Nuclear Beasts

The Tainted City

So, I've basically got a very basic system in mind. 6 stats, split up so that they cover six traditional "specialties". A decent-sized skill-list. Actions are stat + skill in d6s, probably taking the highest value rolled and any matching dice.

But what about the setting? Planescape was a huge city with a mishmash of every D&D critter as inhabitants. Nexus stole from even a larger conglomeration of settings, supporting high tech and superheroes, too. On the other hand, Everway limited stuff strictly to fantasy, which seems like a good idea to me... if I have tech, I'll want it to be limited and restricted. I generally prefer running magic-based settings.

• A bunch of attached realms, many of which are thoroughly hostile to outsiders.
• Several are actively at war with the others.
• Menagerie itself is "neutral territory", probably for several reasons such as Protected by a Godlike Being, the portals send you to random locations if you try to send too many people through at once (can't launch a big invasion without a stable portal), and a government that is good at balancing between the various factions.
• There are a few Mysteries, such as sealed towers, weird spectral phenomena, etc., that aren't explained but are interesting.
• Many of the factions are dark and nasty, but you have to deal with them anyway.
• I don't want the power-levels to be as disparate as they are in D&D, so uber-powerful critters will be rare.
• The local political and religious movements can't afford to offend the far more powerful (if distant) factions that rule the various Spheres.

Coming up with an overall theme could be difficult. It might be easiest to model it after the D&D multiverse, but I'd prefer not to just write up a different system for running Planescape in.

Stat names

Instead of Charm, how about Poise or Confidence? I wrote up 6 areas for folks to excel and I want one primary stat for each. Constitution is the only one I don't really care about... I don't see the "I can take lots of punishment" as a hero archetype... more of an add-on to one of the others.

So...

Might (strength & toughness)
Agility
Perception
Knowledge
Intuition
Poise

The 3 saving throws are:

Fortitude: Might & Poise
Reflex: Perception & Agility
Willpower: Knowledge & Intuition

Fantasy RPG

So, let me think for a moment. I kind of like the Planescape setting, with its gritty community of interdimensional miscreants trying to get by. Some other examples are Cynosure, Nexus and Everway.

Stat-wise... I wouldn't mind shrinking it to 4, but I'm not sure I can. 6 still seems ideal to me.

For a fantasy setting, I'll want some sort of "Ken" stat... which measures your sensitivity to magical phenomena and possibly your ability to use it, too. I wouldn't object to having 2+ stats that affect magic, though. Might be called Ken, Spirit, Aura or maybe Power. Or maybe Intuition.

I would want at least a physical might, a speed & agility and a separate perception stat. Let's see... if we wanted very broad stats, that's basically Body, Speed, Perception and Ken. Charm could reasonably be a skill instead of a stat, so that folks can get more charming/whatever more easily.

Might (Muscles & Guts, basically). Agility. Perception. Intuition.

So, physical strength and toughness would be Might. Speed and coordination would be Agility. Perception covers ranged attacks and noticing stuff as well as general intelligence. Intuition covers noticing subtle things and making intuitive judgements. Charm is just a skill, probably based off of Intuition.

If I wanted more stats, I could easily add Constitution and Charisma. Perception & Intuition are basically INT and WIS, except that PER covers ranged attacks.

I don't want to lose the saving throws, though... let's see... we need an equivalent to the Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower saves, at a minimum. There could also be a Charm save or a Notice save, but that's iffy.

Muscles & Guts, Agility & Perception, and... what? Brains & Intuition. Maybe Knowledge & Intuition. Or Thought & Intuition?

Muscles, Guts, Agility, Knowledge, Perception and Intuition?

Ranged combat falls under Perception. Melee under Agility. Muscles adds to the damage done. Hm. Reflex could also be Agility & Intuition, instead of Perception... they're both sensory, just in different areas. There could be a "magic save" that's Agility & Intuition.

Muscles & Guts: fortitude save
Knowledge & Intuition: "know" roll
Agility & Perception: reflex save
Guts & Intuition: will save
Agility & Intuition: magic save

Eh, probably not worth the hassle. We want the stats to cover important niches.

• Big, tough warrior (muscles)
• Small, agile thief (speed)
• Sensitive cleric-type (intuition/spirit)
• Brainy scholar (brains)
• Charming con-artist (charm)
• Keen-eyed archer (perception)
• Mages of various sorts

So, if I wanted to keep the 2/2/2 saving throw split... I'd want Strength & Con, Speed & Perception/Intuition and Brains & Whatever. Not sure it's worth it, really. Charm might merit being a specialty all its own... but it's hard to justify applying it to one of the three saves if it's called "Charm". Also, the charming but utterly insensitive rogue is a common trope.

Take Aways

What did I really like about the system? Hm.

I liked the Speed/Perception split. I'd rather see ranged attacks depend more on Perception than your agility.

I'm still fond of the "roll 'em all, take the highest" since it lets you combine different ratings very easily.

I'm not as fond of "use every polyhedron" anymore... there's a serious advantage to not having to hunt around to figure out what dice to roll.

So I may just concentrate on my "bucket of d6s" homebrew and see what I can make of it. The Halloween one-shot will use a super-simple version that doesn't even have stats. I have a feeling it'll be okay for that, but for a serious game I'll want to have stats, pre-defined skills and rules for special situations. An important goal is to figure out what sort of modifiers work best when... When is it better to add/subtract dice vs flat modifiers. Also, for unopposed checks should it use flat target numbers or piles of difficulty dice? Using difficulty dice will require more rolls on the GM's part, but will eliminate those annoying gaps in the possible results (eg... it's impossible to roll a 7 if you're adding doubles or triples together). And whether or not I really prefer +1 per dupe or +X per dupe.

Salvage

It's been awhile since I've worked on this project. A pity, really. It went through a lot of alterations and new ideas before it finally ground out. Never did find something that would have enough appeal for me to want to run it for a serious campaign... much less the kind of widespread appeal that would make throwing together a for-sale PDF worth the trouble.

I'll probably still add notes here occasionally, but it'll probably become a more general RPG-design blog instead.