118 replies to this topic

[Portalfig]

I have been watching this topic for a while, and as an outside observer, I thought that my thoughts might be useful. I don't know if they really will be, but that is up to you to decide.

Both systems have their ups and downs. The standard D&D system allows for you to really get down and gritty with the systems and how everything would work, but as a side effect it is way more complex. FATE allows for a simpler system, but I almost feel like it may be too simplified. I kinda had a hard time understanding it at first because it was so simple, and the lack of numbers just baffled me. I would think that a happy medium would be best, maybe with a little more leaning towards the D&D side of things? I don't have any examples, but it seems that the less dice we have to roll, the better. At least online.

Keep in mind though, I do not have much experience with tabletop RPG's at all. I have played maybe two?

Hope this helped!

[makuta_icarax]

Ok, so no stunts and skills... so what are we looking at here? Are we going to do d20? I agree that less dice is better, but if we go D&D, it'll be pretty tough to run with minimum dice.

Though I would like to add that I have quite a bit of experience with Star Wars D20, which is more or less D&D.

Edited by makuta_icarax, Oct 03 2012 - 09:17 PM.

[Flex Fiction]

I feel like this would be super fun if done right. I've played some D@D style RP's online before on forums and its pretty fun.

[makuta_icarax]

Well, that's at least confirmation it can work... so tomorrow I'll start going through the d20 rules haha. I've always wanted to do a d20 without miniatures.

[The Iron Toa]

Remember we already came up with some stats and rules, posted on the first couple pages. Of course, there's more work that needs to be done on them. And thanks for joining us, Portalfig, I will add you to the list of contributors. You too, Flex Nard, if you come up with any ideas for us.

[makuta_icarax]

I'm a bit confused as to what is definitely confirmed (sorry to be annoying :/ ) but if I'm correct, we have
-Attributes (not sure which ones exactly)
-Movement (with the zones and such?)
-Combat range (maybe? I'm not sure entirely)

Again, I am sorry to be uninformed! Just want to help as best as I can

EDIT: Ok, so I've got a specific question- when you're talking about Endurance points/Elemental Energy points/power, which are the ones you spend to make an ability stronger? As soon as that's cleared up I could start coming up with abilities/masks/whatever. Actually be productive.

Edited by makuta_icarax, Oct 03 2012 - 10:47 PM.

[The Iron Toa]

For Attributes we have Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence, Strength, Toughness, and Will. How these work exactly isn't planned out yet, but we know:

Charisma will help your character interact with others. Bonuses to persuade and bluff rolls, stuff like that, as well as the sense of comradeship that is vital to Toa teams. The GM will also need to keep your charisma score in mind when making NPCs react to your character.
Dexterity I think will be used to control the accuracy of most ranged attacks, give bonuses to things like sneak and climb, as well as dodging and some melee skills. I'm not sure exactly what and how, but we'll come up with what makes sense.
Intelligence will affect how quickly/how much you can improve your skills, as well as giving you a bonus to things like figuring out riddles and learning languages. A GM should make it easier for a high Int character to deduce puzzles and such.
Strength will be used to determine melee damage and other things that would make sense for strength, like being able to move rocks out of the way, carry more things, etc.
Toughness affects your Vitality, which is what we are calling Hitpoints, and Endurance. Endurance will be a measure of how much strain a character can experience before passing out (maybe dying in extreme circumstances) while Vitality measures actual physical health.
Will will affect the control you have over your inner powers. This includes both being able to control more of it at a time and less of it. Some beings, like Toa, will be able to release all their energies at once, but this will be difficult and the more that is released, the harder it is to control. On the other hand, it takes skill to release a very small, precise amount of energy. Will should also affect Endurance. I'm not certain, but perhaps if Toughness affects your total Endurance, Will can affect how quickly your Endurance is depleted?

We don't have a system for movement, positioning, and range yet.

Again on the topic of Endurance:
Suffering pain will deal endurance damage, as will things that take strong mental effort and/or draw from inner energies. There will be some exceptions to this, such as Elemental Energy - a Toa doesn't faint when he runs out of EE - but most powers will be drawn from Endurance. Kanohi powers, natural Rhotuka launchers, etc, will all use Endurance.

