Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

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Eleventh Century Remnant
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Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Summer before this one just gone by, I ran something that was sort of a test, sort of a session of my own pen and paper tabletop system; it fizzled, partly due to time of year, partly due to too much complex plot fed in too fast that I'll have to add with a lighter hand in future, but it was fun while it lasted.

In search of something to pass the northern hemisphere's winter away, anybody up for another go? The original thread is http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=140722, the rules are there and can be reposted as needed.

There are a couple of things I plan to do differently, starting the group together to begin with for one, but basically it's medium- high fantasy with a relatively lethal combat and improvisational magic system and relatively few 'monsters'- other people for the most part.

Anybody?
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Panzersharkcat »

I'll bite. I want something to do while waiting for stuff to go on in my NationStates regional forum.
"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Ah, I love the sound of total commitment...(kidding, of course.)

First thing you need is some kind of character concept, all the numbery bits come afterwards; essentially, civilised country, not many random gribblies, late mediaeval/early renaissance technology with some grand scale magic, late bastard feudalism with outliers in both directions;
the place has very recently- still digging yourselves out of the rubble- been the recipient/victim of some fairly spectacular intervention; same general setting, but moving to a different place, possibly different precise time, mostly different people to meet.

The precise plot depends on who's up for it and what I think the characters can stand having thrown at them, and maybe I overestimated it a bit first time round. Something to adjust.

What works in terms of characters- the half dozen or so PC's in the paper game over the years who managed to bend the plot around them and become powers in the land include a classic Celtic druid, an avatar of the trickster god, a bard with a sideline in necromancy and assassination, the last remaining worshipper trying to revive a dead god, a western sword- saint, a knight with multiple personality disorder in denial of most of his own personalities' abilities- normal is not required. Anybody doing anything as ridiculously dangerous as going out and being a hero isn't going to be normal anyway.

Capable, on the other hand- able to function in society and look after yourself is a very good start, but there usually has to be more than that. Oh, no constructs or daemons or anything of the sort; everyone has to be a normal squishy type, this time. One thing the last run proved is that constructs are just too hard to be let out without a damn' good reason.

So what's the plan?
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Panzersharkcat »

I'm a bit sleepy right now. Sorry!

Because I kind of miss my Dark Heresy character, whose tale was cut short by people in the gaming group moving away, I'll go with hits shit with a hammer very hard kind of character. Human by the name of Scipio Aemilianus (one of my Oblivion characters and a name that I hope won't cause Thanas to bludgeon me with a history tome :P). Reflecting the name, he should be nobility-ish. However, it should also be implied by his oddly muscular build out of a family of fairly physically unimpressive people that his mother wasn't exactly truthful about who his father was. Anyway, he goes on a mighty quest or whatever to prove himself worthy of his family name. At least that's why I came up with half-asleep in a few minutes.
"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

You really trust his sense of humour that much? It's bearable as a character name- not usual but there have been far worse.

Anyway, the character concept can be made to work, I can see that- but do try not to get killed. Precise details will come out in the build, but a beginning character is- well, not far off a novice acolyte in relative status, in fact; better than the average, better than a lot of the people around you- but only really an embryonic player of the great game, with much out there meaner than you are. Characters can grow fast and far, to challenge the powers what is- if you don't take on too much too soon.

Looking for a group of about four to six, actually- wait a bit and see who else is willing to join in.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

I read the old thread end to end and have occasionally kicked myself for not joining it when I had the chance. I want in, but I need some more time to think about character concepts- tonight is not a good night for me to exercise any more judgment; I just spent six hours grading the physics finals of a pack of biology majors.

Can you tell us anything about where you're starting it? Kuquan again?
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Tasoth »

I'll bite.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Hmmm... A Scipio. I don't trust Thanas's sense of humor farther than I can throw his law library, but for myself I'm sure jokes will come to mind from some other quarter. Anyone who uses the name of a major historical figure is walking right into them. ;)

As to character concept, a lot depends on social context- it's hard for me to develop characters without a sense of the world they fit into. Also on game balance; do we need hedge-wizards or fighting-men more?
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Panzersharkcat »

Well, it was a name I decided on while I was half-asleep. I could always just go with my default of James Hagen but that doesn't sound fantasy-ish enough.
"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

You can take whatever name you like. I just reserve the right to come up with situational black comedy about you naming yourself for one of history's most famous reluctant ethnic cleansers.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Panzersharkcat »

I actually remember him more for opposition to Tiberius Gracchus. I managed to completely forget the whole sacking of Carthage thing while I was naming him. :P
"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Tasoth; good- now you need an idea.

