Penumbra Threshold a Supernatural & Fantasy RPG

[Kaiisaxo]

[misterecho]

I look forward to seeing your work.

[Kaiisaxo]

Part III will be uploaded by campaigns, I'll upload "Rebirth-Revenge" first, then "The one to be Gaia" and finally a single pdf with all three campaigns. This because it'd take too much to edit the three of them together. By uploading them one by one, I get to upload more often. And just in case they aren't very visible in the original post:

Part I
https://rapidshare.com/files/2578152053 ... R1_PtI.pdf

Part II
https://rapidshare.com/files/60229373/P ... 1_PtII.pdf

[Kaiisaxo]

Ok, let's forget about the above links, those doesn't work anymore and frankly the original rules were starting to get cumbersome. So I'll start by posting the general rules here, hoping to get some feedback.

The core mechanic

It's called Fundamental Mechanic Check (FMC), it mostly works as the exact inverse of how it's done in D&D 3ed

D20 :"Roll a d20 add modificators and compare to target number if equal or higher there's a success"

Penumbra Threshold: "Get a basic dificulty number, add modificators to get a target number, then if target number isn't too high (automatic success) or too low (automatic failure), roll a d20, if the result is lower than target number the action is a success, otherwise is a failure."

Also the above only applies to complex situations, simpler stuff is a matter of comparing attributes (there's no way you can fail at openning a door and no FMC will allow you to carry a boulder that's several orders of magnitude heavier than your strength).

The Stats

They are eight and are divided in body and soul stats.

The body stats are Stg (Strength), Fit (Fitness, this also is used to know how much can a character heal and how much stamina may a character burn in a single go), Qck (Quickness, agility, speed and coordination, when more than character atempt an action at the same time the one with the highest Qck gets to act first) and Con (Conversion, this one is a bit tricky, this score marks how protected a character is against supernatural damage and how much Mana may burn in a single go). Stg and Fit are always positive and higher than 0, Qck may also be equal to 0 and Con may be either positive, negative or zero.

The soul stats are Prt (Purity, depending on how high or how low certain actions are easier or harder. This also keeps track of the morality of the character), Clm (Calm, ease of focus helpfull for intelectual activities), Wil (Willpower), Lck (Luck, this affects all rolls but those involving mastered skills)

Secondary stats include DT (Despair Threshold, marks the minimum HP or Stm required to stay awake), AT (Agony Threshold, marks the minimum HP required to stay among the living, if the HP drops below the AT the character enters in agony state, that results in death) and Sz (Body Size, determines the appropriate armor, shields and bows the character may use and the amount of weight that can be carried without hinderance).

Each character has four pools: the HP pool (Hit points, if they drop below the DT the character may faint, if they drop below the AT the character enters agony, if they drop to 0 the character's body dies) the Stm Pool (Stamina, stamina wears down by physical activity and is regained by resting, if the Stm pool drops below the DT the character may faint from exhaustation), the Awareness pool (This pool is decreased by mental activity and recovered by relaxing, when this pool drops to 0 the character gets severe penalties when attempting an action) and the Mana pool (This pool is spent to activate supernatural abilities and is regained by resting).

...
OK so much for now, I've been wanting to divide the Qck stat into three stats, one meassuring speed, one meassuring relfexes alone and one just for the hand-eye coordination, but I'm a little reluctant to increase the number of stats again (they used to be 12 plus the derivattive stats) How does it look until now?

[Rob Lang]

I can't see that your core mechanics is adding very much.

The typical D20 system is:
D20 + modifiers > target

Yours is:
difficulty number + modifiers < D20

The automatic success/failure is the same in D20 because 'too high' and 'too low' would be target numbers outside of the reach of D20 + modifiers. The best reason for changing a mechanic is to make your game feel like the setting it is trying to portray. Here, you're being different for the sake of it, which isn't adding much.

I prefer to use the fully names of the stats, there is no need to shorten Quickness to Qck. Please do not be constrained by unnecessary RPG traditions. You have and additional problem here because most will see Con as Constitution. Don't worry about space on the character sheet, you can always have two bits. Don't make your system more difficult to learn than it needs to be.

For each of the stats, I would ensure that you have a mechanic that makes use of it. Dump stats tend to be those that do not have a specific mechanics associated with it. For example, Strength and Quickness might well be good for combat; Purity is good for magic but what about Willpower and Calm? How do these statistics fit in. I would be tempted to design in the opposite direction to the manner in which you read a game. Decide on the mechanics you want to have in your game and then decide what stats you need to make them work.

For example:
I want a fist fighting mechanic, the mechanic will have the player describe the blows and the blocks. A character will do damage depending on how skilled they are. So, I'll have a stat Fighting, have the moves as skills the character can collect over time and a modifier depending on how good the description is.

What is stopping me giving you better feedback is that I don't understand the concept of your game. I'd recommend checking out this post: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2601 and come up with a strong concept before you continue.

[Kaiisaxo]

Thanks for the feedback.

About the core mechanic, I made a very important omision, the reason the target number is calculated first then the dice is rolled, is because that way: a) all the math gets to be handled by the GM, so the players focus on deciding how to roll and the actual play, in other words the GM is the one to calculate all of the target numbers, the players just roll b)there are four ways to roll, each of them has its drawbacks and its own reach, knowing the full target number in advance allows to decide which way to roll.