On another note, I am considering buying a Premier Membership so we can continue this project on a blog. Do you all think that would work better?

Edited by The Iron Toa, Oct 04 2012 - 12:03 AM.

[The Mask of Ice]

I think FATE would still work OK... But that sounds like a good idea. How about we keep FATE points (renamed Destiny points), aspects, and world creation?

I could make some quick FATE PDFs during the weekend and share them, if you like.

EDIT: @Portalfig For the record, FATE isn't really a fully formed system as much as a framework to build a system upon. It isn't oversimplified, less rules allow for more complexity in the story and more improvisation. I just don't think D&D would work. BIONICLE elemental manipulation is very free-form, and thus would more fit into fate rather than as D&D spells. Your race still grants you benefits, etc.

Edited by The Mask of Ice, Oct 04 2012 - 02:58 AM.

[makuta_icarax]

On another note, I am considering buying a Premier Membership so we can continue this project on a blog. Do you all think that would work better?

Oh, man, that probably would be best, and we could just post updates in here, but I don't want to make you spend money! That's up to you, but thank you for offering!

And thanks for the recap! That helped quite nicely!

[The Iron Toa]

I think FATE would still work OK... But that sounds like a good idea. How about we keep FATE points (renamed Destiny points), aspects, and world creation?

Well, Destiny is central to Bionicle, so I'd like some sort of Fate/Destiny system. Could you explain the points to me again?

I was thinking the GM should have an idea of the destiny of certain characters, even if the players behind those characters don't know.

Oh, man, that probably would be best, and we could just post updates in here, but I don't want to make you spend money! That's up to you, but thank you for offering!

I can spare the money. I was just thinking of a few advantages:
- We wouldn't have worry about this thread dying or getting buried. I mean, hopefully it won't get that inactive anyway, but if there is a period of inactivity or many popular threads are made in General Discussion we wouldn't have to worry about this topic being bumped to the back pages.
- A blog might get more attention, and make it seem like a more serious project.
- Also, I could post updates on our progress on a blog, instead of either updating the first post here or adding new posts. A blog provides a good in-focus place to sum things up.

I'm kind of tired now and not sure what it should look like, but I think I'll probably start that blog later today.

[The Mask of Ice]

Well, Destiny is central to Bionicle, so I'd like some sort of Fate/Destiny system. Could you explain the points to me again?
I was thinking the GM should have an idea of the destiny of certain characters, even if the players behind those characters don't know.

The definition of aspect in FATE: Some phrase, word or sentence that defines a part of an entity. Everything noteworthy has aspects. All aspects must be both usable against and in favor of the entity.

Well, at the beginning of each session, each player has 5 FATE points, usually represented as small, handy tokens. The GM has an infinite amount, and that's the only thing that sets him apart from the players, aside from the fact that he plays the rest of the world, since everyone plays a more or less equal role in world building. FATE points can be used, in conjunction with your aspects or the aspects of another entity, to grant yourself a bonus, compel a character or entity, cause the Rahkshi on fire to actually take ongoing damage (at least in our game, since status effects only take place if someone spends a FATE point to activate them for a round (the first activation is free), since they are actually temporary aspects). When you use a FATE point to gain a bonus against someone, activate a status effect or compel them to do something using their aspects (compel effects can only be used with the aspects of the entity being compelled), you must offer them a FATE point. They can either accept it or grant a bonus/be compelled/acknowledge they have been set on fire by your Toa, or they can refuse it and give you a FATE point instead. Referees should take offers like this now and then even though they have an infinite supply, both to be fair and to deplete the players of their FATE points in order to leave them helpless against the horde of Manas they'll face at the end of Makuta's lair. To grant yourself a bonus using one of your own aspects, you must give a FATE point to the GM.

