DD12 Cataclyzm Playtest Diary II

I've been playtesting Cataclyzm to get a feel for how the game flows well, as its not a traditional roleplay and has moments where even I as GM get fazed and left wondering if I'm making a fun game or forcing an idea. So I decided to blog my thoughts..

DD12 Cataclyzm Playtest Diary #2

The Bleak Rocky Landscape of Cataclyzm

Ok, So this week was a bit of a bummer..

A) With a two something week hiatus from Christmas and New Years, we all sorta forgot where we left things.

B) We were down 50% of the group, Normally I would cancel if I know that 50% are not coming, its the threshold, too many decisions are left unanswered with half the group being mute torch bearers.

So, when half your group is going to miss out on XP, plot, mapping, adventure.. how can you continue? Side-Quests!

except.. and this is probably where Cataclyzm is lacking right now..

In a bleak, rocky, dark, nothing terrain, there are no side quests.. yet..

Normally I have a backstory for the world, whats going on in nearby villages, what things are problematic for the locals. I've had brave peasants ask the very high level heroes to dispatch goblin camps, for a few gold they managed to scrape together. Or on the other end, I've had lower level characters asked if they feel up to taking out the evil wizard that has set up a lair in the mountains, complete with crypts, graveyards and some giant undead dragon guarding the front door.

Its up to the players to gather the information and make an informed decision on if they want to take on a side quest.

But here I was, 3 players, ready to play, I have zero side quests. Nothing..

So, my fall-back.. character development.. While camping between travel, what do your characters talk about? Who ARE you? This was a little lacking, as 3 players down, meant we'd have to repeat all this again next week.

So what else could I focus the plot on? Starvation..

Cataclyzm is supposed to start getting your characters thinking about where they are, what they are doing.. walking around looking for food is the draw card to get players to move, look around, find stuff. sometimes horrid stuff..

They went back to the Turtle thing from the previous week, poked it with a stick, got some flesh from the carcas, but then promptly discarded it when they realised it'd likely be off.. They tried to clear some of it, so they could use the shell as a huge shield or something, but that acid blood kept them at bay (the idea, not any actual acid blood)

Eventually, they decided to carve their bone clubs into weapons.. Now, I was thinking, this is where it'll get interesting.. cept it didn't really..

The Skills system in DD12 is more static than full Dungeonworld, and as a result, crafting rules are less creative and more 'roll=>pass=>apply modifier', I'm thinking, at the very least, DD12 Cataclyzm would need the full crafting rules..

Thats an aspect of the differences that I've been working for..

Lets say your players LOVE combat, combat stats, working the numbers.. so they start with DD12, then add the DW-combat system into it, the rest of the rules on all other stats and skills are DD12, nice, simple, clean, easy.. but combat, uses all the bells and whistles..

Eventually when all 12 rule sets are structured, it'll all work nicely, but until its all built. its a mishmash of rules and broken mechanics.. work needs to be done, play-testing needs to be done.. and it all takes time.

The Encounter rolls were interesting.. first they found a fellow human, I rolled aggression and got way above 20, so this 'thing' was an insane leftover warrior.. he'd lost his tribe, gone nutz and was just eating anything and anyone he fought.. I adjusted his health to account for the battles he'd gone through, even still, he fought a good fight before going down. The group gained some battle scarred weapons and armour, that'll likely help them for a fight or two.


Next was a Wraith.. The point to rolling up things that are impossible to battle, is to show how the world works.. The Wraith had no life-force, its very existance was eating away at itself, exertion, of any kind, just drained itself away to nothing.. the players managed to startle the thing into moving, which caused 8 of its last 10 HP to blurr away into nothing.. the players figured it out, but decided to try a different approach, and they used their crystals. One player now has a red "wraith infused" crystal.

While I was GMing, I was asking myself.. what would other GMs do? How can I make sure Cataclyzm is playable by other GMs with less experience, less creativity?

I'm thinking of making several random charts, with random effects, but after playing a few games with decks of cards, I feel the aesthetic of drawing a card from a deck, so players get a sense of what it is they are facing too, is very pleasing and adds to the game play.

