A Wilder Update
Apr. 28th, 2012 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinLately I've been doing a lot of starting to write blog posts and then walking away, or closing out of the tab for some reason, so I'm not at all sure what I've actually blogged about.
About a week ago, I had a huge burst of inspiration/activity on my RPG project, A Wilder World. I have about 80% of a basic rules/instructions document written and a bunch of chargen content. In terms of rules, the biggest thing I'm missing are the non hack-and-slash parts of combat... the things you can do besides attacking and defending in the usual fashion.
The basic game mechanic revolves around "roll 1d6, add bonus, meet/exceed target". There are some specific mechanics for things like taking extra time, trying to be extra sneaky about something, or assisting an ally, all meant to be very general cases that be applied across the board. Fast and simple. Common special abilities let you roll an extra die and/or re-roll in specific circumstances.
The combat rules follow the outline I gave in this post. The character creation system is sort of a "best of" compilation of the many different drafts I've gone through... when I started actually writing the rules out in full and creating example characters with them, I found out what really works and what doesn't.
The stat system is a bit more fleshed out and in-depth than recent drafts have suggested, and you can do more to define your character specifically using nothing but numbers. This doesn't replace the idea of defining your character by choosing special abilities; the two things are meant to complement each other. You can put points into Prowess to be a good fighter and points into Magic to be a wizard; the special abilities you choose then say a lot about what kind of fighter or wizard you are.
One feature from a very early draft that I had scrapped but have now brought back is separate tracks of stats for fighting abilities and everything else; the idea being that you should be able to be strong or graceful or clever or whatever independently of your ability to hit hard and accurately or avoid attacks. You can keep your combat abilities and non-combat abilities closely aligned (smart and good at tactics, agile and good at dodging, etc.) or you can have a divide (like a gentle giant who's incredibly strong but doesn't know how to make a decent fist, much less swing one). Entirely up to you.
Once I'm finished with the basic rules, I'll be ready to do limited playtesting with pre-fab characters to make sure the rules make sense and the system works as intended. The second phase of playtesting will involve the character creation rules and players making their own characters, to make sure *those* rules work and to make sure the game doesn't break as soon as people start doing unexpected combinations.
When I say "limited playtesting", I mean closed with me as GM. Groups will be small, but I'll want to do sessions with multiple groups. Once I know that the rules 1) work and 2) make sense to people I'll do more open playtesting.
The two phases of closed playtesting will kind of mirror my expected distribution of the game: a free basic rules set that includes the rules and has a chapter of example characters. About two thirds to three quarters of the example characters will be standard fantasy archetypes/classes with the stats left blank for players to finish but special abilities already chosen, and the remainder will be fully finished characters with more specific/unique concepts. Making characters from scratch will be the subject of themed supplements.
The actual rule system is pretty simple... the whole concept, both character creation and gameplay, is based around the idea of simple things that can be combined/used in nigh-unlimited ways.
As usual, no timeframe on this... the spate of productivity that brought it so close to completion was entirely unexpected, and it's unlikely to see much progress in the next two months because of reasons.
But I'm excited by how close it is. I think it could actually be finished this year.
About a week ago, I had a huge burst of inspiration/activity on my RPG project, A Wilder World. I have about 80% of a basic rules/instructions document written and a bunch of chargen content. In terms of rules, the biggest thing I'm missing are the non hack-and-slash parts of combat... the things you can do besides attacking and defending in the usual fashion.
The basic game mechanic revolves around "roll 1d6, add bonus, meet/exceed target". There are some specific mechanics for things like taking extra time, trying to be extra sneaky about something, or assisting an ally, all meant to be very general cases that be applied across the board. Fast and simple. Common special abilities let you roll an extra die and/or re-roll in specific circumstances.
The combat rules follow the outline I gave in this post. The character creation system is sort of a "best of" compilation of the many different drafts I've gone through... when I started actually writing the rules out in full and creating example characters with them, I found out what really works and what doesn't.
The stat system is a bit more fleshed out and in-depth than recent drafts have suggested, and you can do more to define your character specifically using nothing but numbers. This doesn't replace the idea of defining your character by choosing special abilities; the two things are meant to complement each other. You can put points into Prowess to be a good fighter and points into Magic to be a wizard; the special abilities you choose then say a lot about what kind of fighter or wizard you are.
One feature from a very early draft that I had scrapped but have now brought back is separate tracks of stats for fighting abilities and everything else; the idea being that you should be able to be strong or graceful or clever or whatever independently of your ability to hit hard and accurately or avoid attacks. You can keep your combat abilities and non-combat abilities closely aligned (smart and good at tactics, agile and good at dodging, etc.) or you can have a divide (like a gentle giant who's incredibly strong but doesn't know how to make a decent fist, much less swing one). Entirely up to you.
Once I'm finished with the basic rules, I'll be ready to do limited playtesting with pre-fab characters to make sure the rules make sense and the system works as intended. The second phase of playtesting will involve the character creation rules and players making their own characters, to make sure *those* rules work and to make sure the game doesn't break as soon as people start doing unexpected combinations.
When I say "limited playtesting", I mean closed with me as GM. Groups will be small, but I'll want to do sessions with multiple groups. Once I know that the rules 1) work and 2) make sense to people I'll do more open playtesting.
The two phases of closed playtesting will kind of mirror my expected distribution of the game: a free basic rules set that includes the rules and has a chapter of example characters. About two thirds to three quarters of the example characters will be standard fantasy archetypes/classes with the stats left blank for players to finish but special abilities already chosen, and the remainder will be fully finished characters with more specific/unique concepts. Making characters from scratch will be the subject of themed supplements.
The actual rule system is pretty simple... the whole concept, both character creation and gameplay, is based around the idea of simple things that can be combined/used in nigh-unlimited ways.
As usual, no timeframe on this... the spate of productivity that brought it so close to completion was entirely unexpected, and it's unlikely to see much progress in the next two months because of reasons.
But I'm excited by how close it is. I think it could actually be finished this year.