Simon- yes, Kuquan again, largely because I have enough bubbling on there that I can pluck some part out of the background and turn it into a working plot for whatever combination of characters get thrown at me.

From the original thread, for instance, the patch of forest left to the baronet's daughter in his will was going to be used as the safe house for a group of conspirators aimed at full- blown regicide; and Baerne's character was going to turn out to have had her false memories given her by the king's own secret cabinet in an attempt to supersede one of the conspirator's inheritances and disrupt their plan.

There's a lot of background material in the original thread, and in the link from the first post to a story in UF that is basically the dramatisation of the first playtest group, and I assume that the characters know their way around, at least in general terms, even if the players don't.

When I say 'late bastard feudalism', what I mean is that phase in history more or less as the high middle ages begin to turn into the renaissance; militarily the leadership class remains the same, noble and chivalric, but small retinues are giving way to large armies with some idea of order, rents in kind and military service are largely superseded by a money economy, literacy rates are around thirty to forty percent, wind and water power is widespread, the roots of the merchant are starting to broaden out into a middle class.

Closest historical analogy, anyway. A lot of the arrows are pointing in different directions, the trends differ and how the world got here obviously differs massively, but for a general sense of the possible it's a good first gloss.

Because of the way magic works- and one would be good, but not many, there really aren't that many about- essentially when dealing with the sort of mad, bad and dangerous things sorcery makes possible, (arguably including most thaumaturges) quality matters much more than quantity, so the old feudal order still has a lot to do in suppressing the madness, and partly holds on to a larger place in society because of that; it is possible for a sufficiently cynical observer to reckon it's a con, they're all in it together.

Magic can work wonders, but- one thing I want to emphasise more this time- it's a cosmological chimaera. There's no good reason in physics why it should be possible, the rest of the universe works normally enough. The people who find it easiest to notice this fundamental problem are the wizards.
What sort of personality, what sort of ego, do you think you have to have to know that what you're doing is impossible and keep doing it anyway, and make it work? "I reject your reality and substitute my own" begins to cover it- most wizards' guilds are actually something close to a mutual defence association and legal indemnifier, and the loonies are usually in charge of the asylum.

Priests are no inherently saner, but are at least better grounded in the society around them, and a lot of the basic social functions- education, welfare- are de facto provided by one church or other. Many gods claim to have created the world, and many people currently on the run from vengeful paladins claim (correctly) to have proven them wrong.

That, at least, is the short version. Ideas?
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Tasoth »

So, this is going to sound horrible, but I want a character that is completely useless in combat. I figure in a party of six, at least 2/3rds will be built to wreck people with weaponry and fists.

Here goes. I want the character to be low born, a drifter and plunderer of battlefields. He's making his way through the world by being persuasive and an amazing debater. I don't want him to be a thief or a conman, but someone who can play people for what he wants, turn junk into gold and the only reason he isn't a powerful noble lord is because of economic bracket he was born into. In essence, I want to support the facepunchers when we have to deal with intrigue, swaying kings and taking care of the wounded.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

This strikes me as a brilliant idea, and I'm glad to hear it, Tasoth. Too many combat monsters can deprive a campaign of any real intellectual depth, after all. A few competent social engineers are good- although you might want to devote some minimum of effort into making sure your character isn't comically easy to kill.


Also, ECR, a question. From reading the old campaign thread and that story you wrote set in Kuquan (basically, adventuring party gets roped into going down into an old dungeon to find some local lords who ran there to escape the Twentieth Cataphract's rampage), I know some of the pantheon, pieced together from context- a god of leadership, of hatred, of craftsmanship, two gods of war (one Ares-analogue, and one Athena-analogue with the Ergane aspect stripped out)...