Roll on a chart for a base monster.. ok you got a Wraith, its 7th level, the group is 3rd, so draw two flaw cards, the 1st?: Slow.. ok cool.. and 2nd? dying.. niiice, ok, so my players now have a chance to defeat it, and I don't have to re-roll. 

Careful what you say you may ruins someones play.

This blog goes into a few different topics, I'll try to break it up with headings.Mostly its about GMing

Pro GMs Chatting with Casual GMs

Sometimes when your talking to someone that seems to understand what your saying, is on the same page as you, you might get a bit deeper into the topic, but if the other person wasn't really there on the same page, and they have a different world view on the topic, your deeper thoughts can trigger negative thoughts. 

I belong to several RPG chat groups. Its quite common to engage in discussions about new rules. Its as common to me that people pull the strings of rules to see if they are knotted well, or robust enough, so that players won't pull said strings in the middle of the game.

When describing how the players can or might pull at the strings, examples are given.

So, when I saw a fellow community member mention a new rule, I did what I thought was normal and pulled some of the strings of the rule, presenting ways in which a player or a situation could ruin the rule.

Instead I offended the guy, he got extremely defensive of his rule, politely attacked me and when I apologised, politely slapped my face. I was of course miffed, I had too late realised it was a public post, not a group post, so I was likely jumping into his realm and just rambling on about his rule having holes.

Facepalm: Meaning, Oh, Oh sorry, I made a mistake, my bad.. lets look at this differently.

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Player Agency: This was my point in the pulling of strings. And brevity was my downfall.

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I have often forgotten that I'm not thinking about things like others do, and I often don't want to write a paragraph of explanation to get people onto the same page as myself. So I'll often not bother, but when I think that I'm talking to a fellow games master / games designer, I just jump straight in, and I'll talk at the person, like they know exactly what I'm talking about. which often gets mis-interpreted.

Gamesmastering is not simple or easy

Case in point: Story Telling is an Art, not just in that its artistic, but that it requires an artist, to get it right. One key factor that many casual GMs will quote "its just a game". The problem is that regardless if they think its a game or not, Its also an exercise of the mind, it teaches us things, about ourselves, our players, and the world in which we live.

If you present your players with a cliff, and they talk about how to scale UP this cliff, they spend minutes talking about pitons, rope, how far up is it, your players are engaing in player agency, you've given them a chance to shine, for them to solve the problem in a creative way. Do they have pitons, do they have rope, does anyone have the climb skill, do we have spells that can break the laws of gravity, can we go around? Is there anyone nearby that can supply us with tools for scaling? should we actual scale it? is it a good idea. The discussion of how to solve the problem is players engaging in the game. Its part and parcel of roleplay.

You know what it also does? it teaches players, regardless if you want it to or not, it teaches them to be creative in their ability to solve problems. It makes them better people.

Its one of the reasons why Roleplay IS such a great medium. The Agency of creative thought.

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Two ways you can destroy this part of a roleplay experience, either directly or indirectly, is to take away this agency, the players choice in what solution should they use. Because players will often, if not always, take the path of least resistance.

The First, is why the above disagreement happened: Give players an out. Give them the choice to teleport the simple material objects, pitons and rope, to their characters, without any consequence.

If players can, teleport or retroactively buy components, tools, arrows and the like directly to their character, they will always do so. No need to ask around town before leaving, 'what kind of terrain will we cross' and pre-buy the goods needed, No need to worry about packmules for the goods, nor the path chosen, to get to the quest, not even a care, if the character steps on a weight based trap.. his back pack is now empty, but later, it'll be retroactively full, breaking the immersion of the game.. 

The Second, slightly less common, is when the solution is so impossible to solve, that the players, having 0 agency in the situation can only give up, a frustrated GM can't understand why the players can't see the forest for the trees, and the frustrated players can't understand how the GM can think they CAN see the forest, since they're in a desert.

As an example, back at our cliff, no material objects and the instructions clearly say they need to walk this direction, but the players are being chased by a dragon. They cannot think how to solve it, the GM keeps saying he's given them all the hints, and yet the dragon arrives, the GM has to fudge the encounter (the players gain too much XP and become OP for the rest of the campaign) change the plot (the big nasty dragon is actually goblins in disguise, but if that's so.. then how did the goblins manage to enact all those creature powers & fly & breathe fire?) or stick to the reality and kill off the party with a single flame of the dragon.

