Version 5 - Core mechanic text

[Rob Lang]

[Evil Scientist]

[Rob Lang]

Yes! The whole rules in V5 are changing to make some things simpler and other things more complicated! I think the current system is a rag-tag of rules that I force to work together rather than something coherent that makes sense to new people.

I like you point about objective tests. It's an interesting idea that I've not seen done very often. In PvP moments then it doesn't really matter if you're strong (to use your example), it just matters that you're better. Odd thought that might be, I think I'll keep it simple for now and see how it plays out.

I'm currently writing up Close Combat, here's another section from the Core Mechanic section.


At the start of the game, the players have pool of D10 in the middle of the table, one for each player that is playing. If you fail (even critical) and want to overturn the result then you can take a dice out of the pool, roll it and add the result to your check. If you do something that is particularly entertaining then the Gamesmaster can put more dice into the pool. The pool refreshes at the start of every session.

[Evil Scientist]

[Rob Lang]

I built the Shared Pool as a 24 hour system and then refined it into its own system (). I like the ability for the team as a whole to pool resources to use to help each other out rather than have a player say "my character is helping out this action" explicitly.

[Onix]

I think you hinted at playing with this a while ago. I can see the utility of changing the size of the numbers involved for simplicity. What have you seen change with the skills adding together? Is there a lot of skill crossover?

[Rob Lang]

I've not quite started the cull in skills but yes, there is crossover. I've more found that some skills are just not that useful. Where that is the case, they can be safely merged.

Technical skills are an excellent example, each area has Knowledge, Systems and Design Skill. Knowledge is just for knowing a lot, Systems for practical fixing and Design... as .... well, Design. In reality, this is a huge amount of Roleplaying Point (XP) effort for what amounts to a lot more effort for the players.

I also don't like how the skill points don't really fit in Close Combat particularly well. I like that having high Skill levels allow you to do more interesting Close Combat moves and build more interesting combos. I won't go into that too much as I've got the new Close Combat rules half written.

I wonder if - after the cull - there might be no need for the skill trees. Or less need. You certainly need to know First Aid before performing surgery. I'll wait until I've completed the cull (with a couple of additions) before I build the new trees.