The Campaign Builder's Guild

This is the bastard child of my wizard hack of apocalypse world. It has nothing to do with that system now, and very little in common with the 'cosmic sorcerers' concept of the original hack. What it does have are:

• Warriors who fight world-shaking behemoths on their own terms. Running up dragons' tails in mid-flight and cleaving their wings with broken swords. Wrestling hundred-armed octapus gods at the bottom of the ocean and subduing them in a single protracted breath.
  
  
• Visionaries promising eutopia and forging it with machinery and miracle science.
  
  
• Solidarity and Heroism. The protagonists are bound together by oaths and by their mutual admiration. When every other measure fails they can invoke this fellowship as a fateful source of strength. The protagonists are likewise bound to the world, rising and falling in its esteem as they work their will upon it.
  
  
• Clear, concise mechanics for generating and resolving all of the above. Rules for mentorship, political ascension, alienation, self-actualisation and personal betrayal alongside the more conventional thieving and climbing and exploring and killing. There is still quite a lot of killing.

The system is essentially d20 compressed into d10, with levels commensurately condensed. A simple percentile system with ten discrete and equally apportioned outcomes for any given conflict. It's in its infancy, so any insight or feedback will go a long way.

Classes

Name*	Archetype	Class Skill
Alienist	Summoner, secret-seeker and faustian bargainer	Mystery
Elemental	Living, thinking force of nature	Communion
Engineer	Inventor, gadgeteer and quartermaster	Craft
Eukaryote	The messiah	Empathy
Ghoul	Opportunist, parasite and remorseless social predator	Cunning
Revenant	Scarred, relentless and endlessly adaptive warrior	Vitality
Thane	Servant, builder, broker and breaker of nations	Culture
Zoanthrope	Shapeshifter	Instinct

Only player characters have classes. First level characters are already dangerous, notorious and capable individuals. Each class has a core skill that must be invested in order to advance. Multiclassing is forbidden.

*All names are placeholders.

Abilities

Level	Actions	Feats	Skills	Weapons
1	1	1	4	2
2	1	2	8	4
3	2	2	12	6
4	2	3	16	8
5	2	3	20	10
6	3	4	24	12
7	3	4	28	14
8	3	5	32	16
9	4	5	36	18
10	4	6	40	20

Levels
There is no precise levelling/xp scheme yet. Downtime represents a hiatus of months or years in which the character trains, stars in their own spin-off and generally gets on with their life. Beginning a new level could easily represent coming out of retirement, returning from foreign lands with new knowledge, or battling your way out of the underworld.

Actions
Roughly analagous to an "attack" in 3EDnD. A standard attack consumes one action, while more exotic abilities may cost as many as four. An action can be sacrificed to add +2 to another action in the same turn, or +1 to another character's action in that turn.

Feats
Most feats automatically unlock new abilities as the character levels. Their emphasis is not on numerical benefits. Examples...

Mentor - You have a sidekick who looks to you for guidance and is, generally speaking, a mini-you. If acquiring them during play or during character creaion at level 1, roll Culture, Negotiation or Empathy to determine your initial relationship and responsibilities. This is a Batman-Robin dynamic - if they die or are abandoned or move on you always get a new one.

Living Weapon - Every part of you is a killing instrument. Your unarmed attacks have the reach of a sword and cannot be disarmed. At higher levels, you can punch holes through walls and roundhouse kick demons into unsconsciousness.

Feats are meant to be powerful. You only get six over a career that begins in the gutter and ends beyond the stars, so they're thematically and mechanically substantial. There are no bonus feats. At all. Ever.

Skills

Name	Function	Failure
Instruction	Teaching, allocating tasks and coordinating group action	Miscommunication/Desertion
Clarity	Navigation, memory and the senses	Lost/Confused
Communion	Wilderness survival and animal empathy	Deprivation/Injury
Craft	Creating arms, armour, tools, buildings, machines...	Imperfection
Culture	Language, etiquette, idiom, gossip and first impressions	Shame/Ostracism/Obstruction
Cunning	Deceit, disguise and quick thinking	Enmity/Distrust
Empathy	Understanding people, predicting behaviour and eliciting disclosure	Enmity/Imprinting
Grace	Balance, coordination and acrobatics	Stumbling/Fumbling
Instinct	Reflexes, intuition, self-discipline and inner nature	Panic/Rage/Folly
Mystery	Forgotten and occulted knowledge	Attention/Misinformation
Negotiation	Soliciting favours and haggling prices	Debt
Stealth	Anonymity, concealment and theft	Caught/Cornered
Vigor	Climbing, running, jumping and swimming	Inadequate/Late
Vitality	General health, endurance and stability	Sickness/Fatigue/Collapse

Investing multiple points in a skill unlocks new competencies. Someone with no ranks in stealth can still hide, but someone with 2 ranks can help someone else hide and someone with 6 ranks can hide while being observed. The reverse is equally important: a one or two point investment in a skill is often enough to access all the abilities the player forsees being useful in his career. For example...