The four ways to roll:
- roll 1 d20 and use the number as is, by far the simplest one.
- roll 2d20 and use their average (rounded down). (this can only be used as many times as you have Calm until your Awareness recovers to it's maximum value)
- roll 2d10 and use their average as the result (this uses up all of the awareness minus the Calm)
- roll nd20, where n is the number of simultaneous actions to execute, and use their sum as a result.

Willpower and Calm do have mechanics involving them, Willpower is the primary modifier when a character tries to resist a compulsion (be it internal -like resisting the urge to lie, to steal, to flee from battle- or external -like someone else trying to control you or forcing their way into your mind-), but also is the stat involved in staying awake when too hurt or too tired, as I mentioned before, when your stamina or HP are below the DT you run the risk of blacking out, the only way to stay awake is by passing a FMC in which your Will is the dificulty number. Calm marks the number of simultaneous actions you may attempt normally (with a single d20), and also is the dificulty number in FMCs related to learning mental stuff, and is the primary target number, along with Quickness, in a wide array of abilities (like riding and driving)

I confess I wasn't thinking about mechanics when I started designing this game. I started by making a list of descriptors, since i'm adapting a setting with it's own set of rules, then creating the mechanics to manipulate those descriptors acording to the rules of the world. Maybe it'd be best if I start by describing the setting.

[Rob Lang]

My biggest problem here is that I have no idea what your concept is. I can't give any more feedback until I have a firm understanding of what your game is likely to achieve. At the moment, it feels system crunchy with lots of resource tracking. However, it doesn't feel like anything in particular. It doesn't feel like a certain genre. It doesn't feel like it might play a certain way. It doesn't feel cinematic or wargamey. It just feels like lots of dijointed mechanics.

Please write down a nice fat concept for us to look at and then we can understand your work in context of what you're trying to achieve.

[Kaiisaxo]

To be honest my original goal wasn't to create a new system, my first intention was to "convert" the blackverse into rpg format, however I couldn't find a suitable system, so I set out to write one form scratch.

Those are my goals about the system:
It's targeted mainly towards people that haven't played rpgs or have played freestyle at most (simplicity it's the goal, I still have a lot of work to do in order to simplify things though)
It's main goal is to reproduce faithfully the magic and other supernatural phoenomena in the blackverse, not in every detail, but in a way that in-game effects simulate the in-setting results.(this is why I ended up with so many descriptors)
In general it has to be able to reproduce most (if not all) of the stories set in the Blackverse.

About the setting:
It's easier to think about the Blackverse as a layered setting, the outer border is "the light part", a reality that's undistinguishable from our own, the next layer is "the penumbra threshold" where weird things start to happen, someone finding this Threshold may choose to shrug it off as just an oddity and return to the light or descend into the next layer, known as "The Penumbra", where the weird revealis itself as the supernatural, even there it remains as something extraordinary, then whe have "the umbra threshold" where the supernatural goes from extraordinary to familiar, in the next layer "the umbra" the supernatural becomes mundane, finally the most inner layer "the Depths" features dangers and mysteries so mind blowing that even those who feel at home in the umbra are terrified to descend that far. People in different layers it's not barred from interacting with each other, to opossite is actually pretty common.

The themes are diverse, however a good deal of the stories center around dilemmas and dicotomies, some recurrent ones are: fate vs free will, honor vs happiness, retribution vs forgiveness, emotion vs reason, order vs chaos, love vs power, corruption vs selflessness.

There is not a single genre in the setting, most of the stories are urban, historical and low fantasy, however some could be considered Magical Realism or even plain slice of life.

The One Miracle Matter
The One Miracle Matter it's the closest the universe has to a physical god, The One resides in the center of the universe creating matter and energy and organizing the cosmos, it takes great care into creating worlds and places life into them. The One has four servants that were born from the Matter, each servant embodies an aspect of the universe as the One sees fit, in order they are: the Life, the Death, the Reincarnation and the Judgment. (Note, it's a very, very bad idea calling the One's or any of it's servants' attention, with probably the exception of Death, as all of them are also cosmic horrors)

Mother
Mother, Gea or Pangu, the first true miracle, she was the only living thing born out of the dirt (and thus she wasn't created by the Life's intervention and has no ties to the One). She gave up her life in order to seed her home world -which had been designated by the One as lifeless- with life. By the way, that world is Earth, and all of earth's native life forms descend from Mother. The remants of her original body are known as relics and living beens with them (known as Pangus) are blessed with a fraction of Mother's power. Mother's spirit resides on a higher dimension -called Walhalla- where she watches after her children.

The Four Entities
The Four entities are the only beings in the cosmos that can match the One's power -should they choose to work together. They are the Heart of the Light, the Heart of the Darkness, The Beast of the Light and the Beast of The Darkness. The Beast of the Light (aka The white Predator) embodies space, the Beast of the Darkness (also known as The Black bird) embodies time, The Heart of Darkness is Emotion and The Heart of Light embodies Reason. In theory The hearts have priority over the Beasts while being equal to each other, however in practice The Heart of Darkness is the most powerful of the two. The four entities (with the excpetion of the white Predator which is chained under the Walhalla and watched by four monsters) usually choose human hosts to share their power and knowledge with. The Black Bird it's the only beeing capable of changing the course of fate, which is otherwise set in stone.

The Spirits
The Spirits are a very numerous group of minor entitites, all of them are reliant on their leader and "mother" called Zan-dra, a spirit of revenge, to remain alive, they are responsible for a good deal of Chaos and Confusión, though some are rather benevolent.

...To be continued on the next post, which will be centered more on the Earth overview and the power sources available to humans.