Search the Community

No statistic has been as ill defined from the very beginning of role playing as the Charisma stat. I think this is true for most games. In some ways I imagine it derived from "leadership" scores that many units or generals have in table top war games. I do not know this for sure of course, but I surmise this was the case. No one seemed to use it correctly and at least early on among the games I played it lacked real emphasis in design. When I began playing Runequest and found that the role playing stat had been replaced with an appearance stat and now I could role play however I wanted, I was quite pleased. It held a great deal of appeal to me. To say that many years later when I noted CHA creeping into d100 games, I was a bit baffled.Why was this happening? Why were designers making this choice for a stat no one cared about before anyway. Was it the sudden use in d20 games, which revived CHA as a meaningful stat? Despite my confusion, I was forced to reconsider some kind of stat that encompassed an element of personality and decided that personality was just what I was looking for. In Q21, PER / Personality is an important stat. It is a measure of force of personality and presence of the character. How the character chooses to use this depends on what skills that they choose.Those skills are listed under Communication skills. But what about appearance? On the one hand no one can help the face they are born with and we have to make the most of it. Often a strong personality overcomes societal preferences, but is there something useful in having an actual appearance stat? I do not want to put in a stat to just have one and I want to not be on the fence about it.Right now Q21 does not have any appearance stat and I am not inclined to add it in, even though I have a great deal of nostalgia for it.

The following are some basic concepts of world building for Runed Worlds A Tale of Four Worlds & Infinite Stars There are four locations where much of the culture and conflict exist that will inspire play in Runed Worlds. Dhalvos Prime - A dead Runed World which once belonged to a race known as the Second Givers. It is barren and almost lifeless, with little atmosphere. However, the ruins of the SG litter the world and many factions have permanent bases on or above Dhalvos Prime. A place where science, exploration, and old mysteries thrive. Lolshelaton - A green and young Runed World where a primitive people, Volmndoi, live in the deep ravines and lower forests. The upper forests and mountains are dominated by the bio-tech corporations who are taking as much from Lolshelaton as possible before someone stops them. Maker - Maker is not a Runed World, but a barren and rocky lightless planetoid. Half the planet is covered in ramshackle cities built up over the centuries. There are few laws on Maker and almost no authority to speak of. Anything goes here and people live on Maker because they want to live there. At least most of them do so. Junction Nine - One of several mysterious stations orbiting barren stars. Junction Nine was apparently built to facilitate travel from one part of the galaxy to the other, though now it functions as a way station for only parts of Liminal Space. But there is a vast galaxy and universe out there. Runed Worlds will not limit play to these four locations, they will be provided as mere examples for game masters to build on, There are thousands of stars within Liminal Space, more than enough to tell your story. Liminal Space A region of space encompassing 1000 LY in every direction (at least) that has a profound physical and psychological effect on sentient races and space itself. Liminal Space and the technology that manipulates it is responsible for (relatively) quick travel through space as well as a number of "experiences" both accidental and purposeful. Of course it has also been turned into a weapon by a number of factions. "Going Liminal" is a phrase used often to describe someone who is acting crazy, spacey, or abnormal in some way. Culture & Species Species and Culture are not entirely synonymous. A character’s species determines their physical and mental capacities. Culture is defined by where the character grew up and under what influences their lives have evolved. From a mechanics point of view, Culture will be a separate choice from species. Each will give the character skill specialties, but Culture will have more influence on development than species will.

So aside from seeing some work for Skae, Runed Worlds, and Q21 system in general, we are pleased to announce... Q2100 Adventures! These adventures will be generic fantasy set in no particular world or trope. Although they will use the Q21 d100 system, the adventures will be written to allow easy conversion to other d100 systems (or other fantasy systems) as players wish. Q2101 The Curse of Gharmanta Gharmanta is a prosperous trade town on the edge of a desert, the last stop before leaving the great southern kingdoms and heading into the northern forests. Kings once ruled mighty kingdoms from here, but those are days long past. Now the folk of Gharmanta live in comfort and enjoy the good will of their neighbors. At least until two seasons ago. Sick herds and tragic deaths now plague the town and nearby rulers demand Queen Arranna purge whatever sickness ails this place or their armies will do the purging instead. Do the answers to Gharmanta's woes lay in sabotage and politics or are there older and darker forces at work?

