The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ooc]
Observation and another handful of Sample Characters are done, at which point I think I'm done with the basics of the system. From now it's all up to any feedback people have as to things that seem to be missing or inefficient.
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I think your handling of observation is a very elegant compromise.

Quote from: Steerpike
I think your handling of observation is a very elegant compromise.

I'm glad to hear you approve.

Really, in an ideal world I'd have liked to do something more fully along the lines of Gumshoe (which I think was a revolution among investigative games) but the limited nature of 'skills' in Lovecraft Holmes makes that difficult, in addition to the fact that the module I'm primarily designing this for (at least for now) is, though somewhat concerned with clue-gathering, more about planning and plotting.

[ooc]Any other sample characters or NPCs people would like to see?[/ooc]

I like this.  It looks fun, rules-light, and has some interesting mechanics.  The one thing that bugs me is that there are different Initiative rolls for violence and "other" or "in general."  Though I notice you mentioned replacing the nerves one with wits, which would result in them being the same. 

But maybe I just don't understand it.  Is there a good reason for having two different initiatives--one based on Nerves, one based on Wits, and why each one is used in the situations they are?

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium
But maybe I just don't understand it.  Is there a good reason for having two different initiatives--one based on Nerves, one based on Wits, and why each one is used in the situations they are?

I suppose the up-front reason is simply because that was what occurred to me at the time :P But as far as why I made those choices, the thought process was more or less like this:

When performing the majority of tasks what matters in terms of who acts first is controlled by the questions of who's faster, whose reflexes are quicker, who can run over there in less time, etc. (Nerves)

Once the combat starts questions of speed and accuracy (Nerves) become huge concerns but in the second/s immediately beforehand it's quick-wittedness and vigilence and paying attention (Wits) that determine surprise and advantage.

One concern is that Nerves doesn't become too much of an uber-stat. The Asura analog of Nerves is Grace, and Grace actually did become a bit uber, so, if you perceive this becoming a problem, you might have to make some of the same changes I did:
- Base melee combat on your "Strength" stat instead, like d20 does.
- Base initiative on a "Perception" stat or something instead, like FATE.

Quote from: sparkletwist
One concern is that Nerves doesn't become too much of an uber-stat.

This was the other motivation behind using Wits instead of Nerves for combat Initiative - I wanted to try and avoid making things quite as easy as "Do you want to be good at doing violence? Put everything into Nerves."

As it stands Nerves is important for combat and for resolving player questions about who gets to do their thing first, but it isn't gamebreaking in the same way it would be if it contributed to combat effectively twice (to order of actions and then to chance to hit).

The main stat that *could* be argued to be an uber-stat is Wits (with roles in both Violence and Madness sub-systems) but most of its uses beyond those fairly passive ones are constrained by the possession of Skilled Aspects, so I'm hoping it'll be fine.

[ooc]
I'm probably going to be running a playtest with my usual players sometime soon-ish so hopefully that'll provide some insight into what works and what needs changing.[/ooc]

Quote from: HippopotamusDundeeThe main stat that *could* be argued to be an uber-stat is Wits (with roles in both Violence and Madness sub-systems) but most of its uses beyond those fairly passive ones are constrained by the possession of Skilled Aspects, so I'm hoping it'll be fine.

Another option, of course, would be to give all of the stats some application in various subsystems. This is essentially what I did in Asura. (Power is good for melee combat, but also heavy lifting and intimidation. Senses covers perception but also aiming firearms. And so on...)

Quote from: HippopotamusDundeeif a 6 is rolled, reroll the dice and add 6 to the new result

I missed this the first time. I'd recommend changing 6 to "add 5 and reroll." Otherwise, you've made your probability distribution kind of strange because it's impossible to roll a 6-- a 5 gives you 5, but a 6 gives you 6+d6, which is going to be at least 7.