I think character aspects should be created using a backstory, which is divided into 5 parts, each of which must be summarized in 2 aspects. For my idea of world creation in a BIONICLE FATE game, see my topic: http://www.bzpower.c...wtopic=7000&hl=

Also, no, the GM doesn't have any control over the characters' destinies during the game. The concept of Destiny/FATE points is how much the cosmos is willing to let him accomplish his goals. Players could set a goal for their character, which could become their destiny, but that doesn't affect anything mechanically.

[The Iron Toa]

I understand how you can use fate points to give yourself a bonus, but not how it makes sense to use them to harm enemies. To set an enemy on fire, wouldn't you need some source of flame?

[makuta_icarax]

I understand how you can use fate points to give yourself a bonus, but not how it makes sense to use them to harm enemies. To set an enemy on fire, wouldn't you need some source of flame?

Yeah, he's saying if someone's on fire and you want the effect damage to carry on for more than one turn, you use the FATE token to have the fire damage keep hurting them.

[The Iron Toa]

Oh. Well, maybe we could use that, but I don't think it should be central to the system, sorry.

[makuta_icarax]

It pretty much fits really well into FATE, but not so much into d20. I basically see now where you want to go with this (basically D&D with Bionicle styling), which is great! It will definitely be epic to play and there will be so many options! On the other hand, however, it means a whole lot of rules, etc that we need to come up with. But that's the fun part, anyway.

Ok, so we have the attributes. What's next on the list?

[The Iron Toa]

How about combat and movement? I know it's based on rounds, and certain types of actions like free actions, standard actions, and full-round actions. But I don't know much else.

[makuta_icarax]

Yup! I got this! (Simplified heavily for ease)
First, everyone rolls for Initiative and adds any (if there are any) relevant modifiers. The only time this doesn't happen is if some characters are unaware of the attack. Like an ambush.

Then you have the order of each character.

Each character (or mob, cuz if you're fighting 15 Visorak, its probably better to group them by 5s or something), will take their turn. A turn consists of:

-An attack action: Pretty self explanatory, but it can also include skills/feats. So for us that would be elemental powers/masks/etc.
-A move action: move, climb, draw/holster weapon (I dunno if you want to include that one), pick something up, etc.
-Full round action: This will take up your entire turn and usually has to do with something in the environment (fixing a vehicle, setting a bomb, etc.)
-Free action: You can have as many of these as you want. Talking, dropping something, little things that take hardly any time.

You can move AND attack each turn. You can move before OR after attacking, but not both.

Combat itself is fairly simple at the core. The attacker makes an attack roll and adds their bonus. So, 1d20 + Base attack bonus + Strength modifier.

You compare that result to the victim's defense roll, which is 1d20 + Dexterity modifier + Class bonus + Equipment bonus.

If the attacker's roll is higher, the blow is successful and you roll for damage depending on the weapon/skill/whatever.

For ranged weapons, its the exact same, but instead of the attacker adding their strength modifier, they add their dexterity modifier.

For mental attacks, its the will modifier.

[Portalfig]

-snip-
You compare that result to the victim's defense roll, which is 1d20 + Dexterity modifier + Class bonus + Equipment bonus.
-snip-

Wouldn't dexterity be for the evade roll? I mean, we can combine the two, but every RPG I have played had two, one you evade the attack, and if you miss you get hurt more than if you tried to just take the hit. Because you would use that equation except with the Fortitude modifier if you just want to take the hit.

Do we even have Fortitude? Because if not this post is worthless. =P

[makuta_icarax]

Depends... is Toughness the same thing as Fortitude?
And you bring up a good point there... hang on, I'm gonna look it up...

*Flips through a bunch of rulebooks*

Well, according to the base d20 rules, its just the defense roll (which is essentially the evade roll), and if it hits, you just roll for damage depending on what weapon you're using. Now granted, if the defender has armor on, the damage will be reduced depending on the DR (Damage Resistance) of the armor.

I think this is trying to say that if you get hit by a sword and you're not wearing armor, its dealing you damage, regardless of how tough you are.

[Portalfig]

Yeah, toughness and fortitude are the same thing.