This month I am finishing up the Salt Mine Blues revision and the Q21 system revisions. Really that will be my month, except launching the website for the company. My own domain and everything! lol ~SMH

Experience So I have been giving some thought on this and decided I wanted to shift slightly away from some of the traditional EXP gain roll models that various d100 games have knocked about. I have no idea if others have done this or not. It is not a huge difference. This clicked in my head based on ideas from Clint Staples' blog. https://d-infinity.net/game-content/runequest-thursday-136-alternate-rules-experience-checks#comment-3301521036 This is a first pass really Q21 Experience Gains When a character successfully uses a skill during a game session, he or she notes it down. At the end of the session, for each such skill, the player makes a Intx(Y) roll. Succeeding means the character gains 1d6% OR 3% (the player chooses) Y = a multiplier based on the current level of the skill. Skill Level Roll 1 to 50 Intx5 51 to 75 Intx3 76 Intx2 Curious what folks think. This will be going into some playtest material I am working on.

So I will be talking a little bit about the second Q21 game I am working on, called Runed Worlds. I will have a small PDF that introdcuces the ideas of Runed Worlds up tomorrow. I will be giving it the same Free Intro and module treatment I gave Skaerune' with Salt Mine Blues. For now the best I can describe Runed Worlds is, a Heavy Metal / Lensman inspired dystopian Space Opera. With a ton of truly alien races to play.

So everyone loves criticals and fumbles, I can appreciate this. I wanted to make changes that fit my own philosophy not just make changes for the sake of change. So here is how it looks right now. Skill Use 01-10 is always a success. 01-05 is always a critical success. There is no "special" success. 91-100 is always a failure. 96 - 100 is always a fumble. Critical Success on a non Combat Skill 04-05 - Next Use of this skill has an Easy modifier 02 - 03 - Next use of this skill has a Simple modifier 01 - Next use is Simple and you gain 2% to the skill Fumble on a Non Combat Skill 96-97 Next use of this skill has a Difficult modifier 98-99 Next use of this skill has a Hard Modifier 00 - Next skill use is Hard and Everything You Know is a Lie! Lose 1d3% on this skill For Combat, there are charts to roll on... Critical Success (Attack) Roll d100 01 - 25: Armor is Halved 26 - 50 Armor is Ignored 51 - 75 Add 1d8 to Damage Roll, Armor is halved 76 - 98 Roll damage on second body part, Armor is halved 99 - 100 Armor Ignored, Nicked an artery - target begins to Bleed 1HP per round Fumble (Attack) 01 - 25 Next Attack is Difficult 26 - 50 Weapon Dropped 51 - 75 Target's Next Attack on you is Easy 76 - 98 Damage Self. Roll Hit location and weapon damage, armor is halved 99 - 100 Impaled on Enemy. Target rolls weapon damage and hit location, armor ignored. There is more, but this is a fine taste of it.

So I realize how much work goes into a game and I have to be patient. I want to be there RIGHT NOW lol. Progress is going well though and finding and participating here is helping me greatly just through osmosis. At least now everything seems to be falling into place.

So the quick start rules are not ever close to being ready for running and playtesting and handing out. However, my cover artist sent an initial sketch of the Rakshasa who will be part of the cover and so, somewhat bored I went ahead and played around some with it. What do you folks think?

Experience is pretty essential for life, right? We experience things and (hopefully) learn from our triumphs and mistakes. It works the same way in role playing games because you are a person (or robot) and people (and robots) grow through learning. Even if that learning takes place at the business end of a blaster. I mean, who doesn't watch Solo and Greedo and think "Yep, I am gonna shoot foist EVERY TIME!". I suspect that comes out of he grading system found in many war games. (Again, don't know that for sure.) I liked the experience system in d100 games, starting with Runequest when I played that. At the time I was playing though, experience was a big deal. As gaming has progressed, experience seems to be less and less relevant as campaigns become shorter and shorter or gaming becomes a series of one shots. This is not a bad thing, but can call into question time spent on designing the experience system of a game (or blogging about it... maybe). I still think an easy to follow but meaningful experience system is important, as is a system that allows for the creation of characters at a certain power level. So in essence you need 3 experience systems. Traditional medium to long term experience system that helps characters develop over time. A faster system that gives the feeling of change over a short number (2-4) of sessions A Jump Start system tied to character generation that lets you create an experienced character of a certain power level. Keeping number three in mind I am considering using a Life Path style character generation and having extended life events for higher power levels. Unlike a class based system you just can't pick a level and go.

This is just an introduction to the blog. I have been designing games since I was 10 when I decided D&D was good, but could be better. Once I was introduced to RuneQuest and BRP, I felt the system did a great job with what it was trying to do. It was only years later that I began thinking about what I would I change if given the chance. So here we are. I feel like this community will be invaluable for helping me achieve the kind of game I want to make. lL8R SMH