But I don't have it nailed down. I know lists of gods aren't very important to you (I remember your comments on the D&D list), but you've got no more than fourteen, and knowing the list would seem fairly important for anyone who aspires to more immersion in the campaign world than "I hit it with a stick." Could you sum up who's on that list and what they're deities of, in a reasonably concise form that wouldn't require too much work?


I'm still trying to generate a suitable concept- we need some kind of balance, something broadly equivalent to the warrior/healer/rogue dynamic, noting that a magic-user can be any of the three depending on their specialization. When I have a better idea of what my fellow needs to be, I think the idea of how to play him will come together better.

So far it sounds like we've got one swordsman/axeman/hammerer/whatever, and one social engineer.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

My login timed out while I was typing; I must have gone into more detail than I had intended.


Right, the gods; the current dominant pantheon is called the Fourteen, for obvious reasons and a few historical accidents along the way.

The Terminal Empire, otherwise known inevitably as the Black Towers, is the defining historical event- a widespread thaumaturgical dictatorship that extended far beyond the bounds of Kuquan, and whose reputation is unrelievedly evil, and well deserved.

Kuquan's a big country and a bit of a patchwork- there were three states there previously, all conquered and swept away by the Black Towers, all with slightly different variations on a solar-lunar system of worship (and traces of earlier cults and ideas yet) of which some parts remain in folk memory.

The Towers swept all of that away, and they were not poly, mono, any other kind of theist really- more egotist. Ask one of their lords the question, and shortly before he dismembered you and enslaved your family he would say something along the lines of 'Yes, there is God, here, it is Me.'

Kuquan has the religion it has, and that is in the state it's in, because of the resistance to the Black Towers. The local faiths had crumbled when the society they were attached to crumbled; the already forbidden, underground cults- tellenic druidism the most prominent- could do surprisingly well at holding their own, and some things to protect the people, but didn't really have the might to change the situation.

Tol Authran was where the expansion of the Towers was stopped and began to be rolled back- it's well known that at least eighty percent of the stories of that war are deliberate obfuscation or failures to make sense of a fast moving, confusing situation, but the human auxilliaries who did the work of liberation on the ground brought their religions with them.

Mostly they were fairly similar pantheons, function-gods related to aspects of humanity, so they fitted together not too badly- although look closely and you will find some gods with aspects and some without, indicating those aspects were once independent deities who were subsumed, and some obvious gods missing entirely- the story goes that there is no god of healing because she sacrificed herself, dividing her power among her fellow deities so she could be everwhere she was needed; if the Lords of Tol Authran thought it wise to tell they would tell a very different tale.


Valdemiron is the chief of the gods, may have been a deified hero to begin with, and his human priests tend to be the chief priests of the area; prayed to chiefly by the nobility.
Interestingly he seems to have lost one aspect- purely military leadership. There are stories of warrior- priests acting as generals in a way that they simply do not have the talents to do now. He also seems to be gaining another, granting priests abilities that move in the direction of a judicial function.

There's an interesting gap here- no chieftainess, no hearth- mother. Valdemiron has sons and daughters, but no bride. There are minor local deities, but none accepted in the role.

There are two war gods- Huran, who is very much a soldiers' god, and strangely almost entirely a destroyer; there is little in his pantheon about life in the military in general, or about surviving war, it's almost all, in the fight, make things worse for the other guy. He's a god who desperately needs aspects, and doesn't have any; and sealing up most worshippers of Huran in a glass case maked 'break in event of war' is probably actually a good idea.

Krylanya is an officers' and heroes', and by default warrior women's, goddess; she has no aspects not because there aren't enough different takes on her worship, there most certainly are, but because she prefers to subsume it all into her primary core. Arguably Valdemiron's warrior- chieftain role fell to her, and her followers have done some fairly serious meddling in high politics- she may well be the most intelligent of the deities, through choosing to be the most complicated. That has downsides, though. Because of her tendency to facet there's no guarantee that any two groups of her followers really think alike, and some of them are dragging her in directions she doesn't want to go- a strong minority of warrior women who want less intricate dancing and more fire and primal wrath, and of male chainmail-bikini fans. The temptation to drop both groups in a small locked room and let them sort each other out has, occasionally, been given in to.

For those in the middle, there is little or nothing; sargeants, essentially, have no god. This should not be a surprise to many.

