Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Game Mechanics.

/ work in progress. /









Abilities.

Ability list:
  Strength
  Agility
  Endurance
  Intelligence
  Willpower
  Perception

Ability values:
1 - Poor
2 - Average
3 - Good
4 - High
5 - Exceptionally High



Skills.

Skill values:
1 - Beginner
2 - Amateur/Hobbyist
3 - Professional
4 - Expert
5 - World-class

Skills list:
  Art skill,
  Animal Handling,
  Veterinary,
  Acrobatics,
  Running,
  Swimming,
  Brawling,
  Striking Martial Arts (as karate, boxing and/or taekwondo),
  Wrestling Martial Arts (as wrestling, judo and/or aikido),
  Thrown Martial Arts (as judo and/or aikido),
  Gunner,
  Battlesuit Operation,
  Ballistic Weapons,
  Beam Weapons,
  Heavy Weapons,
  Missles operation,
  Knife,
  Knife throwing,
  Fast-Draw,
  Speed-load,
  Mechanic,
  Starship Design,
  Hobby Skills,
  Languages,
  First Aid,
  Physician/Diagnosis,
  Surgery,
  Climbing,
  Fishing,
  Survival,
  Tracking/Hunting,
  Awareness,
  Computer operation,
  Electronics,
  Law,
  Archaeology,
  History,
  Architecture,
  Astronomy/Astrogation,
  Biochemistry/Physiology,
  Biology,
  Botany,
  Chemistry,
  Criminology,
  Ecology,
  Economics,
  Engineer,
  Forensic,
  Genetics,
  Geology,
  History,
  Literature,
  Mathematics,
  Physics,
  Psychology,
  Theology,
  Zoology,
  Etiquette,
  Strategy,
  Tactics,
  Demolition,
  Forgery,
  Interrogation,
  Stealth,
  Occult,
  Meditation,
  Vehicle Driving,
  Piloting.

... players can invent their own, custom skills too.


Specializations:

Some of the skills are broad. For example, Art Skill might mean painting, poetry, sculpting etc.

Or use of a skill might depend on conditions, such as Beam Weapons (Low Light Conditions).

Each of these 'subskills' might be taken as a specialization, which has following effects on mechanics:
1. Skill with specialization has effective +1 rank for the dice roll considerations,
2. Sometimes lack of specialization might mean -2 to skill rank, as for example when paint artist tries to sculpt without sculpting specialization.

Computer Use (office software, blogging) differs from Computer Use, from Computer Use (programming) and from Computer Use (office software, hacking). That is, Skill can have either 0, 1 or more than 1 specialization(s).

Try to use common sense, when deciding how to use a specialization with a skill.



Advantages & Disadvantages.

/ to be done /

Considering:
  Starting Wealth (-3 - +5),
  Fame (-2 - +5),
  Military Rank (+1 - +3),
  Physical Appearance (-3 - +3),
  Charisma (+1 - +3),
  Acute Senses (+1 - +2),
  Ambidexterity (+1),
  Danger Sense (+2),
  Empathy (+2),
  High Pain Threshold (+1),
  Intuition (+1),
  Legal Enforcement Powers (+1 - +2),
  Allies (+1 - +3),
  Primitive (-1),
  Blindness (-5),
  Deafness (-2),
  Hemophilia (-2),
  Low Pain Threshold (-1),
  One Arm (-2),
  One Eye (-2),
  One Hand (-1),
  Stuttering (-1),
  Addiction (-5 - -1),
  Code of Honor (-2),
  Combat Paralysis (-3),
  Pacifism (-2),
  Phobia (-2),
  Enemies (-3 - -1),
  ...

Negative values are Disadvantages, add to starting character points.

Positive values are Advantages, cost starting character points.



Wealth & Equipment.

/ to be done /

Weapons, Starship(s), Cyber/Bio/Nano Implants, etc. cost money.

Characters who have enough of starting wealth can afford & buy at character creation.

Later, as characters earn wealth & when other factors are satisfied (access to medical facilities, illegal goods vendors, etc), can buy.

Note that some equipment is illegal, or legal only to military / legal enforcement.

Characters with Military Rank Advantage also have access to appropriate military resources.



Character Creation.

Abilities.

Each ability starts at a value of 1, and player has 10 points to distribute among abilities as he/she wishes.


Skills.

Each skill starts at a value of 0, and player has 20 points to distribute as he/she wishes.

