Blog, it's what's for Dinner

So what all is on my plate currently? A Lot, it's definitely a full plate.

I have the Interface Zero 2.0 additional writing that I'm working on. I'm redesigning the Golemmech rules, once that's complete I'll need to verify that the existing designs can be designed per those rules.

I have the Legend of Sinbad writing that I'm going to do,  writing two small chapters, Carolingians and the Eastern Roman Empire (aka Byzantium) as it is set in 801 A.D. only 3-6k words, but it should be fun writing, I actually picked up reference material at the Library today.

I have DCCRPG to work on, with Clearspring mapping for round 0 needing to be finished. I need to work on a 1st level adventure, as I was thinking of running that for Free RPGDay as part of the World Tour.

Gamma Crawl Classics as soon as I get the IZ2.0 Golemmech rules sorted out.

Then I have my Unleashed rules to work. I figure I'm no longer interested in the Pathfinder crowd for an audience, so as I continue to tweak the rules, expect them to change more and more from OGL.
All classes will be MAD, but in a balanced way. Skills will be more than a black and white success or failure. Combat will still revolve around margins. Aspects in, Feats out. Heroic points will fuel combat.

I have Malifaux figures to prime and paint. I have Judge Dredd MG figures to paint, especially if my orders get in. CitiDef and SovBloc.

If I'm not at SDCC this year, I will be at SDGC. I have the entire time off. So much fun shall be had.

Alpha Testing Unleashed

It looks like I will be doing some Alpha Testing at GamerCon GameDay (Feb9/10) and Kingdom Con (April). Been working on consolidating some rules ideas, mods, and I'll start writing up the Alpha Rules for low-level testing. I'm looking at 4th level for these alpha tests. 

While developing the system, I'm also developing my Fantasy game world. I'm planning on having the world progress through the ages, with input from fans/players. Instead of putting out book after book on a static world, 1 book, and several serials over the course of a year would suffice to cover it. Then the world advances, civilizations rise and fall. Once great cities become the ruins of old. I first thought of doing this with the old animated Lord of the Rings. When Gandalf was pointing out how the 4th age would be the age of man. The first couple of ages will be covered as vague history. There will be lots of new takes on old ideas. I eventually will tie in the Fantasy ages with industrial ages, modern ages, future ages,  etc,.

A World where the dragons weren't the first sentient race on the planet, in fact, they were created to serve the first great empire. A militant race rises to create one of the most powerful empires ever known, only to fall back into depravity. Magical Genetic Manipulation. And more.

I'm going to work with the boys to create a logo as this is a family project. The boys and I have sat down and discussed world creation together.

Stay Tuned.

Unleashed Alpha results

So, I'm pretty happy with the initial Unleashed playtest results. The 2d10 system works wonderfully at first level, future testing for upper levels will definitely be needed to see if the system holds up under the advance of BAB and ACs.

I'm especially liking the Heroic Aspects thrown into the mix for it as well. Next I will introduce injuries/consequences to offset debilitating (read below 0) damage. Having some injuries which stick around for awhile might prove interesting, and prevent TPKs.

Still working on the armor system. I have gone back to full armor with DR original idea I had 2 or 3 years ago, in which a hit at the touch rating up to the full AC, is reduced by the DR of the armor. A hit above the Full AC ignores the armor entirely. Flat Footed AC works similarly, just without the standard avoidance AC bonuses.

It works like this. A roll of 16 with a damage range of 3-16 hits AC 12/17 (DR2), this margin is 4 above , 3+4= 7 dmg - 2DR = 5 inflicted damage. This same attack ends up with a 24 = a margin of 12 without DR. So 12 damage is inflicted. (seems like a lot I know, but this is effectively a critical, a result of high dice rolls.

Fun stuff, and we're going to play a bit more tonight. So more results to come.

State of Epic

I hope the holidays are finding everyone in a festive mood.

We'll be doing my first real Alpha playtest of the Unleashed RPG on Sunday. Right now I'm running a more Pathfinder type game, with some modifications, just so I can test some of the changes. It's definitely early Alpha, I'm hoping to have the full Alpha ready for Kingdom Con in April!!!

Can't Wait.