Ikhran, craftsman's god, is also in effect the deputy chief of the gods, wherever there are buildings anyway. Partly because he has such a cloud of sub- aspects to manage, aspects of specific trades- including a couple related to war; most artillerymen (still almost entirely torsion and lever) are of the cults of Ikhran- that he's already doing it anyway. The craft guilds, builders and masons and carpenter's and the like, have really grown into symbiosis to the extent that you have to be a master craftsman to be a priest, and any master craftsman is inevitably approached about becoming one. Two things- it's more common than not to be a priest of Ikhran without actually being a Capital-P Priest, without having any thaumaturgical ability whatsoever, and the cult is very well situated in the community.

There are two open field gods, farmer and shepherd, Ayral and Gargath, and they probably came from different pantheons, each has aspects that do some of the other's job and their priests are often rivals, as their followers are frequently economic rivals.
Gargath the Grower has put down- as might be expected- deeper roots, has subsumed a lot of what remains of the older local deities of the soil (including a very nasty earth god of destruction that was one of the great enemies of the druidic faith, but they try not to mention that) and currently has no but is groping towards a weather aspect.
Ayral the Herder is more rootless, more transhumant, and may develop towards a patron of messengers and travellers.

Two more oddly shaped holes; no weather god (should be the chief of the gods as in most pantheons, but as a deified hero there are limits to his span- it used to be the druidic faith anyway) and no god of travellers. Partly because at the time, you could only go travelling with at least five thousand heavily armed mates. Historical accident.

Vyr the god of rage, revenge and revolution had a searingly obvious place in the liberation of Kuquan, he was the hammer of the people, the instrument through which the abused and oppressed commoners found ability to rise up and strike back against the black towers; the danger he poses to kith and kin in time of peace is obvious, though, and much was done to play down his worship and minimise his power in the aftermath- from former rival for Valdemiron's crown, he was marginalised and pushed into being essentially the god of outlaws and traitors. More people pray to him to stay away from them than do for his powers; could be more, but it would take a long, long time and a lot of work for him to go from the aspectless howl of anger he presently is to anything like a patron of democracy.

Urphalion, artist, has no aspects, despite many being possible, because most of his abilities relate to the artistic process rather than the details; historically the worship of the artist- god seems to have been a political weapon, introduced ahead of the liberation under the guise of my body may be in chains but my mind is free, actually to awaken the souls of the people and prepare them. There were some interesting subversions in both directions on the front lines of the culture war, there were defeats and there are 'dark facets' that no-one wants to think much about; today Urphalion presents himself as essentially apolitical, although oddly elitist. Even though aspectless he does have muses, appropriated (seduced?) from an older pantheon.

Sulidain is a supposed traders' god that was obviously born in hard times, because he has a very small aspect of honesty- the majority of his powers are actually about subverting the free market, about unfair dealing and swindling people. In fact, the primal con is to present himself as a traders' god, when he's closer to wealth and greed, (im)pure and simple- with aspects of outright thievery. He has, however, acquired a monopoly on being the god of the market place, and intends to hold it by all means fair and foul. He may have arrived as the tutelary deity of the munitions contractors "supporting" the liberation. Better gods are undoubtedly possible, and attempts have occasionally been made to import them. Valdemiron occasionally hits him with things and threatens to let Huran loose on him.

Yeleia and Chelet are often found working at cross purposes, because one is the goddess of love and the other the goddess of family and community. Yeleia has aspects but overall tends to the wild, passionate and spectacular, Chelet is solid and steady and frequently found picking up the bits of Yeleia and putting her back together.
Socially it's the inverse of what you could expect- Yeleia is frequently seduced by shiny things like power and wealth while Chelet is often the quiet, stubborn revolutionary, the family as the core unit against the state.
Yeleia likes to scramble and experiment and unbind and make anew, Chelet believes in people's need for each other and prefers to hold together and defend. Either, on their own, would go too far. A traditional wedding involves ceremonies conducted by priests of both.
They may have originally fulfilled the same role in the pantheon, Chelet also being the hearth- mother of hers, for two communities which simply had very different outlooks on life.

