It's the end of May, so my brain automatically shifts to game design mode. Just to be clear, I no longer design games to make money or get sales or get views or go viral. I write games because I cannot help it, and because my brain just keeps wanting to write them.
In many ways, I consider Stalwart Age about as strong as an entry as I could come up with for a low/medium crunch superhero system. In the same vein, I think Tales of the Splintered Realm is as strong of an adaptation of B/X as I could ever muster.
But then Hack'D & Slash'D caught me in its web of minimalistic game design. It can do everything that TSR can do, but in a much smaller space. It's faster. It's cleaner. It's simpler. I genuinely love it.
For years, I've toyed with ways to use various dice to represent characters in a supers RPG, and how this would scale. Somehow, this morning, the core of the system appeared in my head pretty much fully-formed, and after some quick brainstorming, I've framed up the bones of a ruleset. It is a supers system with a different mechanic through the lens of the minimalistic approach I have taken with Hack'D. I won't be suprirsed if the entire rulebook fits in 8 pages.
Here's the elevator pitch...
Your character is built on four traits: Might, Mind, Power, Reflex. Your character belongs to a tier, which is structured the same way as the tiers for traits.
Everything is rated on the same scale.
This scale includes a static value (SV), a die (giving a random result),
and a descriptor (indicating relative power of that value).
Sometimes, you use half your SV (rounded down).
Body Armor? It's the SV of your might.
Flight? Based on the SV of your Power.
Energy projection? Attack with your level die, do damage with your power die.
Lifting a ton? You need to roll 10 or better (so you need at least remarkable might);
lifting 100 tons has a target of 16, so you need to have at least D16 might to try.
You have hero points, a small pool of points to add to rolls.
Tier SV (1/2) Die Descriptor Scale
A 2 (1) D4 Poor Child
B 3 (1) D6 Average Normal Human
C 4 (2) D8 Excellent Street Level
D 5 (2) D10 Remarkable City Level
E 6 (3) D12 Incredible National Level
F 8 (4) D16 Monstrous Global Level
G 10 (5) D20 Supreme Cosmic Level
On a single roll, doesn't this mean that the greater the dice type, the less consistent their ability is, due to the greater range . Obviously over a series of rolls, it averages out, but with the bigger dice a single roll a single die can be cinematic ('Galactus missed, you're still alive') or slapstick ('Yeh, try again Thor'). Also if you attempt to streamline combat to the smallest number of rolls possible this doesn't allow a bell curve to take shape over the spread of rolls take would have averaged things out. I suppose you could give guidance as to when to roll so Thanos just DOES STUFF rather than has to roll for it. But I still think that it's weird how Hawkeye has some idea of his ability and limitations but Thor has to hope he's lucky.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I agree, because they are both aiming at the same target, so to speak. If Thor is attacking with D12 and Hawkeye with D8, and they are attacking a foe with 4 evade, Thor hits 66% of the time and Hawkeye hits 50%. And yes, there will be some guidance to GMs to use reason - a police officer with a pistol is not going to get a very lucky shot and just happen to kill Thanos.
DeleteOops - this should be a foe with evade 5, not 4 - but the point remains.
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