Curious Few Productions

So Here's some of the stuff I'm planning for the future for Curious Few Productions. I will need writers and artists, and cartographers. I'm new at this but determined.

Unleashed RPG
 - New Core system based on the SRD featuring dynamic combat. I'm hoping to run the first Public Alpha test at Kingdom Con.
Campaign Setting featuring advancing ages, so time
Moderne Worlds of 2039 (system TBD)
Gods & Heroes of Mythology (PFRPG/URPG)
- Think Deities & Demigods, with less Uber monsters and more of a resource. Planning to have plenty of heroes, monsters and other resources for it however.
[unnamed] A Futuristic Car miniature wargame
[secret name] A Fantastic chess/wargame hybrid.

Watch this space and the sister blog for more info.

 

Unleashed Design Journal (Triggers & Movement)

Triggers

So after I saw the Kickstarter for Through the Breach, I was thinking how awesome the Malifaux game really is. So later in the day I actually got some inspiration in part from thinking about Malifaux. I was working on the Weapons for Unleashed, bashing together ideas, writing stuff down, and all of the sudden, looking at the impale property on the spear, it hit me. Make that a triggered effect.

So here's the idea I'm thinking of, using Unleashed 2d10 system, the triggered effects would happen on a double, including the additional dice rolled during a critical. This could easily make the game more dynamic in  combat, perhaps you trigger a disarm with your rapier, or bellringer with your mace. You hit and there's an extra effect that happens.

So that's a little bit of how one game can affect the design of another.

Movement. 

Yeah, OGL has always had some sticking points with the way I think of the 5 foot rule. 5 foot rule makes perfect sense...for medium creatures with light/no armor. It doesn't make sense for a diminutive creature, it doesn't make sense for a 50 foot giant, and it really doesn't make sense for the monk with the 90 move.

When I did my Xaaon's Monk design during Alpha Pathfinder testing, I corrected the monk, the got an extra 5ft step for every 30 full feet of movement.

Now that I'm doing my own game design I will revisit this sticky point. The manuever will be based on movement and base. A Giant's base is 10ft, thus its step is 10ft. A small creatures base is 2 1/2 feet, so its step will also be 2 1/2 feet. Wait, the squares are all 5ft, how does that work?? Simple, small creatures can move onto the edge or corner of a square, actually anyone can. Watch out for that Colossal Monk, it's Monk's Stride is phenomenal!

Reach will also have something similar. But I'll cover that later.

Unleashed RPG - Design Journal #4 (skills)

So, I kind of want to present an optional way to do skills, (basically I want Unleashed to still be fairly compatible, thus if people which to stick with the conventional skills, whether that's 3.5 of path, that's up to the GM.

Check it out:

SKILLSSkills are handled a bit differently in Unleashed. As a character advances, he can gain mastery in a skill. Typically, mastery is limited to few skills. Skill checks are made with 2d10, or 2d6 in the case of the untrained. Like weapons, critical skill rolls can be achieved with exploding dice. skill level dice rolled (critical dice/#critical). Skill Focus adds +2/trained level of mastery. All characters receive apprentice level training in their class skills. 1 skill may be taken at layman level at level 1. Designer’s note: This system should keep the need to escalate TNs of skill checks thoughout the game, while still giving characters with more skill greater chances of success. Spellcasting is a Skill, and most likely the skill focused spell casters will take as their layman skill.

untrained 2d6(6/1)apprentice 2d10(10/1)layman 2d10 (10/2) max:8+intjourneyman 2d10 (9/2) max 5+intmaster 2d10 (8/3) max 3+intgrandmaster 3d10 (8/4) max 2+int/2

This is a major change to the system, but it uses similar concepts to the combat system...eliminates the need to escalate target numbers for skill challenges, and generally streamlines skills. Of course the bonuses typical for skills would remain. You'll note that the skill levels have a critical rating. A Master Armorsmith rolls to create a longsword. He rolls a 10, and an 8, triggering critical skill checks, he would continue rolling up to 3 additional dice. As an optional set of rules, you could easily use to original OGL rules.

Unleashed RPG Design Journal 3 (Weapon Speed and Actions)

So...weapon speeds, I know, I know, that was one of the issues with 1st and 2nd edition. However, this is not the exact same system. As I've said before, this system will replace the iterative attack system.