Culture and NPC Reaction
When an individual or group first encounters you, your culture roll determines how familiar and appropriate they think your behaviour is (see table below). You can then appeal to the group's collective interest with another Cultural action, appeal to them on a personal level with Empathy, bargain for greater priveleges or a specific resource with Negotiation, or lie about yourself with Cunning.

Result	Disposition	Effect	Diplomacy
11	Respect	They actively solicit your opinion and volunteer information	+1
9-10	Interest	They give your opinions uncommon consideration	0
6-8	Indifference	You seem perfectly mundane and inoccuous	0
4-5	Disregard	They expect you to defer to their judgement and care nothing for your opinion	-1
3	Disrespect	They perceive you as a distraction and inconvenience	-2
2	Disdain	They tolerate you for their own amusement and ridicule you to your face	-2
1	Ostracism	They do not tolerate you even for the sake of ridicule.	-3
0/-1	Scorn	They go so far as to encourage outsiders not to associate with you	-3
-2/3	Malice	They actively conspire to make your life difficult now and in the future	-4
-4/7	Hatred	They plot to cause you physical harm or even murder you	-5
-8	Fury	They try to kill you right here and now	X

As long as you're not rolling at a penalty (usually involving some kind of prejudice) a single rank of Culture obviates the Ostracism result and opens the possibility of Respect.

A Few Modifiers
-2: you are an outlander
-5: you are an old racial adversary; you kick in the door, hollering, screaming and punching faces
-10: you are an abomination in their eyes (demon in a court of angels); you kick in the door and kill an extra
-15: you kick in the door and kill your target's mum

The other social skills are just as important. Negotiation gets you quests and favours, but can also saddle you with responsibilities. Empathy gets you comrades, friends and lovers, and can heal hearts and minds, but can also earn you obsessive dependants and determined enemies. It is also governs 'non-violent' intimidation. Cunning provides plenty of temporary advantages, but always pisses people off in the long term.

I'll talk more about those (and every other damn thing) later. Thoughts?

Looks fucking awesome, super playable, clean.  I particularly like the unorthodox approach to Feats.

Some broad questions...

How's magic gonna work?  Spell points?  Open and creative?  Vancian?  Rituals?  Something totally different?

Are there Attributes of any sort i.e. Strength and Charisma and all that jazz or have skills basically just replaced them?

How's health gonna work?  Hit points?  An injury track?

This looks totally awesome!  I am really looking forward to how this develops.

I love how you've established the culture reaction scale, and what "failure" means in terms of each skill.

Have you ever considered running an IRC game? Because I would absolutely play in it forever. :p

Quote from: SteerpikeLooks fucking awesome, super playable, clean.  I particularly like the unorthodox approach to Feats.

I want the triumvirate of Feats, Skills and Class abilities to generate widely divergent characters. Your alienist can be a brawling brick-shithouse brute with a flair for oratory and an intuition for machines. Your zoanthrope might possess profound insights into the human heart and have a fuzzy smack-talking shapeshifting apprentice.

It all bears more than a passing resemblance to the 'character foci' in Monte Cook's Numenera.

QuoteHow's magic gonna work?  Spell points?  Open and creative?  Vancian?  Rituals?  Something totally different?

All classes have optional magical selections, and there are a few feats (such as Low Magic) that give you general magical competence. Spell effects are mostly at-will, and come from a variety of traditions. They are rituals, gestures, proclamations, shibboleths and other things besides. They typically open up new options in the various minigames (social, industrial, exploratory, combative).

QuoteAre there Attributes of any sort i.e. Strength and Charisma and all that jazz or have skills basically just replaced them?

There will be a selection of positive character traits available at first level: things like Powerhouse Physique and Accursed Birth, representing prodigies and significant natural talent. At the beginning of a given level you can also take a Conditioning. This is the discipline or attribute you were honing just before the adventure's commencement. You can only have one at any given time.