Okay, that makes sense. The way I was thinking though, if somebody, say, tries to shoot an arrow at your torso, what would you do? Well, you would probably try to get out of the way, or, if you manage to think fast enough that you manage to realize that you couldn't do that, you would try to make it do as little damage to yourself as possible. So you can try to evade, but if a Toa with a mask of accuracy comes up you won't very easily evade, right? So might as well try to make it do less damage. I am not sure that that would be used enough though.

[makuta_icarax]

Oh well now that's a good point... Those mask powers are gonna make things difficult now.. I'm not quite sure. I suppose for the purposes of our game we'll have to depower the mask of accuracy a bit so it just gives a small bonus or something of that nature.

[Portalfig]

How about this?

Mask of Accuracy: Can re-roll any attack roll at the expense of some Endurance(Or whatever we end up using).

[makuta_icarax]

Oh boy. That was the obvious solution to that. Let's file that one away for the finished project. The whole re-rolling thing could eventually be applied to a lot of masks.

One thing I wanted to put out there- we don't necessarily need to have every species,mask, and power in the first rulebook. We could release "expansions" later on.

[The Iron Toa]

Right, and let's build the basic system first. We can come up with racial traits, mask powers, and other abilities once we have a foundation for them.

[makuta_icarax]

What'd you think of the whole combat thing? Make sense? Sound satisfactory?
Mind you, it was pretty basic.

[The Iron Toa]

Well, I don't think I want to have classes, and I'm not clear on when a Defense Roll is used and when a Saving Throw is used. But other than that, it seems pretty good and straightforward.

I will start a blog on this when I can, once it's made I think we can continue there.

Edit:
Just did a little thinking of the methods of defense we have/could have. There's Block, which could be mainly strength, maybe some dexterity, which is when you use a weapon or shield to block an attack. Then there's dex-based Dodge/Evade. And finally you have your Resistances, which reduce/negate the damage you would otherwise take. Would something like that work?

Edited by The Iron Toa, Oct 04 2012 - 09:38 PM.

[makuta_icarax]

Dodge/evade is more or less the defense roll, above so yeah, that's all good. I'm pretty sure I have a mechanic for Block floating around somewhere, I'm just not really sure where at all... but yeah, that's definitely doable too. And resistances could just operate like "natural" armor. So sounds good!

As for the "class" bonus, I planned on changing that to "species" bonus, or "Type" bonus, depending on what the character is. Slower character = less bonus.

[The Iron Toa]

Let's see... assuming you know the attack is coming and you can move, you can attempt to dodge it, or block it if you're holding something you could use for that. The attacker's roll(s) would have to beat the defender's roll as well as a penalty to hit depending on range and size of the target. And we should have something like Will and Fortitude saving throws for if you do get hurt. Those could be tied to your resistances, your Will, and your Toughness. I mean, I want a little bit of randomness to the effectiveness of resistances (not counting complete immunities). We'll need to work out how much is rolled for each (1d20, 2d6, 4d4, etc), but does that sound good so far?

[makuta_icarax]

Oh hm! Interesting, this actually works out quite well. So you're saying the defender has a choice between dodging or blocking every attack... I like that a lot. Yes, I agree with all of that. Good call!

[The Iron Toa]

And in certain situations he could do both, but maybe he'd need a feat for that or a certain degree of skill, to be able to dodge with your shield or weapon raised.

Should we stay with the idea that 0 Vitality is Disabled, -1 is Dying, and -10 is Dead? And I guess we're using Endurance instead of nonlethal damage, though lethal damage will also do Endurance damage. But I think in D&D a Dying character is automatically unconscious, for our system a character should only be unconscious if his Endurance is at 0. So a character that's dying of a wound would be conscious if the pain of the wound didn't knock him out.

I read how you can take five-foot steps as part of your turn, one bio is 4.5 feet, just a little less, so do you think we could just make that a 1-bio step? Or increase it to two bio (nine feet)? We already converted the size categories to bio measurements.

On another note, I saw D&D already has a thing for Concentration checks. Now, I was thinking certain powers, instead of fizzling, should release an unfocused AoE that can damage the caster. But let's stay in the subject of movement and physical combat for now. Except for this one thing which relates to Powers and defenses against them: should Will only help defend against mind-affecting attacks, or do you think you should be able to resist effects such as paralysis with a mental effort?

