Post by xerxez on Jun 12, 2013 23:46:12 GMT -6
Greetings, everyone. A wise man always surrounds himself with people wiser than himself so I am mining the collective gaming experiences and theories of the forum.
Lately it seems I do more designing and crafting game mechanics and gaming pieces than actually playing D&D! I have created a card based game using d6 for a very simple story telling campaign based on the Outdoor Survival Board. I have made over 100 illustrated cards for the game and it is set up to where any first time DM could run a game simply by following the cards and embellishing the encounters and directions with a little story-telling. There are cards for everything!
It does not have a character generation system at this point--I made up character cards, named characters that fit most basic archetypes of the D&D game with setting adaptations. Each character has skills and powers with a score of 1-3 and three basic attributes, Body Mind and Spirit that contain a point spread of 7. The game is meant to be super Rules Light--character "progression" is mostly a matter of acquiring various magical items and treasure and holding onto these. There is no leveling up, though I may later add a mechanic for skill improvement. I had young people in mind when I decided on the concept.
Today I formulated a basic action resolution system based on d6 and would like some hole-finding, advice on improving the mechanic, etc.
There are only 3 attributes for every character--Body, Mind and Spirit. Highest possible score in any attribute is 5. My thought was to allow characters, when undertaking any action in the game that is governed by a given attribute, to throw a number of d6 equal to the attribute score against the DM's handful of Control Dice, the number of Control Dice being from 1-6 based on the difficulty level of the task at hand, as assigned by the DM. If the player ties or beats the Control Dice, they are successful. Saving Throws would function the same way--you would use whatever attribute is relevant to the danger and toss a number of d6 equal to the Difficulty factor of the Save (which in the case of Monsters is tied to the Monster's score on a monster card). Skills function the same way--if your character has a Watercraft skill of 3, you would throw 3d6 against the Control Dice.
There are bonuses, mostly through the aid of magical items. Bonuses can be +1, +2 or +3.
One intended effect of this mechanic is that fortune would favor the players most of the time and failure would be relatively rare... except when they use weaker skills or attributes! That's the pitfall I see in it. I have not playtested it yet because I feel something is missing. I know it is not realistic as Attributes and Skills have little relationship but then again, I was able to arbitrarily design each character card and thus give each character an internal sense of logic. After someone has played the game once or twice and has an idea of how the character card works in the game, I will allow people to craft there own character cards, subject to DM approval and modification, setting being another factor.
How do you think this mechanic sounds? I have heard of similar systems, albeit not as barebones. How might I improve it and keep it simple and d6 based? I would appreciate any input, even though this is not D&D (but it will feel like D&D in many respects as to how it is run...). Thanks in advance.
Lately it seems I do more designing and crafting game mechanics and gaming pieces than actually playing D&D! I have created a card based game using d6 for a very simple story telling campaign based on the Outdoor Survival Board. I have made over 100 illustrated cards for the game and it is set up to where any first time DM could run a game simply by following the cards and embellishing the encounters and directions with a little story-telling. There are cards for everything!
It does not have a character generation system at this point--I made up character cards, named characters that fit most basic archetypes of the D&D game with setting adaptations. Each character has skills and powers with a score of 1-3 and three basic attributes, Body Mind and Spirit that contain a point spread of 7. The game is meant to be super Rules Light--character "progression" is mostly a matter of acquiring various magical items and treasure and holding onto these. There is no leveling up, though I may later add a mechanic for skill improvement. I had young people in mind when I decided on the concept.
Today I formulated a basic action resolution system based on d6 and would like some hole-finding, advice on improving the mechanic, etc.
There are only 3 attributes for every character--Body, Mind and Spirit. Highest possible score in any attribute is 5. My thought was to allow characters, when undertaking any action in the game that is governed by a given attribute, to throw a number of d6 equal to the attribute score against the DM's handful of Control Dice, the number of Control Dice being from 1-6 based on the difficulty level of the task at hand, as assigned by the DM. If the player ties or beats the Control Dice, they are successful. Saving Throws would function the same way--you would use whatever attribute is relevant to the danger and toss a number of d6 equal to the Difficulty factor of the Save (which in the case of Monsters is tied to the Monster's score on a monster card). Skills function the same way--if your character has a Watercraft skill of 3, you would throw 3d6 against the Control Dice.
There are bonuses, mostly through the aid of magical items. Bonuses can be +1, +2 or +3.
One intended effect of this mechanic is that fortune would favor the players most of the time and failure would be relatively rare... except when they use weaker skills or attributes! That's the pitfall I see in it. I have not playtested it yet because I feel something is missing. I know it is not realistic as Attributes and Skills have little relationship but then again, I was able to arbitrarily design each character card and thus give each character an internal sense of logic. After someone has played the game once or twice and has an idea of how the character card works in the game, I will allow people to craft there own character cards, subject to DM approval and modification, setting being another factor.
How do you think this mechanic sounds? I have heard of similar systems, albeit not as barebones. How might I improve it and keep it simple and d6 based? I would appreciate any input, even though this is not D&D (but it will feel like D&D in many respects as to how it is run...). Thanks in advance.