QuoteHow's health gonna work?  Hit points?  An injury track?

The general stress track in combat governs mounting desperation and the shifting balance of power rather than physical health. Defence doesn't mean "I block it with my shield" - that's presumed and automatic - it means "I make for the treeline, where visibility is poor and I have cover". Both attacking and defending change the state of play. Only if you roll terribly or if you don't (or can't) respond to the threat at all (standing there like a jackass or attacking heedless of the danger) do you take a full hit. Otherwise injuries are automatically incidental until the opponent has racked up sufficient advantage.

When you do get hit, you track specific injuries, like broken hand or bruised eye or disemboweled.

Quote from: Seraphine HarmoniumI love how you've established the culture reaction scale

New interactions should be tense and uncertain but should not devolve to GM fiat. Players roleplay their characters' actions then roll the dice to determine the world's response; the GM uses player dicerolls (players roll all the dice) to determine how to roleplay the world. We shift more authorial responsibility toward the players, leave much else up to genuine chance, and significantly reduce the GM's workload.

My governing axiom is: "if you say your system is about something, you'd better have rules for it. The system only gets credit for effects that the mechanics actually generate."

Quote...and what "failure" means in terms of each skill.

Something's always at stake when you roll the dice. Not just something to gain. Something to lose. Succeed or fail, just like in combat, every action changes the state of play. A lot of "narrativist" systems make this claim yet leave the specific consequences up to GM "interpretation". This makes the die's (and therefore the mechanics') true contribution to the action ambiguous.

Quote from: TheMeanestGuestHave you ever considered running an IRC game? Because I would absolutely play in it forever.

I consider running IRC games all the time. I never have because I'm inconstant, ill-disciplined and forgetful. If someone else wants to IRC this once it's fit for playtesting I'll be their best friend.

[ooc]Trivial amendment: I've changed Diplomacy to Negotiation. "Diplomacy" actually encapsulates all of Negotiation, Empathy, Cunning and Culture.[/ooc]

I think I share a lot of your design goals.  :grin:

Quote from: Salacious Angel"if you say your system is about something, you'd better have rules for it. The system only gets credit for effects that the mechanics actually generate."

Definitely!

Quote from: Salacious AngelSomething's always at stake when you roll the dice. Not just something to gain. Something to lose. Succeed or fail, just like in combat, every action changes the state of play.

I sort of agree with this, because I do like interesting consequences for failure. However, I think that those consequences should primarily come in situations where time is of the essence-- because, ultimately, the only thing really lost as a result of failure should be time, and any further consequences of failure come from that. I say this because I think players should also have a chance to try crazy ideas, fail at them, and be able to try more crazy ideas; if every failure is punitive in some way, then that could lead to an overly conservative style of play which may not suit your initial design goals.

Quote from: Salacious AngelA lot of "narrativist" systems make this claim yet leave the specific consequences up to GM "interpretation". This makes the die's (and therefore the mechanics') true contribution to the action ambiguous.

This is something I've had to be careful of in my own games, too. I think there will always have to be GM interpretation, because you can't explicitly list every situation and what the consequences of failure are-- even if you could, it would be boring. I think the real key is, especially in a "narrativist" game structure, to allow for a lot of flexibility for how you tell the story, but for the players to be aware of what success and failure actually mean mechanically, even if the way you fit those mechanical results into the story can vary widely.

This is, I admit, a somewhat dissociated style of play that doesn't suit everyone. I've often likened playing Asura to telling an audacious action story while simultaneously playing a resource management and dice game that governs how much narrative authority you have over that story.

Quote from: sparkletwist...the only thing really lost as a result of failure should be time, and any further consequences of failure come from that. I say this because I think players should also have a chance to try crazy ideas, fail at them, and be able to try more crazy ideas; if every failure is punitive in some way, then that could lead to an overly conservative style of play which may not suit your initial design goals.

The "something to gain/something to lose" phrase is a tad deceptive. The very term "failure" may be so as well. I should rather say that dice rolls determine what kind of interesting thing happens, not whether something worth rolling for actually happens at all.

Once again taking Culture as an example: the skill dovetails into Cunning, Negotiation and Empathy and determines the context of those interactions. If you somehow rolled a 0 or lower upon first meeting an individual or group and earned their Scorn, you aren't cut off from possible interaction. You still get to empathise, negotiate or trick them, but those rolls will be weighted toward worse results because you're still talking to them even though they told you in no uncertain terms to fuck off.