This is where I am currently...definitely subject to change. This will work in conjunction with the Actions. So two attacks with a dagger would be at -2/-2, while two attacks with a glaive would be at -6/-6. Feats such as power attack will actually slow a weapon attack down, which makes perfect sense as you're trading control for power. (a single power attack means the speed doesn't matter).

Speed (WS)
Fast (2)
Quick (3)
Average (4)
Slow (5)
Ponderous (6)
Unwieldy (7)

creature sizes
Tiny (-2)
Small (-1)
Average (0)
Large (+1)
Huge (+2)
etc.

Bigger creatures are slower, they hit harder though, so do you really want that level 16 giant to attack 4 times with his Great axe?

Thus making a weapon like the scythe, deadly, but unwieldy. The falchion, slow when compared to the ponderous Great Axe. I feel it's a pretty good design choice)

Actions
Actions will also have a speed (as will spell casting). The main concern in Unleashed it allowing players to attempt whatever they can imagine, and allow the gamemaster to easily assign the overall difficulty. Now, the the normal number of actions is allowed without penalty. A Character can make a single move action, and a single attack without any additional difficulty.

First Free Action (0)
Swift (1)
Immediate (2)
Move (3)
Standard (4)
Full (5)

This is where it gets interesting, A first level character is trying to sprint across a stone bridge, two kobold guards are unaware of his presence, he wants to sprint, and attack both the kobolds with his short sword as he runs past.  This is possible in Unleashed. Two moves, 1 untrained feat (spring attack), and two attacks will make-up the penalties, the second attack adds a -3 for a short sword, the second move action -4, and the untrained feat -4. So he's attacking at -11/-11, but they are against flat-footed creatures, so its worth the attempt. Multiple attacks versus weak creatures, speeds up the game, Single attacks against hard to kill creatures, speeds up the game. At the cost of a tiny bit of simple math.

Next Design Journal: Balancing Base Attack Bonus

Unleashed RPG - Design Journal 2 (armor)

(Edit: Note the Unleashed RPG rules, are based on the OGL, thus this does not fall under the CCNA that most of my Blog work does, but under the OGL)

Armor Unleashed:

So Currently I have two options for armor, I have that option of making armor purely DR, thus AC would be based off of Dex/Dodge etc. This makes armor more realistic, a knight in Full plate was slow, but extremely hard to penetrate the armor. However part of that protection was due to the completeness of the coverage. A sword would deflect due to the fluting on a pauldron, the overlap of the plates. I'm leaning toward option 2:

The second option is similar to existing hybrid AC/DR rules. Though I think the DR is a bit low in the case of most of those rules. If I remember correctly, Fullplate was +4AC and DR:4/-. I had already toyed around with some of these rules, several times over the past couple years. One of the main reasons I had though of the issues with the existing DR armor rules was that the DR didn't increase with the Size of the armor. A Huge creature, had 4DR and the Tiny creature had 4DR, this bugged me, the Tiny creature would have paper thin armor, while the Huge or Colossal creature would have armor so thick that it would be very difficult to penetrate. Similarly adamantine offers 3/- DR no matter what size armor is is on as long as the armor is metal. I know that the game is supposed to be designed for as little math as possible, because we get confused so easily, but that is stuff that bugs me. It should be easy to track bonuses and penalties, with a little creativity.

So This is what I have as my second Option
Full Plate AC+4 DR:Blunt:5 Pierce:6 Slash:6

Add the size modifier for a Huge creature to all the DRs, making a Huge set of Full Plate
Full Plate AC+4 DR:Blunt:7 Pierce:8 Slash:8

That might seem pretty harsh, but due to the size and DEX of those massive opponents, it becomes easier to defeat the armor. Poor rolls will meet with heavy resistance...literally. Thus teamwork might be needed. The +2 to hit for assist actually translates into much more damage potential. That +2 not only adds to the margin, but also adds to the chance of dealing an armor defeating hit.

More about The Unleashed RPG - Design Journal 1

(Edit: Note the Unleashed RPG rules, are based on the OGL, thus this does not fall under the CCNA that most of my Blog work does, but under the OGL)

So what are some of the design considerations behind Unleashed RPG?

