Tinkering with System Ideas - Part 2

As I mentioned in the edit below, I think I'd prefer to use 2d6 +/-  with a target 9 as opposed to the 3d6 roll under mechanic.  I've used the basic rules as I posited below, with some extrapolations from notes I've made.  (Bear in mind the character I'm about to post would work using either set of rules using the numbers I'm about to post)

I've made my first character using it, an Indiana Jones style Archaeologist Agent.

Professor John Ramos PhD.   Archaeologist                                        Fate: 1

Brawn: 0       Reflexes: 1    Vigor: 1    Mind: 3   Perception:  1    Appeal:  1

Brawl: 2    Melee:  1      Throw:  2    Gunnery: 0    Archery:  0   Shooting:  2

Resilience:  11                                 Wounds:  3

Background:  Rural

Training:

Academic 3     Outdoorsman 2    Athlete  1      Farmer 1

Languages:   

English, Spanish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Aztec, Navaho, French, Arabic

Tags

Benefits:    Knows People Everywhere    •     Two Fisted Archaeologist

Drawbacks:   Rival - Sergei Valishnikov   •   Nearsighted

Weapons:

Unarmed    d3+0

Knife:  d6+0

Medium Pistol   3d6-3

Smallville

I've mostly enjoyed Smallville over the past few years.  There were moments that I went "Urgh, Wha?" but for the most part it has been fun to watch.  And that's my primary goal, is to enjoy the hour.

Now then, this past season on the other hand. . . has been getting progressively better.  They are leading up to the end of Smallville and hinting that he'll be shown in the classic suit and cape in the final episdoe.

We've had the Justice Society, including an awesome (in my opinion) Hawkman and Dr. Fate (who the mask had turned into a gibbering loon, I loved it!), we've got the beginnings of the Justice League, with Green Arrow, Black Canary, Aquaman, Impulse/Flash, Cyborg has been on there and the Martian Manhunter as a mentor type.   There have been over the years a number (often LARGE numbers) of whiney teen angst moments, which at my looming closer to half century mark, I often find mildly annoying, albeit appropriate for a show based on teenage and early 20s heroes coming into their own.

Tonight was arguably the best show of the season.  Booster Gold and the Jaimie Blue Beetle.

I enjoyed it and as strange as it may sound to say, I'm really looking forward to the show ending.

I hope they use some of what they have developed for spin off shows.

Anywho, just my 2 cents worth.  :D

Tinkering with system ideas

I can't help myself.    I've had this running through my head from time to time and had to put it into words so it can be looked at and possibly adjusted, or even tossed.
 This is a rambling set of general thoughts.  Please feel free to give me your opinion on whether you think this is doable, or what looks overly complicated about it, etc.

This is a test document for a 3d6 Roll Under System.

GURPS uses a similar system and there may be some similarities here, but this is not intended to be a GURPS clone by any means.

Parts of this are also inspired by Simon Washbourne's excellent Barbarians of Lemuria Engine.

The damage tracking is inspired by Cortex from MWP

Base Mechanic = 3d6 Roll Under Target

Base Target Number (Average Difficulty = 10+Attribute+Skill)

Roll 3d6 + Difficulty Die Modifiers

Example: Defense Ranks are a positive DM, add them to your roll

The GM decides that the task is Very Difficult and assigns a +4 DM to the roll

Attributes:

Brawn Reflexes Vigor Mind Perception Appeal

Each Attribute will be rated from -1 to 3 at character creation. 0 is an Average Attribute, -1 is hindered in some fashion, 3 is an extraordinary individual. Attributes over 5 are considered Supernatural or Alien, perhaps achieved by Cybernetics or Mystical Abilities.

Roll on the table below to randomly determine the value of each of your Attributes. Roll each one individually and place the result in the order rolled.

The progression may seem a bit strange, but rolling low is going to be better in this system, so let's start that way from the beginning.

