'Evade' skill which has in the past proven itself to be so powerful as to be necissary in opposed combat rolls.
Factors affecting action rolls and some examples will be included in the next post, but that's all for now.
In response I cast my net out wide and looked for inspiration, something simple, quick but comprehensive. I was also determined to only use d6 since the more exotic types of dice are at a premium in our group and I didn't want to burden us with the need to buy more. Considering all this I began work on a system using the time honoured method of defining the difficulty of a task by a number of successes gained by rolling a certain amount on a number of dice, in a similar manner to 1st Edition Exhalted.
This in itself is not the most original of systems, but for my purposes it could be easily adapted for our setting, is fairly comprehensive and modified by our relativly inexperienced GM to sort all kinds of situations.
The system (as yet lacking the poncy moniker I usually give my game systems) works as thus; characters are principally composed of a series of skills, lacking any definable attributes such strength, in favour of a focus upon having the necissary training. In terms of assigning 'dice' characters have character points (Cp) which are used to buy dice for skills and also dice for their Hit Points, raising their Hp by an additional d6 at each level.
The basic cost is thus:
Number of Dice / Cp Cost
1 /1
2 /2
3 /4
4 /8
5 /16
etc
Skills will be capped at a maximum of 5 dice to avoid mass rolling, though Hit Points can continue to be raised past this point.
Actions
Actions are a simple test where a difficulty is given (a number 1-5) and the character must roll a number of dice equal to their relevent skill, say a character has Climb 3D then they would roll 3 dice when attempting to climb something. Sometimes this can be an opposed roll (such as a guard searching a room and a character trying to hide from them) in which case both characters would roll their relevent skill dice and the one who scores more successes would be successful.
In combat this system remains the same, with characters needing to score a number of successes equal to the targets Def (which is initially 1 + their armour bonus, to be discussed later). This is not an opposed roll, as might be logical, as this leads to too much dice rolling and would necessitate the presence of an 'Evade' skill which has in the past proven itself to be so powerful as to be necissary in opposed combat rolls.
Factors affecting action rolls and some examples will be included in the next post, but that's all for now.