    The main design consideration is obviously the d20. By dropping the 5% chance of any number it creates a more manageable average of 11. Only a 1% chance of rolling a 2 or 20. This caused an issue with criticals of course. Obviously a 20 would normally be a threat in d20, and an improved crit rapier is a 15+ to threaten. Now I didn't want the numbers to drop that far for the 2d10 System. So the solution I have is exploding dice. Most weapons will have a 10/1 Threat. That means if you roll a d10, you get to roll ONE extra. Improved critical will make your Crit threat look like this 10/2. You can roll and keep up to 2 additional dice. Yes, so theoretically you would roll a 40; as a 1 in 10,000 chance.  1in10 x 1in10 x 1in10 x 1in10.  

   Weapons with expanded critical ranges (which normally hit not as hard) have a TR with a lower number. For example a rapier would have an (8/1), while a keen rapier would have an (8/2).  This makes a manageable crit range.

   Another concept in Unleashed is the lack of a damage roll. Damage is determined by margin, up to the maximum damage of the weapon; or critical MAX damage of the weapon. No more rolling a critical and doing 2 measly points of damage. Say you beat your target's AC by 8 with a critical. Your damage range including all bonuses is (1-16+3) = 4-19. Margin of Success 8. Add 8 to low end of the range  for 12 damage. Had the Margin been too high, then the maximum damage would be 19. With all the modifiers built into the stat block of the weapon on the character sheet, it should make for a fast to play system. And if there's a little math involved, GOOD. When you look at the stat block the battle axe looks nice, with that 24 max damage, but you'll notice the speed characteristic of the weapon. It is a bit slower than the longsword. Weapon speed is the iterative modifier in this system. Multiple attacks suffer the modifier. So two attacks would be a -5/-5. (These penalties can be reduced by feats).  More on this in the  Unleashed RPG Design Journal 2.

Example Weapons
Longsword
1-16 [9/1] Speed:4 Min: Str:11 Dex:11
Versatile
Battle Axe
1-24 [20/1]  Speed:5 Min: Str:12 Dex:10
Heavy Slash
Dagger
1-8 [9/1] Speed:3 Min: Str: 6 Dex: 10

This is early design, and concepts may change. However if this sounds like something you might want to Alpha test, shoot me a line at EpicRPGBlog@gmail.com

Next Journal: Weapon Speeds, Actions and more. (Armor, that's what I meant to say)

Unleashed RPG

Well I'm taking the dive to produce my first RPG, this is going to be a lot of work. The Unleashed Roleplaying Game will be an OGL Derived 2d10 based system strongly influenced by the old-school and newer indie games. Combat will be more free-form, with iterative attacks replaced by weapon speeds.

I've long held a disdain for the d20. I've written about it a few times. The lack of any sort of predictability of a single roll makes the game less fun for me when I have a bad night. With 2d10, it is 50% probably that you roll an 11, not 5%. It is only 1% likely to roll a 2, and 1% of rolling a 20. This of course changes the way criticals would work. I have addressed this with new mechanics.

Iterative attacks at higher level typically made for 1 or 2 good attacks, and 1 or more attacks where the player was hoping for a 20, as it triggers that automatic hit. Combat will be dynamic, many concepts of OGL will be thrown out to make room for the dynamic. Imagine a 4th level knife fighter defeating a half-orc halberd wielding barbarian with a multitude of knife attacks.

Hero points and Heroic Aspects also will be utilized in Unleashed. These are one of my favorite innovations of the recent past in gaming. They make the game less Game Master intense, and more of a game master/player dance.

This is only the beginning, a new world will be explored, a conversion guide, as well as several supplements will follow. I will be publishing under the Curious Few Productions, LLC. title. At First this will be an entirely PDF publication. I plan on doing extensive Alpha and Beta Testing. With The Unleashed RPG (tentative title), you will be free to play how you want, your imagination...Unleashed! Beyond Unleashed, will be the creation of board games, accessories, and supplements I've had brewing for years.

If you wish to jump in to help, I will need Alpha Testers, and eventually artists (willing to work cheap, as to get your work out there...similar to me). Contact me at EpicRPGBlog@gmail.com A New website will be created as well as forums.