3d6 Roll	Attribute Value
18	-1
11-17	0
6-10	1
4-5	2
3	3

Training

Rather than specific skills, I think I want to go with Training Packages for this game. Training Packages are fairly broad definitions, representing familiarity with specific career paths. 'Skills' within these packages may very well overlap and are left to the discretion of the GM and the player. The GM is encouraged to allow the Player some say in what they feel would fall under their training, but the player is also admonished to be reasonable, and if something is 'borderline' perhaps a DM will offset the questionable areas.

GM's are encouraged to say Yes rather than No, however there is nothing at all wrong with a 'Yes, but. . . ' response. Move the game along and have fun while you do it.

Examples of Training packages are listed below by broad genre. The GM should have a specific set available for the players to choose from for his specific setting.

Fantasy Training Packages

Knight Soldier Alchemist Burglar Pickpocket

Beggar Huntsman Noble Companion Minstrel

Sorcerer Apothecary Healer Priest Seafarer

Modern Training Packages

Computer Programmer Technician Mechanic Medic

Soldier Outdoorsman Driver Faceman

Investigator Sneak Enforcer Engineer

Scientist Academic Occultist Lawman

Flyboy Seafarer

Science Fiction/Space Opera Training Packages

Pilot Technician Medic Soldier

Spacer Explorer Enforcer Smuggler

Scientist Academic Lawman Seaman

Engineer Psionic/Mystic

This is by no means an exhaustive list and should only be used for non-combat 'skills'

For combat-related skills, there should be a standard set of Combat skills that are purchased.

These of course may not all be available depending upon the setting and are suitably broad as well.

Brawl Melee Archery Gunnery Shooting Throwing Defense

Brawl includes all unarmed and close, small weapon attacks (knives, beer bottles, etc.)

Melee includes all hand to hand weapons, from knives to pole arms.

Archery includes all muscle-powered bow weapons

Gunnery is for heavy weapons, vehicular weapons and the like. Could be renamed siege weapons for fantasy or low tech settings.

Shooting is for firearms and crossbows, also includes man portable energy weapons in sci fi/space opera

Throwing If you can throw it, you use this skill

Defense the basic ability to get out of the way of damage. This can be augmented in combat with some of your weapons skills with certain options (multi-action penalties, forgoing attacks, etc.)

Damage and Dying

All characters will begin with 10 + Vigor in Stun and Body points.

Armor, some cybernetics, and some mystical abilities may grant a Toughness score. This absorbs damage before it is applied to the character.

Attack rolls do basic damage (stun + body, with prejudice to stun) for every point that they exceed their target 

(for example, Johnny Rocket is shooting at a Thulian Thug with his ray gun, and Johnny has a Reflexes 2 and a Shooting 3, and the Thug has a Defense Score of 2 and is wearing armor that absorbs 2 points of damage. Johnny's player rolls 3d6+2 (target defense added) against a target number of 15 (10+2+3) and rolls a 12, he does 1 points of stun [the armor absorbed 2] before rolling damage for his weapon.)


EDIT:
I've been messing around with this a bit since I posted it and I think I will wind up going with a 3d6 (alt version of d20) or 2d6 +/- DM with a target number for success like Barbarians of Lemuria and Traveller use.   Having a roll low for skills then roll high for damage is counter to what I'm wanting to do, which is keep a 'universal' type paradigm for this.  Also one of the things I want to do is get away from any dice but d6's in order to make it more accessible for those who have never played.

A Game of Thrones - My opinions

I Watched HBO's Game of Thrones.  It was . .. interesting.  I haven't read the novels in quite some time, and then only the first two or three at most, so my memories of the series are over a decade old.   However, having said that, the first episode definitely stirred my memory cells a bit, and I THINK this episode was fairly true to what I had read. 

The acting was, by my estimation, not bad.  Scenery, sets and costumes were quite nice, I thought.  An ending that will make you either want to come back for more or never watch again, depending upon the way you think.

Myself. .. I'll probably watch it from time to time.   It's on  a bit past my normal Sunday night Bedtime (I get up at 4:30-5:00 am ) for work.

