Sean_RDP

So Armor, Shields, helms, and weapons are finished except for weapon damage, which may come down a notch. Mundane equipment should be easy enough.

Rough Draft of Design Document - 100% Skills: 85% - Just made a change to make it more like OQ2 SRD and Legend. I actually feel pretty good about this and it reminds my why I liked those games and used the OGL for OQ2. Experience - 100% - REAL happy about this lol Resistance - 100% - REAL happy about this also Item Creation - 40% - This chapter will be huge but will not be in the Quickstart rules. In some ways items may become more important than spells Soul Magic - 100% Sorcery - 60% Weird Magic - 80% Hit Points & Hit Locations - 100% Armor, Weapons, & Equipment - 89% Cults of Skaerune': 45% Salt Island - 20% SRD/Design Doc - 30% Skaerune' Setting 47% Quickstart Guide 83% First Short Adventure: Delivery to the Sea is 75% done. Bestiary 25% - Like my new format Getting a Domain and perm website and copyrights and trademarks.. 0.001% Bold Items Saw some Change

Enjoyed it

Looks fun.

Yep I think that works out well. eager to see what you all do with it going forward.

Wear, tear, and weapon breaking

And that makes sense, I know us old schoolers like to feel appreciated too I may consider something like that for The City That Thieves.. but yes a topic for another thread Some of my item creation inspiration comes from M. Scott Rohan's Winter of the World series.

It is a kind of holy grail honestly. I will let people play with it and see and if meh, will have it as an "optional" rule for the truly hard core

Well.... Weird Magic is spirit magic, powered by the ephemeral weirdlings and "nature gods" and gifted to all the races. For normal Weirds they cap at 4MP instead of 6. Bloodweirds (not appearing in the Quickstart) go up to 8 but are harder to learn The amount of weird magic you can have is dependent on your CON, not your INT as the spiral tattoos that hold the weirds take up "room" on the body's general physical energy. However, there is a Weird known as Souldbound that allows you to link your CON and AUR (aura) so you have more "room". In the limited testing it has gotten, I think it works well. But we shall see when folks get hold of it and tear it up a bit. Magic Items Smithing is its own kind of magic that can incorporate the other three magics as well as crafting and alchemy. I did not want to just give out swords +1 and fetishes etc.. I wanted magical items to be special and worthy of going on adventures just to get the ingredients together. In general they come in two types: Triggered and Permanent. A triggered item has a spell on it and enough MP to cast it. The MP can be used for other things and vice versa, but it comes the power to use it. A hammer with the Woehammer III spiral on it wold have 3MP inside. The permanent version would have Woehammer III always on, never needing MP to cast it so it does not normally come with MP. Weird items go by Totems (triggerable) and Talismans (permanent) So far the two "spells" for smithing are The Song of Making and the Song of Unmaking. I think I will expand on that list, though how much I am not sure. I hope that gives a (good) taste of where I am going and thanks!

Rough Draft of Design Document - 100% Skills: 80% - Just made a change to make it more like OQ2 SRD and Legend. I actually feel pretty good about this and it reminds my why I liked those games and used the OGL for OQ2. Experience - 100% - REAL happy about this lol Resistance - 100% - REAL happy about this also Item Creation - 40% - This chapter will be huge but will not be in the Quickstart rules. In some ways items may become more important than spells Soul Magic - 100% - Just made more changes to this that pushes it further from the Divine Magic roots. And that is okay. being a "priest" should be a fun challenge for players. Sorcery - 60% Weird Magic - 80% Hit Points & Hit Locations - 100% Armor, Weapons, & Equipment - 75% Cults of Skaerune': 40% Salt Island - 20% SRD/Design Doc - 30% Skaerune' Setting 45% Quickstart Guide 80% First Short Adventure: Delivery to the Sea is 75% done. Bestiary 25% - Like my new format Getting a Domain and perm website and copyrights and trademarks.. 0.001% Bold Items Saw some Change Realized I had not truly updated everything.