The rules don't punish in a narrative sense. You never just get lost in the woods: you stumble into some new situation - like a hidden village or an encounter with Deliverance hillbillies - that is compelling in itself. Dead-end rolls that do not open up such opportunites will be ferreted out and destroyed.

QuoteI think the real key is, especially in a "narrativist" game structure, to allow for a lot of flexibility for how you tell the story...

SAGE (Salacious Angel's Game Engine) won't work for a GM who plans for Duke Corvus to say "brigands terrorise my roads, eliminate them and I will give you the Golem's Hand". She can decide that the bandits are a real thorn in the Duke's side and include the quest as a complication in the event of poor negotiation, but if a player has the skills and rolls hot Duke Corvus straight up gives them the Hand for free. The GM interprets why the Duke is willing to give it up for free, but the player earned the right not to pay for it in any case.

Of course, the brigands still exist, since the Duke mentioned them. The GM can and should make them relevant later (verisimilitude!).

Quote...but for the players to be aware of what success and failure actually mean mechanically, even if the way you fit those mechanical results into the story can vary widely.

The possibilities are infinite, as long as the GM describes them before the roll.

QuoteThis is, I admit, a somewhat dissociated style of play that doesn't suit everyone.

SAGE is very dissociated. The better acquainted the players are with the GM's side of the screen the better it will run.

I love all aspects of this. All of the aspects.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon
I love all aspects of this. All of the aspects.

Came here to say this.

Weapons
There are currently three broad classes of weapon. Characters gain 2 points of weapon proficiency per level and must split them between these classes.

Quick weapons permit feints, parries and interruptions. They are effective against human-like opponents - who are more susceptible to pain and the threat of harm - but fare poorly against monsters and animals. Examples: sword, axe, glaive, dagger.

Brute weapons are for crowd control and monster-killing. They require large spaces and cannot be used reactively without preparation, making them poor options against a single swift, intelligent foe. Examples: grandsword, foot-lance, headsman's axe.

Ranged weapons are for killing at a distance like a sensible person.

I've considered a fourth class like Terrain that deals with creating environmental and situational hazards, but I'm not yet sold on the idea. Though deally there'd be five classes of weapon and three proficiency points per level I'll settle for the three I've got if I have to. Unarmed combat can be Quick, Brute and Ranged because why the hell not. Most natural weapons are one of the three: wolf bites are Quick while sweeping behemoth paws are Brute.

Killing Monsters (preliminary)
The most important part of a Great Drake's stat block is the obstacle number for leaping into its mouth and piercing its brain through the soft palate. Generally speaking, you can't kill massive creatures on foot with conventional human arms. You have to reach their weak spots first. You can climb or jump (the former is significantly easier) with Vigor, or run along the creature to get there with Grace.

As with the rest of the system, there are standardised skill and attack obstacles for different actions. The difficulty of reaching a specific target is represented by its obstacle penalty. This is modified by the type of surface (ooze-slickened tencatcles compared to stony graspable scales) and the monster's movements (all climbable critters have a Thrash stat).

In short: Shadow of the Colossus plus Monster Hunter.

Suspense
Not only must players roll the dice, they must always know what they are rolling for. This has profound implications in situations like an ambush, where the protagonists don't know what's coming. What happens is:

• The GM declares an ambush, describing the creak of bowstrings drawn taut in the dark and the gleam of avarice in the eyes of murderous brigands. The players now know what's at stake, even though the PCs do not.
  
  
• The group consults the Ambush table (or whatever it's called). It describes everything from the Worst Case (blindsided with no time for preparation) to the Best Case (spotting the ambush before they spot you, which confers a bonus for evasion or counterassault). This gives everybody a comprehensive run-down of the possible stakes.
  
  
• The GM invokes situational modifiers. She must narrate them. She can't pull a number out of nowhere and ascribe it to nothing. Players can reference these modifiers against the Ambush table to get a palpable sense of precisely how much danger they're in: "They're too well hidden. There's no way we can spot them in time to turn the tables. This is going to get ugly..."
  
  
• Someone rolls. Skill "helping" is yet to be determined. The result defines how close to the ambush the protagonists come before someone notices it, or how comprehensive an advantage the villains seize.

Traditionally, the GM has a lot of flexibility to adjust the consequence of a roll without anyone knowing that she has done so. This is not a good thing. Here, instead, everything is laid out on the table and the GM is bound to the effects of her original declaration. The players know that they risk being perforated by bandits before the protagonists know the bandits even exist. What's more, they know their odds.