The, for me, true test. . .. Did I feel like I wasted my time watching it?   Absolutely not
                                       Did i feel insulted by the content (Not easy to do)   Absolutely Not
                   and the big one:  Was I entertained:   Yep

Mashing up some of the ideas

Combining the basics of my Shattered Moon setting with the Agents of Aegis idea, mostly moving the Shattered Moon idea to the 1950's

This one has promise.   I could take as the campaign developed and add bits of Stargate type stuff to it as well.

The world is Earth, not our Earth but one of the myriad Earths that exist in the Multiverse.

On this Earth, the current year is 1952 and the world is recovering from a great disaster. In 1945, Anton Drexler, the leader of Nazi Germany's Society of Thule and his followers, attempting to summon forth the power of ancient and alien gods, at the same time the Atom Bomb was being dropped on Hiroshima, the bomb created a wave of energy that interfered with Drexler's ritual and the entity that came forth from the depths of a dimensional portal siezed the moon in it's tentacles and it was shattered into several thousand ‘moonlets’, wreaking havoc upon the Earth, causing a millions of deaths from the resultant earthquakes, freakish weather and tsunamis that followed.  It's rage vented and the compulsion of the summoning ritual broken, the creature disappeared back into the depths of the portal, which closed behind it.

One of the things that came about from the Shattering is that magic has taken a stronger hold upon the Earth than it has held since the Dark Ages. Dark things from legend once again walk the lands and the dark spaces away from civilization, as well as some of the dark and forgotten places within the ‘civilized’ cities are filled with malevolent evil and there are rumors of portals that lead to fantastic worlds and vast,underground lairs, filled with the creatures of legend and the glittering treasures of ancient times.

You are an agent of the United States Government.  A member of a joint task force filled by members from the FBI, CIA, NIS, CID and Some State and Regional Law Enforcement agencies.  Rounding this off with specialists from the Military, Scientific and Fringe elements to cover various specialties, your group was passed onto the newly formed National Security Agency, and classified by some bean counter who thought he was funny as Department 13.  The name stuck, and your missions are classified with an X, leading to them being referred to internally as 'X Files'

Department 13 Agents work in teams, with a supervisor who typically remains at the office and remains in touch by encrypted wireless transmission.  However, teams tend to have a great deal of autonomy in dealing with cases, and are encouraged to follow up on 'unofficial' leads if they are not in the middle of an open case.

You've all been assigned to the newly formed Chattanooga, Tennessee field office, with Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Reginald Borland as your boss.  Borland and the other office personnel will be detailed in the Characters section.

One of the other Ideas . . . Agents of AEGIS

The current year is 1950, five years ago, something happened for which no explanation has been officially provided.  

In mid-April of 1945, there was some type of explosion in the Southwestern United States.  A huge cloud of greenish energy rose over an area centered around southern New Mexico and spread to cover the sky for a hundred miles in all directions.   Survivors who saw it and remained somewhat lucid said that they saw ‘things’ moving in the cloud, things too horrible to described, most who survived were raving lunatics, many committing suicide within a few days.

At the same time, most of our technology just stopped working.  Airplanes fell from the sky, automobiles coasted to a stop, or in many instances, crashed into one another as their drivers panicked.  Radios and other electronic devices ceased to function.  

The war effort ground to a halt as airplanes fell from the sky and tanks stopped rolling.   Firearms still seemed to work, mostly, although the fully automatic weapons tended to malfunction quite often it seemed.

Shortly after the ‘Event’ as it was called, reports came in that Adolph Hitler and most of his closest associates, as well as the entire staff and garrison at his private retreat, his so-called “Wolf Lair” were found dead from mysterious causes.   General Walther Wenck took over as Interim President of Germany and sent runners out with orders for an immediate cease fire and offer of negotiations of terms with the Allied forces.  Wenck was officially elected President of the German Republic in 1949 in thier first election after the ‘Event’.  