Face Palm.

The GM points out after killing off the players, that they needed to 'walk' up the cliff, its enchanted. The quote "walk this direction" was so obvious.. was it not? 

Well, unless the players had ANY experience that walking up the side of the cliff was even possible.. this is 0 agency.. they can't make the choice, because they can't foresee it being possible.

The Problem is that Casual GMs might see that arriving at the cliff without pre-purchasing pitons and rope, as 0 player agency, so giving them a retroactive purchase seems like a good idea.

But its not. because you made the choice for the players: You will need equipment, I want you to use equipment, but I know you won't buy the right stuff, so I'll let you buy it retroactively. you took away their agency.

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Player Agency, Don't take away choices

I had a player, who wove elven nets into his clothes, and carried a ball of string. He'd tie objects to his body as A) access easy items and B) crude armour. When in town, he'd buy up sets of things that he felt were needed by the group. often he was asked "why are you buying a fishing hook? we're going to a dungeon!

I had another player who would guide the group on regular outings to find rare and curious material components for spell casting. Each and every time, he'd end up with something curious, and as often as not, the group would encounter some creature, guarding its lair or out hunting or protecting its territory. Not often so horrible, but always a welcome side quest, with XP.

Another player, loved to try out different woods to craft arrows, sharpening his skills as a fletcher. At one point he managed to craft a masterwork redwood sapling arrow with a crystal holder head, allowing a crystal of ice to create his +6 distance +3 armour penetration +6 ice damage arrow , which helped take down a malicious fire demon. 

If I played any of those games where arrows, spell components or mundane equipment and or backpack arrangement was cast to the side by the game or the GM, those players would not still be talking about those events, to this day.

Player Agency allows players to choose to create interesting games, They can do things, without needing to change the plot or rules or interfere with the world building.

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Yet.. for all that's said and done.. players need choice.. so if your players are new.. get them used to the nitty gritty to start with, get them experienced with how it 'can' be done.. then after 5-10 sessions, let them relax on those rules, and present them with faster approaches to do the same thing.

in Dungeonworld, we have a thing called "down time" between adventures, Its done instantaneously for us, but takes weeks in game: Often while the warrior is healing, the mage gathers components, the rogue brews up potions, the archer crafts arrows and the merchant straps all these crazy things to his next set of armour.. Facepalm. 

Board games are Card games are c-Roleplaying games?

I follow kickstarter board games quite heavily, actually, all kinds of games, if its being Kickstarted, I want to read about it, this gradually started about 2012 or so, and I was a kind of local guru on 'what makes a good kickstarter' enough to run some workshops for some people in different industries that had heard about me..

After I returned to Oz, It slowed a little, yet I kept my finger on the pulse.. just ignored that pulse a little too often and missed 2-3 great games (and likely ended up paying more than I should have to get them later on)

The most interesting thing I've noticed recently is, the blurring of the lines between the different genres of

Board game, Card games and c-Roleplay Games

Lets double check we're on the same page with these things.

Board games of 2011!

Board games, typically have a board, pieces, sometimes of board, sometimes of wood or plastic. They have rules for moving/placing/removing the pieces, which results in score or win/lose conditions.

Card games, produced by fantasy flight!

Card games, typically have cards (made of thin boards ;) ) which are played according to rules about placing, moving or removing, which results in scoring or win/lose conditions.

If you think Diablo is an RPG, stop reading and go away

c-(components of or computer variety) roleplay games, have rules, which are played according to rules, about placing, moving or removing (from your character sheet) which represents an avatar. c-Roleplaying games result in a win/lose condition (and sometimes even score)

Yes, I know.. Roleplaying games, are different, that is, REAL roleplay games, are a set of rules or guidelines in order to tell a fun, yet believable story, some of that fun is understanding the restrictions of the character you are playing, which is represented by a set of rules, but those rules are to help people to feel fairness and order, not to represent any value or score or win conditions.. which seems to be lost on anyone who grew up with the c-variety of roleplay games as staple.. but thats not the topic of this blog.. I just wanted to clarify for you, so the comments section won't have anyone ... 

well forget it.. people comment, its the internet, so I'll just leave that.. 