[makuta_icarax]

For the movement, I don't think we'll need to get too specific, since it's going to be primarily text based. The 1 bio is totally fine, I don;t see it causing that much trouble.

For this damage thing, are you saying an attacker can choose between lethal/nonlethal damage? And that lethal will go against both endurance an vitality? I'm a little unclear on that one, but I think that's a good idea, especially with the whole "Toa do not kill." And you're saying a character's vitality could be at -1, and still be conscious? I like that, it makes sense. I think at that point there should definitely be penalties involved, as a dying character is not as strong as a healthy one. (Unless there's a Berserk skill or something)

I think Will should primarily be mental, simply for keeping the process streamlined and easy, but maybe there could be a skill or something that allows one to resist physical effects with Will? That might work.

[The Iron Toa]

Well just because they're conscious doesn't mean they're not incapacitated. And I actually think every attack that does physical damage should do at least a little bit of lethal damage (you might try to knock someone out with a punch, for example, but you'll still injure them to some degree). But right, you can aim to incapacitate instead of kill. Maybe instead of 0 Endurance being unconscious, -10 should be unconscious. Then -1 could be can't move (can only lie down/kneel/sit) and 0 can be can't attack or can't use powers.

A Feat that lets one substitute your Will for your Toughness in a roll against certain effects would work. But for default, we'll say if it affects your body, your roll against it will be based in Toughness and Resistance, and mind-affecting effects are defended against by Will and Resistance. I had better go to bed now, but go ahead and post more whenever you want. Hopefully tomorrow my Premier membership will be activated and I can make a blog.

[makuta_icarax]

I'm gonna be gone too for tonight, but that all sounds great to me! Good progress! There's definitely going to be a Bionicle-feel to this whole RPG.

[The Mask of Ice]

Wait, so are we using FATE points/aspects/world creation? That wouldn't really conflict with any D&D rules... (ongoing damage effects could work just like they do in d20).

Here's my idea: Instead of Fortitude/Reflex/Will saves, we have saves for every attribute. Charisma saves are against effects that try to intimidate you, Intelligence saves are for befuddling effects, Toughness saves are for poison, cold, etc. and Will saves are for mind-control, psionics, etc.

Elemental manipulation could be a skill, like in Savage Worlds. The ability for your elemental manipulation could change with every element, like Ice being dependent on Intelligence, Earth being dependent on Constitution, etc. Elemental manipulation could also be divided into the utility and combat categories, for more diversity. I mean a D&D style skill, which you can spend points in. That way, it'd save us the time of having to make a couple of powers. Your elemental ability could also determine your elemental energy. Elemental manipulation types could include minor effects, which can be used at-will and not cost EE, but everything else would cost an amount of EE according to a table.

[makuta_icarax]

I was under the impression that we were going to stick pretty close to the D&D rules, with the fortitude/will/reflex rolls. Its much easier to manage then separate attributes for each one.

[The Iron Toa]

Different attributes will affect rolls, like Charisma would affect Bluff. But for combat, excluding special cases, I agree we should use Strength, Dexterity, Will, and Toughness.

Let's wrap this up and sum up what we have so far so I can list it on a blog post. Once it's up, we can continue there. So... we have:
Attributes:
Strength: Used to determine melee damage, blocking, and how much a character can lift/carry, certain athletic feats like climbing
Dexterity: Determines dodge/evade (we should pick one term to use), hit chance, ranged damage, certain athletic feats like climbing and acrobatics
Toughness: Determines/contributes to values of Vitality (HP) and Endurance, and resistance to physical effects.
Charisma: Determines how well characters can get along with and persuade others. Used for lying, persuasion, and intimidation, but also important for friendship and getting you and your allies to work together.
Intelligence: Used to determine how quickly/how much you can increase your skills, learn new languages, and how easily your character can figure things out.
Will: Determines damage of Powers, aim of Powers, and control over Powers, resistance to mental effects, and how quickly Endurance is lost. That is, a character with higher Will would take less Endurance damage from suffering pain or using powers.