Skill value cost:
1 - 1 point,
2 - 2 points,
3 - 3 points,
4 - 5 points,
5 - 8 points.

Specialization(s) can be bought for skills, each specialization costs 1 extra point.


Advantages/Disadvantages can be taken, point value is listed next to advantage/disadvantage.


Extra character points:

Player has 15 character points that he/she can spend on character's abilities, skills and advantages.

Abilities costs 3 character points per ability increase.

Skills cost 1 character points per skill increase.

Specializations cost 1 character points per specialization choice.

Advantages character point costs are listed next to advantage.


Wealth & Equipment.

Depending on Advantages & Disadvantages, choose starting wealth, starting equipment.



Dice rolls & tests.

Basic test looks at follows:

Player decides what his/her character wants to do. Game Master (GM) chooses appropriate ability and skill to use in a roll.


Dice rolled: Add Ability Score to Skill Rank and roll as many ten-sided dice (d10).

Dice kept: Choose as many dice as you have skill rank and add values rolled.


Minimum 1 dice is always rolled & kept, no matter wounds, fatigue, specialization, and similar modifiers.


For example:

1. Hannah, starship engineer & mechanic, wants to fix damaged dropship / en: 'dropship' is pl: 'lądownik' /. She has Intelligence score of 4 and Engineering rank of 3. She rolls 7 of ten-sided dice and keeps 3 dice of her choice. This roll is described as 7k3 roll.

2. Alec, private marine soldier, tries to shoot enemy soldier with his x-ray laser (xaser). He has Agility score of 3 and Beam Weapons rank 3. He also has specialization for Bean Weapons: Low Light conditions. GM decides that specialization applies for this roll so he rolls 7k4.

Low Light Conditions affect the success thresholds / see below for more details, in the 'Succes or failure' section / for shooting and for other actions as well.

3. Raphael, paint artist, tries to sculpt a clay figurine. He has Art (Paint) 4 and Agility of 3. He lacks specialization for sculpting, so he rolls 5k1.

That is, lack of Sculpt specialization resulted in -2 dice rolled and in -2 dice kept.

He has plenty of time and a lot of clay material, so he can try many times until he succeeds or decides it's not worth trying anymore.


Rolling 0 on a dice means that character rerolls the dice and adds 10 to result. Rolling 0 again means rerolling again and adding 20 ... and so on.


Success or failure.

Character succeeds when roll equals or exceedes a 'success threshold'.

Success threshold depends on a difficulty of situation, decided by a Game Master (GM):

5: very easy,
10: easy,
15: usual,
20: hard,
25: very hard,
30: heroic,
35: almost impossible.

Shooting at enemy soldier usually has a threshold of 15 (usual), but if character tries to aim at specific body part, as leg or head for example, GM would assign different - higher - threshold of a roll.


Wounds & Fatigue.

/ to be done /



Character Sheet.

/ to be done /


Monday, January 23, 2023

About.

Not much yet on this blog, just some info about sources & inspirations for Science Fiction Roleplaying Game (named: 'The Vast Space: Travels among Stars') that i am creating.

Also, working on quick & dirty, simple game mechanics:
> [ https://vast-space-travels-rpg.blogspot.com/2023/03/game-mechanics.html ].

This article may or may not be deleted. -.-


Sources & inspirations:

1. 'Aliens' film.

> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_(film) ].





2. 'Blade Runner' film.

> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner ].




3. Elite, Frontier & related computer games.

> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game) ].




4. GURPS books.


GURPS Books are more than just 'stupid and useless game mechanics without mood' - these are great sources of ideas usable in the fictional world(s) creation for the roleplaying purposes & needs.


5. Real life Astronomy & Physics books, and Space Atlas.

'Space Atlas, Second Edition: Mapping the Universe and Beyond' by James Trefil.Award winning educational book: 'Physics & Astronomy for everyone' by Barbara Sagnowska.'Astronomy for everyone' by Detlev Block.


What is 'parsec' ?
... 'parallax of one second', unit of length. / pl: 'paralaksa jednej sekundy', jednostka odległości /.

Use of real sciences and words can add to realism, feelings, and overall nice game experience.


6. We will also use this blog:

> [ http://roleplayingtheory.blogspot.com/2014/10/what-is-roleplaying.html ].


7. For Art creation we'll use DeviantART's DreamUp AI (Artificial Intelligence).

An example of images created by DreamUp AI (on deviantART):