So Encumbrance is one of those things that has vexed game designers and games for a while. I think I have finally found the solution I like the best. You will have a slots for equipment and money. The body, backpack, and extra slots based on SIZ. Exceeding this will cause issues in skill use and combat, likely a 5% penalty per overloaded slot. The Body Armor, Shield, Back, Left Hip, Right Hip, Extra Slot 1, Extra Slot 2 Coin Purse 1 and 2 = 40 coins each Pack 8 Slots Extras SIZ 12, SIZ 14, SIZ 16, SIZ 18, SIZ 21 - Useable if a character is that size

One thing to note, the Nature Gods or Weird Gods will use Weird magic in their cults, while the Old and Heathen Gods as well as the Angelic and Demonic beings' cults will use Soul Magic. I know this is all still gobble dee gook in some ways.

Soulbound (I - IV) CON governs the maximum amount of Weird magic a character can have. At least normally. However, the Nature Gods (cults that use Weird magic instead of Soul Magic) teach OR have available a weird called Soulbound. Soulbound allows for some or all of a character's Aura (AUR) to be used to augment the character's CON. Soulbound I = 25%, SB II = 50%, SB III = 75%, and SB IV = 100% of AUR, which is added to CON to allow for a greater amount of Weird magic points. So a character with a CON of 13 can have 13 points of weirds. If someone casts Souldbound I on the character, he or she then adds 25% of their AUR to the total. In this case AUR is 12, so 25% would be 3. Add this to the CON score and this character can now have a total of 16 points of weird magic.

Maps in their own book and NPCs in the main book.

Dodge Penalties for SIZ over 21

These are things I need to add in the full version. I will put my list here to remind myself. Item Creation / Smith Magic Ad Hoc and Improvised Weapons (stones, benches, purses, barrels etc..) Necromantic Sorcery Full List of Cults Bloodweirds (Bloodspirals)

Creating the tattoos with blood as a component )as opposed to natural or magical inks) creates more powerful and more dangerous weirds.

I have always been of the impression, which may or may not be the facts, that folks often see granularity, rules, and dice rolling on the opposite end of a spectrum with narrative. As one moves toward more narrative aspects, they lose that the detail and most of all the control over their character and the game in favor of some kind of social game play. Some of that too is (fear of) cult of personality, though how much I cannot say for sure. But the Forge is why I am here, what I learned there had a positive influence on me as a designer, but also made me feel comfortable with doing something a little more old school and simulationist and sprinkling in some narratvist ideas and ideals. To be honest, while I know it was relevant a decade ago and many games and designers moved on from that forum, I did not realize there were still hard feelings involved.

So in those moments I am not working on Skaerune', I am working on a little setting for Magic World. I really like the game for the reason that I feel it is easy to get people into and writing the setting has been pretty intuitive so far. The City That Thieves This city is a taker. Over the years it has taken in more and more people then used them as bricks to build its walls and towers. If you try to leave, the city finds a way to bring you back and humble you until you have learned your lesson. Outside of its walls the world is on fire. Dragons and the mysterious Ice Lord have destroyed all the kingdoms of the north, man and elf alike. To the south, the madness of the Desert of Sarkh has destroyed the Third Empire. Each day the conflagration consumes another village or town and what is left of the Empire cannot stop them. Thousands flee east across the Endless Sea to Orealis, but even they are best by terrors and civil war. Only Hunburg, the northern sentinel, remains calm and every day refugees flock here. Everyone knows our time is coming to an end but the people of Hunburg don't seem to think it will happen to them. We think our walls are too thick and our will to strong. And the city itself... just keeps on taking. Welcome to the Fated World Change is coming to the world. Devils roam the forests and the gods seem to have forsaken the world. In Hunburg, the most powerful city left on the continent of Orhadam, the power brokers continue to play their games and the city continues to grow more mysterious. The Condotierre, the mercenaries and adventurers of the great masses grow rich fighting duels and rooting out the evils from the shadows of the city. A few are even brave enough to leave the comfort of the city to test themselves in a world full of enemies. But always, always they come back to Hunburg,, The City That Thieves, for she is a taker and her jealousy knows no bounds.