Resistances: Heat/Fire, Cold/Ice, Electricity/Lightning (the former terms are more accurate but the later sound cooler to me), Sonic, Mental/Psychic/Psionic (need to decide on a term for that), Light, Shadow, Poison, Acid, Energy (I'd like a better term for this, but it means generic non-elemental attacks), Elemental (resistance against any attacks that are directly Elemental in nature. For example, it would resist fire a Toa of Fire hurls at you, but not a fire sustained by natural means, whether he started it or not), and either Crushing/Piercing/Slashing or just Physical.

Size categories:
Fine: Less than 1/8 bio
Diminutive: 1/8 - 1/4 bio
Tiny: 1/4 - 1/2 bio
Small 1/2 - 1 bio
Medium 1-2 bio
Large 2-4 bio
Huge 4-8 bio
Gargantuan 8-16 bio
Colossal Greater than 16 bio

Moral Light - instead of an alignment system, all we really need to keep track of in terms of game mechanics is if a character is evil enough to draw about his/her Moral Shadow (and maybe how much), and if beings like Keetongu who can see a being's inner Light/Shadow would see the character as good or evil. The latter might not even come up, I imagine that ability is rare.

Toa Energy. I haven't come up with a system for this yet, but let's see. Let's say anyone who's not destined to be a Toa has -1. Matoran who are destined have 0 (but the players of Matoran shouldn't know what this value is). Upon transforming into a Toa, that value changes to... let's say 60. That Toa can use that power to heal others or to transform destined Matoran into Toa. Transforming other Matoran costs 10 Toa energy, so a Toa can transform up to 6 Matoran. When his value reaches 0 and he has completed his Destiny (set by the GM, possibly with some input from the player), he becomes a Turaga. If he hasn't completed his Destiny yet, he remains a Toa until he does. We'll come up with the chances of a Matoran having the potential to become a Toa, and also how much healing can be done for each point of Toa Energy.

Skills: I think the D&D skill list suits our purposes. Except instead of Spellcraft... I don't know what to call it, but it will be control over innate powers. Use Magic Device would be Use... Powered... Device? We need a better name for that too, but that would be the skill for using Kanohi and other things that aren't part of a character but are mentally activated. Also, we'll want to have some different subcategories of the Craft and Knowledge skills.

I'm starting to understand the D&D combat system but I think I could use some practice. Here's what I understand of how it will work for us:
Characters that win an initiate roll or ambush their opponents go first. Attacking characters make a roll (or multiple) to determine their chance to hit and again for damage. All physical attacks need to roll for both, some powers automatically hit but can be resisted, and for some powers instead of rolling for damage you roll for Intensity and Duration. Defending characters, if they can move and it's not an auto-hit attack, can attempt to Dodge or Block it. If they are hit, the damage or chance of affecting them is mitigated by their Resistances. An attack that does Vitality damage or a physical debuff is resisted by a roll based on Toughness and the appropriate resistance type. Endurance damage and mental effects are resisted by Will and the appropriate resistance type. For simplicity, I suggest a certain amount of Vitality damage always does a certain amount of Endurance damage, and how much is based on a character's will. Otherwise, the defender would need to roll twice - once for how much damage it did and again for how much it hurt. Still, this is pretty complicated -- we still need to include how distance affects ranged hit chance. I still need help with this.

I know there's more, I'll keep listing it, but I want to post what I have so far.

Edited by The Iron Toa, Oct 05 2012 - 01:28 PM.

[makuta_icarax]

Wow, that was excellent. Everything seems to be in order.

As far as I know, each weapon has a range (close, mid, long), and leaving the weapons range will give you penalties on your attack roll. (Unless you have a melee. Then you just can't attack).

The Spellcraft could just be called "Power Control" or something like that. And... hmm. Use Magic Device could be tricky. I suppose Use Powered Device works fine, I mean, the name won't really do much.

[The Iron Toa]

Thanks, makuta_icarax. Let's continue this here.

This topic can be locked now.

Edited by The Iron Toa, Oct 05 2012 - 03:38 PM.

[Zeddy]

As you wish.

Topic closed.