So, to re-clarify, Computer/Component roleplay games are about levels, bonuses, equipment and numbers, of monsters killed. be it in a computer, or a psudeo-RPG-in-a-book variety.

These are board game cards, almost as complex as D&D

Back to my point

I've recently seen some awesome looking board games, that have charactersheets.. not Dungeon crawls, I like dungeon crawls, they break down the idea of the game and simplify it to be played in 45 minutes. my first real board game, was Heroquest. ahh Heroquest.

Heroquest is the best game ever made.

No, I'm talking about these new games, where the in-game charactersheet is more complex than Dragon warriors.. the simplest roleplay game I know of. 

Maybe, just maybe I've played for DW than any other system (except my own, based on DW)

Take this concept.. Monster are attacking a castle, the players are playing heroes, who are slinging spells, making actions, to hold back these monsters. At the same time they're placing workers to shore up the battlements, set up traps or defences to push back the invaiders, or gathering resources to prepare. Sounds ok as a game, yet the 'heroes' are not just Health tokens, Magic tokens, some weapon cards and skill/spell cards, no, they have progression, they level up, they gain backstory, they gain so much more.. More than a fully realised DW character.. If I wanted a roleplay character on a board game.. why wouldn't I simply get my DM to create the plot to 'play' that game? shouldn't be THAT hard right? or is $90 worth learning a new RP system, just for the stand alone, repeatable quest?

I think it might be just me, I don't like to watch a movie twice, or a tv-series.. if I wasn't concentrating the first time, it wasn't good enough for me to watch again.. the same with roleplay.. If I've entered the dungeon, defeated the monsters and died.. well so be it.. that character is dead.. I don't want to come back with a new guy, because 'I' the player have already experienced the first 6 rooms of this dungeon...

Except of course for Legacy Games, now that's different.

So replaying a board game with a different, roleplayable, character, just seems... off..

There was that dice rolling game, where you matched, Yatzee style, a set of rules to form.... a Character. A character, as GM I would NEVER allow in any of my games.. so min-maxed, so ultimately broken. How a child would survive the rigors of medieval times with a charisma of less than 7, I'll never know...

Then there are board games, Dungeon Crawl board games, with deck building mechanics.. advance in the dungeon by fighting monster cards, or drawing equipment cards or helper cards, try not to wake the dragon, but try to grab all the lot before the other players.. Its an awesome game, it mashes all the parts together in a worthy style, and is enjoyable.. once or twice.. luckily, it has no character sheet, maybe that's why it works.

I think the broken part is, the use of RP components, rather than real RP mechanics. In the world of gamification, there were components such as points, badges and leaderboards, all extrinsic motivators. All shiny, all broken. Why? because they only bring IN the user, they don't KEEP the user. RP components, Weapons, Armour, Skills and Levels, bring in players, but they stay because they get to build stories.

Look at Minecraft, No points, No badges, no Leaderboards, just self created goals, exploration and learning. people 'advanced' by discovering upgrades, not because the game told them to, but because it just felt like the next progression.

I'm slowly building a graph of games.. Why? because last time I did, I predicted Minecraft.. 1st person games, flooded market looking for something new / different 1st person games.. crafting games, a new emergent genre of game, makes the market interested, open world games, a solid genre that people trust, and look out for.. not specifically fantasy, nor science fiction.. could be both or neither.. gap in the market.. first half decent game to hit that gap wins.. Minecraft!

So the graph of card/board games.. the rise of deck building and worker placement games two emergent genres, looking for a solid genre that people trust, Euro games? and a flooded market? Board? Card? Roleplay? that's the final unknown.. I know where I'm putting my money... 

Craft Based Roleplay - the Missing Element

     While some might think its a bad idea to reveal your ideas, lest someone steal them for themselves, I don't think that either my idea is new, nor unique, just that I'll be adding it in a way that hasn't really been done in roleplay games. Crafting for adventurers...

Crafting for your Roleplay Group

     One thing that irked me in many systems for years was the inability to really make a half decent magical weapon. At least with a semi-realistic sense of the idea.