Dnor seems a very little necessary god, being officially the deity of something which is essentially inevitable- death. After the end of the wars of liberation and without quite as many attempts to interfere with souls on their way to their afterlife, there really was little for him to do. With much attention, and therefore potential power, he grew into a deity of many aspects, essentially questions and boundaries. Diviners often pray to him, spies and thief- takers, and he may take the role of the messengers' god before the herdsman does.
On the other hand he is also a divided god, as it is frequently his followers on the other side too, warding and defending, preventing secrets being known and fates read. Strangely he also caught the largest single piece of the healer god as she shattered, but many ill people are remarkably reluctant to trust in this aspect.

The last pair are often classified as lesser gods of war, or gods of the chaos that attends war, and there is a lot of weight pointing to the idea that they were born under and possibly by the empire of the towers, as a subversion of their own. In which case, they got it half right.

Elnur is as close to an outright god of evil as the pantheon can boast; almost all of them are capable of doing bad things, but he (in some versions, she) is capable of very little else, being the god of petty tyrants, the god of frustrated hopes and nursed hatreds, giggling torturers and the anger of sheep- the god of people who want to see at least a little bit of the world whimpering on broken knees for mercy, for the sour pleasure of telling it 'no'. Continues to exist really because some people are like that or have a streak of it in them, and most worship is propitiatory- here, stay away from me; can occasionally rise to the heights of poetic justice, and that's the usual excuse- the god of dark justice and retribution, although apart from being able to identify and home on weakness, discrimination is not one of the powers.

Efrodrion is the trickster god, and some of the followers openly admit that was his first scam- although again there are versions and aspects that are female; tricking the black towers into weakening themselves by giving him the power to be born, and then running off with it. There are dark and light aspects, but the light predominates- there are con-men, but there are also clowns and theatre- men, chimera- makers and satirists- unlike the official artist god who takes his abilities often far too seriously, the trickster is the one to follow if you want absurdism, zen humour, poking fun at the po- facedness of power, and spectacular defiance of reality.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Panzersharkcat »

I take it my character will be a worshiper of Huran or Krylanya. I'm guessing Krylanya since he's supposed to be nobility, even if there's the whole "you're not really the Earl's son" thing hanging over him. (Earl picked arbitrarily. Not actually his father's title. It'll probably be a fairly low position on the nobility tree.)
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Huran is preferable for the unsubtle sort; Kip strikes me as rather unsubtle by inclination.

Still thinking. Some concepts that appeal to me somewhat...


Recalling Safrac from the last game, there's something to be said for an honest-to-god knight; I don't have so much roleplaying experience that the simple archetypes have started to pall. And the knight has, potentially, a good balance of qualities for RP- well defined strengths and weaknesses, hereditary allies and enemies, a following to be entrusted with simple tasks so that the character isn't trapped by situations that would be resolved trivially if only the party had a trustworthy man to say "here, hold this" to. Also a cluster of loyalties and obligations.

So that's one possibility. Upon that I can build the framework of certain social skills consistent with the class and useful in a game that gets political, of course.


Another is magic-use, and here my physics-training is coming into play because I've got this idea of someone who specializes in manipulating electricity, magnetism, and light. Exact limitations and details aren't really relevant to the character concept; this would of course also be a fighty build. Unfortunately I don't have much background or personality for this one, only an idea of what they do, which is obviously not enough.


Various rogues and tricksters, scholars and social engineers are also a possibility, I could easily go with that, but Tasoth has already picked up a social engineering character concept in mind, which narrows the advisable decision-space quite a bit... And now I find my mind drifting back towards Vehrec's Randolf, a scholar and healer. Hmmm.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Unless you're an actual thaumaturge, the main difference the character's religion makes is who they know socially through that, and who knows them; who they might be able to call on for help, and vice versa. Oh, and the 'week' is religious rather than related to the moons, fifteen days- one holy day for each god and All Gods' Day. Most working people work three and two.

Yes, there are three weekends a week. There must be some advantages to this after all...

Simon, go with whatever works for you, I can build some plot around either main option- although the thaumaturge would have more interesting options available for the start. If you're stuck for a more detailed background it can flesh itself out during character creation.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

A thaumaturge specializing in electrodynamics, then- interesting is good, and interesting from the starting gate is better. I'll mull things over a bit, see if something starts to come together. It should start to gel, I have enough information about background to start drawing things together.