The trick is to describe some threatening situation that is outside of the PCs' knowledge yet sufficiently immediate that player knowledge cannot be abused in the metagame. You can then create situations that are incredibly asymmetric and yet, because of mechanical transparency, totally fair.

Negotiation
This skill establishes the terms under which an NPC will freely surrender their possessions: anything from a glass of water to a heavenly kingdom. The skill cannot induce emotional/attitudinal changes - those come from Empathy and Culture - but it can profit and suffer as a consequence of them.

This is going to be a difficult mechanic to quantify, but it is among the most important. It is essentially a sidequest generator. Provisionally:

• A roll of 10 nets you the item for free, no strings attached. A roll of -10 requires you to storm the gates of The Cosmic City.
  
  
• The roll penalty comprises the item's "objective" value and the personal significance of the item to the NPC (personal significance can be negative, if the NPC is eager to be rid of it). "Objective" value is loosely tethered to PC level.
  
  
• Diplomatic modifiers from Culture apply (e.g. -5 if they already want to murder you). You might undertake a quest from the King while contending with assassins in his employ and still claim your reward when the quest is complete.
  
  
• Exact numbers don't exist yet, but the conditions imposed on the PCs are largely a function of risk and resources (time can be a resource). Quests, whereby the PCs procure, secure, deliver, or destroy something, are worth more than Trades, whereby the PCs surrender items, positions and persons already in their possession (perhaps even themselves).
  
  
• If the NPC tasks you with an errand that you (or someone else) has already completed, there's nothing stopping you accepting it and lying about the chronology when you return for your prize. Of course, there are consequences for discovered deception. (It is assumed that most PCs have excellent poker faces. Cunning is only required when an NPC possesses contrary evidence that forces the PCs to improvise)
  
  
• PCs can make Promises to NPCs with whom they have a positive personal Relationship (from Empathy). Promises enable PCs to delay conditions of a value up to the strength of the Relationship (buy now, pay later), and tax the Relationship if reneged on. Similarly, participants can include an oath among the terms, which becomes a curse if either party reneges. Both promises and curses are invoked after the roll.
  
  
• Mechanically speaking, nothing compels the PCs to carry out their half of a negotiation. If the terms are not palatable, they can always resort to more antagonistic methods.
  
  

[ooc]Small amendment: I've added three extra results and a handful of modifiers to the Culture roll in post #1.[/ooc]

NPC actions are declared first, such as "he comes smashing through the wall, roaring and flailing his greathammer about him like crazy, kicking rubble and tables at you". Players choose a course of action based on this initial description.

There are three responses to an opponent's attack:

Evade (Grace)
Deftly played, this is tactical repositioning providing subsequent advantage. Poorly executed, this leaves you more exposed than before. It is not "dodging", which happens almost constantly and is not simulated in the system. You evade to somewhere.

Sustain (Vitality)
"Tanking" damage without sacrificing action or position. Use this when you are already exactly where you need to be, or when you cannot afford to move at all. Armours do not provide quantitatively different protection e.g. AC+3. Rather, they neutralise different kinds of attacks.

Reverse (Weapon)
Disarm, sunder or bind an opponent's weapon. Strike them as they strike. Unlike evade and sustain, this consumes a combat action. Using reverse to attack is far more risky than sustain-and-riposte if it fails, but far more devastating if it succeeds

Combat time is flexible, broad and abstracted. Disappearing into tall grass, repositioning then ambushing can be the matter of a single round while taking several fictional minutes. A simple sustain-and-riposte, on the other hand, might take only seconds.

I'd suggest more indifference and disregard numerical points; in the real world, most people fall in those categories, so perhaps add an extra point or two to them. It would also go a long way toward getting that -8 fury to a -10 or a -11 and having a balanced looking chart with 22 or 23 steps.

Also, is it intended that if you kill someone's mother and that someone was your ally, who you had at +11... that person only drops to malice?

>>Vigor   Climbing, running, jumping and swimming   Inadequate/Late
>>Vitality   General health, endurance and stability   Sickness/Fatigue/Collapse

I think there's an easy answer for this, but to ask anyway:

Lets say I have a 10  in vigor but a 1 in vitality... I'm not going to collapse while running a long distance, am I? Is vigor essentially over short sprints whereas vitality is for longer distances?