Who are these people?! No I get it, some people hated what was going on at the Forge, even some people who were there every day. In Skaerune' I am using Scene & Conflict (Literally a sub header for one chapter) to cover both combat and social. I think Conflict is an appropriate word, not because a character is constantly at war both socially and physically with the world around them, but because each step along path offers challenges. Grabbing an ale might not be a Conflict, but trying to grab an ale for a lower price certainly represents a Conflict of interest between the PC and NPC. Resolving that conflict might require a roll, some role playing, or a combination of both. For me, the Scene rules come into play when the situation threatens to become too chaotic (for any number of IC or OOC reasons). I think Sequence is a great term, especially if you feel Conflict just has too much baggage to accurately illustrate what you are going for.

Yeah, I admit it was an extreme example. Some designs I am working on encourage going into rounds for social stuff if its getting too chaotic. But actual social combat would only work in a game where it was of prime importance. If everything is a roll we may as well be playing Advanced Squad Leader: Glorantha. And the bar is the best time to come to forums

That is a fair point, the RP should not be lost or mitigated because of rules. OTOH I also don't believe players should be punished because they personally have poor interactive skills. Some kind of balance seems to be just good game design in my head. Even if its just two paragraphs about the subject.

But they are same rules or they should be. You can parry a social attack, dodge it, or it can get through and wear you down. So you do not really need rules for speakin with the barmaid as long as the system supports it organically. Some people are just not good at Medieval improv and need the dice to help them along. I am not sure there is a right or better answer though.

Taking a quick break from the grind... Name: Marja Barnowl, Mother Barnowl STR: 10 DEX: 12 SIZ: 10 CON: 13 INT: 14 POW: 15 APP: 13 Descriptive Features: Marja Barnowl is a small woman, with a loud voice, long white hair, and missing the tip of her left pinky. In place of it she wears a brass thimble or occasionally a brass pick to play her mandolin. Under her normally voluminous clothing she is well toned, pale of skin, but her body has sagged slightly due to age. Occupation: Midwife Skills: Physik 87% ; Nature 65%; Insight 50%; Craft (Play Mandolin) 64% Background: Mother Barnowl is a town fixture, living in a three room house at the edge of town. She says it allows her to get a good view of the sun when it comes up, but many note it also has a great view of the road. Each morning Marja can be seen drinking her strong coffee and eating a buttered piece of bread or biscuit just outside of her own door, looking at the road. She has been in Tindale for two decades but has looked more or less the same all these years. She claims she left her "bully" of a husband and sought a place to settle down. Marja tends to the babies of the town and has kept all but two alive in her twenty years. She has been equally adept with the mothers, losing only a few to the rigors of child birth. She also gives relationship advice, handing it out equally to men and women alike. Hook: The local children whisper that Mother Barnowl often goes moonclad near her own pond, a clear and deep piece of water. It teams with fish but no one is allowed to fish in it. One person swears there is a "fish of gold" in the pond. Mother Barnowl goes away to another town for a few days to help a fellow midwife with a difficult birth. On the second day after she has left, three men come to town asking about her, making fun of her, and generally making a minor fuss.

I dare say it might even be more basic than that, for both DRa and DRb. The phenomena of book flipping slows a game down and can pull people out of immersion. It is a common issue with modern D&D unless you have an eidetic memory. So this may talking about having fewer charts, fewer reasons to go back to the rule book. This could increase the pace of play, which is an issue for some. It could also be speaking to a simplicity of design. That there are no hidden equations waiting for you or that you need to remember or even dig for. I do not know how feasible that is given the granularity of RQ, but it does not seem to be an impossible task. It is also pretty old school, which seems to be the direction they are headed.