As to religion, the reason I bring it up is because it's helpful for getting a first rough cut of how a person sees themselves fitting into society. Presented with a man whose chief obvious skill is hitting things with an sword, I can reasonably ask myself- clearly he is a warrior, but what sort? How much of his nature as a man centers around the physical act of combat itself, versus the flexibility and complexity of what loosely gets called the art of war?

You could construct similar questions for people who do other things- take a prosperous farmer in the countryside. Is "farmer" what he does, or who he is? If the former, he might be a better fit for (in your pantheon) a goddess of community who's as close to a hearth-goddess as is on offer in this century; if the latter, well, you've got a god of the crops.

For most RPG players, figuring out what a character does is the easy part, because the stats provided make it easy and calculable. The hard part is working out the context and backstory in a way that fits organically into the campaign world; that's where knowing the social and economic structure, and the pantheon, come in handy.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Hmm. Electrodynamicist... I find myself irresistibly drawn toward the early life of Michael Faraday as inspiration for a character background, and that can actually work now that I think about it. It offers a well defined set of primary and secondary skills, strengths and weaknesses... this is starting to gel.

It might also, ultimately, tie into the comments made earlier about how no one is as qualified to realize how inherently daft the universe's obedience to a wizard's will is as the wizards themselves...

I'm not yet ready to complete character generation, ECR, but if you want to roll up my array of nine basic stats, I can figure out how to slot them into place in shortish order.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

Ah, sorry, because of the double post I missed that one. I still want another couple of players, but we can start the creation process now.

Panzersharkcat, you have a string of 15, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12, 11, 10 to arrange,

Tasoth, 14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12, 11, 10,

Simon 14, 14, 13, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Panzersharkcat »

Social attributes-
Temper 13, Fellowship 10, Charm 11

Mental attributes-
Logic 12, Creativity 12, Education 13

Physical attributes-
Strength 15, Endurance 13, Agility 12

Still deciding on advantages and disadvantages.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Possible skills listed, and I will winnow that list and come up with exact scores myself. I don't mind suggestions but I'm not specifically requesting them, so much as I'm trying to lay out my thoughts in a rough, qualitative sense: who is this man and what is he capable of, approximately?

If you have any advice about how to do the build, feel free to comment; if you have any setting-specific requests or advice on how this man should fit into the setting, likewise- PM if you want to keep it sub rosa.



So ability scores are allocated and some ideas for a skill set are pencilled in, but not everything is resolved. Again, my primary source of inspiration is the early life of Michael Faraday- the man was born to a village blacksmith's apprentice, was apprenticed to a bookbinder*, and most of his education comes self-taught from what he read during those days. He read enough of certain kinds of tomes to get him started in alchemy, which is what he really thinks of himself as at the moment, where he started to find his feet. Along the way he's finding his insight into material structure and the forces for which he has too few names growing beyond the fully natural.

Still thinking for a fitting name.

By inclination he is an intuitionist and an experimentalist, though one with enough respect for the potential of things to blow up in his face not to be foolish about precautions, especially when dealing with the arcane.

*Kuquan is a land without printing presses so far as I know, but the demand for people who can recopy, maintain, and repair old books is still there, not so?

Temper 13
Determination (middling),
Resist Magic (middling to high),
Resist Persuasion (middling)

Fellowship 10
Bargain (middling, years' experience as shopkeeper and customer)
Human Perception (low)
Oratory (low, heavily influenced by what he reads)

Charm 13
Animal Handling (low)
Banter (middling to high)
Persuasion (middling)



Logic 14
Debate (low, possibly none)
Evaluate (???, is this functionally equivalent to Appraise, and if so and/or if not, what else does it cover?)
Perception (middling to high)
Runes (low to middling as yet, what is its role?)

Creativity 14
Alchemy (high, a primary skill at start),
Scrounge (low to middling, mostly expressed as a knack for finding or cobbling together strange items at low prices; am I misinterpreting this skill?)

Education 12 (take a penalty for added AP for magic?)
Craft: Bookbinding (low to middling; relatively good at care and feeding of rare books),
Evaluate (???)



Strength 9
Club (low, ???) or Brawl (low, ???)
Labourer (what does it mean to specify, how specific do I have to be?)