     My first encounter with the crafting rules was from Dragon Warriors, Book 2: Simplistic at best, once a Mystic reaches 4th rank, they can begin to craft +1 items, 6th for +2 and 9th for +3. The mystic must go off to a place to remain in solitude, and fast in order to 'attune' themselves to the mystical powers and then begin the 'creation' of an item. There is no talk of 'costs' other than time, 25 days to make a +1 arrow, 100 days for +1 weapon or armour, up to 1500 days for a +3 weapon..

     Yes its simplistic and flawed, A party could leave their 9th ranked Mystic off in some wilderness 'creating' the Warrior a +3 set of Studded Leather armour, and the group returns 1500 days later, now all 15th ranked characters, having acquired several other +2 and +3 sets of armour that are as good if not better from quests and such.. sorta defeated the purpose of creating magical items in the first place.

     Sure a GM could attempt to balance the system, but what ever you do, you'd probably be spending hundreds of hours coming up with some kind of specialized algorithm, that'd break either game balance or usability.. 25 days for a +1 arrow? just to be shot and lost in the very next combat? It only gives +1 to attack, ABR and Damage, its not all that good.

     Dungeons and Dragons does it just as bad, there are countless blogs talking about it just seems to be a kind of 'cash sink' for the GM to ensure the players have a reason to go out looking for more quests, rather than retiring.. even though 12+ level characters are pretty much expected to retire (according to the older forms of the rules, it can be argued) and are only brought out for epic world ending events.

    Rolemaster, Tunnels and Trolls, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, they have their own rules & houserules, blogs about it, but at the end of the day its pretty much the same.. Heroes acquire treasure, heroes get rich, heroes have little need to quest for the mundane magical items such as +1 items, but they still have a basci need for them, heroes sink cash into NPCs that make the items, or they sink less cash but more time OR experience points (another sink system to keep mages from getting TOO powerful) into making magical items with broader choices.

     Seems like not many people really got into the whole crafting side of things... 

Could be just your experience

Yes, I understand, I haven't played every single game with every single GM, and there are likely some half-decent games that are all about creating interesting items. Yet if you read up on this, by the very creators of D&D it seems that I'm on par:

     "The statement "I want to make a magic item" has the power to freeze a DM's blood. Players, too, can find the item creation process intimidating. Sometimes these fears are justified, especially when someone invents an entirely new item and then wants to sit down and make it - Skip Williams"

    I have crafted some adventures where players are trying to acquire the material components of weird and wonderous items, while I agree that they should have some kind of 'cost' to acquire, I am more of the opinion that it should be a cost of risk vs reward rather than a physical cost.

     I would rather stick to the idea that making a sword, be it magical, mystical or mundane, should approximately be of the same time of a real sword, 2-3 days for the weapon & 2+ weeks for the flair, but its more about "getting it right" because maybe forging a sword and getting it wrong just means melting down the blade and starting again, but if your using elementium steel, then it likely involves a few enchanted tools, some runes of protection against it (so it doesn't freeze or burn you while forging) and you'd only want to deal with it once, rather than risking deadly burns or life altering frostbite twice.

     So instead the "cost" to acquire goods, is for the group to acquire the magical forge, the mystical hammer, the tongs of fire, the cooling Pools of the frostbanes and several kilos of Elementium, Elysiuum Wood, Gems of Brightfire and Rubies of Blood. Once acquired, the Blacksmith/Mage/Mystic of the group gets to work, while the heroes rest their wounds and 3-6 weeks later, the Smith presents the Leader/Warrior of the group with "FleshForger the Magnificent" with all the bonuses (and possible flaws) of the new weapon.

Yeah, we all do that.. so whats your point?    

     Recently, (well, ok, 3 years ago now) We were tasked at Uni to make a game, and my group agreed to try making a "potion making game", We only had 13 days in total to make it (well its over 13 weeks, we had 1 day a week assigned to the task, because of other subjects, exams, studies etc) so in the end we made a game where you chose 3 ingredients and dependent on how you mixed it, it would come up with 1 of 9 possible potions/poisons.