Reports became fairly common of strange occurances around the world.  People were disappearing after dark, and sightings of strange creatures abounded, especially in rural areas. 

Washington, D.C. was plagued by rising waters from the Atlantic and Potomac turning large portions of the city into marsh and swamplands, forcing the evacuation and relocation of the national government to Baltimore, Maryland.

The national situations are currently as stable as could be expected, although the lack of reliable radio or televised communications makes things as slow as they were before the turn of the century.  Fortunately, telegraph and telephone lines seem to function normally, and some ingenious fellows in Detroit have been converting automobiles and other vehicles to run on steam engines. 

To most people in larger towns and cities, life goes on, with a few changes, pretty much as normal.  They go to work, go home, take a pretty girl out to dinner or to a play or a movie.  Electricity is available in all but the smallest, most rural towns, so Hollywood still puts out movies.

The characters in this game will be agents of AEGIS,

Allied
Extranormal
Guardianship and
Investigative
Service

tasked with everything from the exploration of why and how the world has changed, to hunting down monsters to occasionally dealing with ‘normal’ counter-espionage and spy situations, but their primary job is the hunting down and capturing or destroying of Extranormal creatures that prey upon the citizens of the Allied nations.

Thinking of Setting Ideas . . . .

My mind was wandering (I've really got to put a leash on it from time to time :D), and it occurred to me that a combination of Stars Without Number and a touch of Fading Suns might be an interesting combination for a game.

While the idea was fresh in my mind, I typed up the intro below.   I may or may not use it.  I've got my Pulp 1936 setting I was thinking of, but I kind of want something different.  I've piddled through several 'opening text' sets over the past few days while I try to pin down what I really want to run for my next game.   I'll post some of them over the next few days.

I'm going to try to avoid even thinking system for them for the moment, that just opens up too many more choices :)

I usually have a 'Name' for the setting, haven't decided about this one yet. . .

You are a native of the world of Zenhar. According to the Teachers, Zenhar was once part of an empire that extended throughout the stars of the night sky.

Everything changed in one day, about 600 years ago. Out of the blue, those with Mystical abilities, be they healer or foul sorcerer, died a horrible, screaming death over a matter of minutes. For a short while, all technology ceased to work as well.

The technology was rebuilt, although not to the decadent level it existed at before the Fall. The Patriarch of The Church says that mankind is in the process of being judged by the Creator and that the failure of the technology that kept us weak and dependent and the deaths of those who attempted to make themselves be as the Creator were signs that our time to repent and redeem ourselves was at hand.

Over the past ten to fifteen years, the occasional ship has come from the sky, bearing goods and occasionally livestock to trade. They are only allowed to land at the old Starport outside Baalbek, and they are only allowed to trade with those the Merchant's Guild and the Church grant licensing to.

While the wealthy and the higher echelons of The Church process ground cars, most folk travel on foot or on animal back or wagon.

You've heard tales of those who wanted more than what the local Inquisition says is the Will of the Creator, some of those tales, whispered in the dark corners of taverns or around campfires while tending the livestock, say that there is Pre-Fall Tech available in old outposts and away from the cities and the Church. Some say that a few have even gotten off world to explore what's out beyond the Dark.

You feel an itch to do more, to be more. You know your destiny if more than tending shop, herding cattle or sheep or slaving in the mines, always looking over your shoulder for the Inquisition. Perhaps it is time to step up and be Adventurous. You know of a few others who feel the same as you, you've heard them talk about it. Some are newcomers to the village, others you've known all your life.

Perhaps there is more out there and this is the day you finally find out what . . . .

TPK

As I was coming out of a local restaurant today at lunch, I noticed a large, covered pickup with a sign on the side with the company name TPK.  I honestly didn't look any more closely than that, because I had a sudden image in my head of the truck being driven by an Orc Assassin, with a group of specialist humanoids in the extended cab back seat and probably a beholder or two floating in the covered back.


As my wife often says. . . there is something wrong with my brain :D