Endurance 13 (take a penalty for added AP for magic?)
Resist Injury (???)
Resist Disease (???)
Survival (???)

Agility 11
Dodge (???)
Riding (low)
Survival (???)

[I'm considering knocking points off physical stats in exchange for magic; those AP have to come from somewhere, and this isn't a character who can be easily saddled with high-AP disadvantages]


Advantages:

Wealth, Rank-
None to speak of.

Allies, Patrons, Reputation, Relationship-
He has some friends and contacts among the alchemists of the region within which he's traveled, which is large but not that large; they respect him and generally like him, but it's unlikely that they'd do anything seriously illegal for him without strong extenuating circumstances. Family is reasonably loving but physically distant and has no clout to speak of.

Attuned-
Probably not, he is too much the dreamer for that, there is no place where he is particularly grounded and in his element. Might be justified in the lab or the shop, but that's not very helpful from a gaming standpoint, unless this turns out to be a very different sort of game from anything I expect.


Disadvantages:

Code of Honour and Duties-
Might reasonably be applied to his profession, but how and to what extent? He won't risk death FOR SCIENCE!, that would be parodic and unreasonable.

He will, given his background and thinking, probably feel considerable ties to the church of Ikhran; his whole life has been expressed through crafts. Privately he tends toward a certain amount of pantheism, Nature is immanent in all things, though Nature in the sense of 'all that is,' not just in the sense of 'all that lives.'

Phobia-
Possible but must be justified, and nothing springs to my mind at least.

Secrets-
None to speak of, since my impression of Kuquan is that his background is not something that should be kept hush-hush for the sake of his ambitions; magic powers make up for being born the son of a blacksmith's apprentice. There might be something specific that cannot be deduced easily from the basic nature of the man; I'd have to work that out on consultation with the DM.


Notes:
Such higher mathematics as exist in his world, he is utterly ignorant of- most unlikely to speak the words "according to my calculations."
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Eleventh Century Remnant »

The printing press doesn't exist yet- there have actually been a couple of thaumaturgical stabs at it, but they tend to be pet projects that fall apart when the wizard concerned loses interest or moves on to other things. As an aside, things could probably be more advanced than they are- there was a serious wave of anti- intellectualism after the Black Towers, which Kuquan actually recovered from faster than her neighbours because of a few local factors; large nonhuman population, a few renegade Towermen throwing in with the resistance, a lot of odd old relics, some attempts to fight fire with fire, the general human diversity of the place too.

Copying by hand is the usual method, which involves a lot of man hours but historically was done- by the time the press did exist, historically, there was already a market for it; books in Kuquan are luxury items because somebody has to be paid for the time they involve to make, yes, but they're not desperately rare, and there is actually some writing for pleasure and entertainment as well as the obvious guides and manuals and chronicles and codes of law.

It tends to be an urban trade, though; he'd most probably have to move to one of the market towns, which actually means a fairly large catchment area and acquaintanceship.
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Re: Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

Post by Simon_Jester »

Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Copying by hand is the usual method, which involves a lot of man hours but historically was done- by the time the press did exist, historically, there was already a market for it; books in Kuquan are luxury items because somebody has to be paid for the time they involve to make, yes, but they're not desperately rare, and there is actually some writing for pleasure and entertainment as well as the obvious guides and manuals and chronicles and codes of law.
Remember, too, that the bookbinder's trade includes things like touching up and repairing old or damaged books- all the more important in an environment where they're hard to replace. Just as there used to be a lot more tailors in part because people wanted their clothes fixed, not tossed out and replaced, on account of the cloth being expensive.
It tends to be an urban trade, though; he'd most probably have to move to one of the market towns, which actually means a fairly large catchment area and acquaintanceship.
That's more or less as-historical, and as-intended. Faraday, in real life, was born in London shortly after his father moved there; I was unclear on that point. I see no reason to change the basic premise, though of course the name of the city is fill-in-the-blank since the geography of Kuquan is nowhere near nailed down in my mind.

Signing on as the assistant of an alchemist who's been through too many explosions to be at the top of his game would entail a certain amount of travel, and by now I suspect he's set up shop in his own right- so he is not necessarily in the same city he was raised in.
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