     Now, the key underlying aspect of the game, was to experiment


---------------------------------- APOLOGIES TO READERS------------------------
Due to Google downgrading their system, this post was lost, I managed to find this much via some fancy caching, but from this point forward, I am mostly trying to remember what I wrote, appologies if it seems out of sync. Originally Published 08/04/2017
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The Game

The Experimentation of how each 'part' worked, was the process of the game. In the 'morning' You acquired the 3 ingredients from the forest, randomly, mostly it gave you a 1:5 chance, twice, either gaining the whole plant, the roots, the leaves or the flower, or nothing( 2 chances). You'd return to your workshop by the end of the day, if you had purchased food from town you ate it, else you could eat the leaves or boil the roots as a substitute, no ill effects, just the loss of your days work looking for it.
Lastly, you could try to 'experiment' on your potions. Each of the three ingredients could be fried, boiled or crushed (for oils), no other information was given.
Oh and also you could go to town, in town you could buy food for 1 copper coin each meal, and meals could last 4 days (so you could buy 4 max) but while in town, you heard rumours.. someone was sick, someone had a toothache, someone wanted to poison her evil husband.
The only thing we had in the game was that all three paid money (3 copper), the 'bad' job would pay even for failed poisons, but a copper if you failed and 3 if you succeeded.
So each night, you'd make up some potions/poisons, and when you had a few, you could go to town, and try them out. The 'experiment' was on the evil husband, if he died, you knew it was a legit poison, if he didn't it sometimes made him happy, or angry or no effect.
This was the litmus test. Angry.. probably ill effects, happy, likely good effects, dead, most definitely poison.
Now at the heart of this, was percentile effects, Boil the root and you got soup, you knew this from your own experience, eat the leaves, its not killing you either, So boil the leaves? fry the leaves? crush the leaves? Each has an effect: From memory, Boiling, drew out the potent qualities, but not the oil effects, Frying would destroy the potent qualities, but keep the oil effects, and crushing, gave you a 50/50 effect of both, while eating it raw, would give you half of the potent effect, but all of the oil, So it became a maths puzzle..
Roots had 25% poisonous Oil, but 100% Nutitional Potent,
Leaves had 0% poisonous Oil and 25% healing Potent.
The Flower had 75% numbing Oil, and 10% Poison.

If you boiled the Roots and Leaves and fried the Flower, and threw away the Roots and boiled it again, you'd get a healing potion,
If you crushed the flower, added some raw, boiled the leaves and then threw out the leaves, you got a tooth numbing agent, so they could pull the tooth
and if you Boiled the flower several times, and fried the roots several times, then crushed the Boiled flowers into the roots, you got a deadly poison.   
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The Key to it was trying out different combinations, on yourself, and the evil husband to figure out what did what, and how it came together.

In Roleplay

Firstly, to get this to work in roleplay, you need to have the ability of your group to get stuff made. Like stated before, getting the 'ingredients' is part one of the game, Having your players procure a Firebird feather, a Core of Sphagnum and a Dedicated Crystal, is the adventure that they get to go on.

But having the Unique Powerful item, is only interesting if it is Unique AND Powerful.

To Create this, you have to have more control over the flow of goods and services.

If your players like the idea of crafting their own gear, upgrading it, improving it, then make sure your setting works, Making standard items less common, with technological advances, just recently discovered.

Cavemen/Minecraft: The Most interesting 'inventions' game would be starting from scratch, players probably already know about sharpening stones & attaching them to sticks with vines, but how about baking clay to make moulds to heating fire hot enough to melt ores to even make metals.. Playing the game in a minecraft like environment might even be your players thing.

Shift of Ages: As the Bronze Age was in decline and the Iron Age beginning, we see a whole area of roleplay barely played. Have your entire group in the fall of rome, as the Gauls have just discovered Iron and Steel swords are a brand new thing. The Aquisition of Iron Ore becomes an adventure of its own. Or if your more inclined, Steampunk, as all manner of steam powered things get invented, and usually ones that would never work, steam powered mobile phone anyone?

Post apoc: My favourite (and one I'm building a new campaign for) When everything has gone to hell, and your players can't even get a decent weapon, unless the bring back some scrap metal from outside the safe zone.. This one ties in nicely with fantasy: The players have steel sword, but how to get EarthElementium? or Plogistonium. Bring back a chunk of Ever-cold Metal and have your blacksmith forge up one of those as a Cleaver! or Chukrum!

So, now that you've got the setting, Have an NPC in town, controlled by your rules lawyer/ numbers cruncher, 'experiment' with the numbers, What does Plgistonium do? well its fire based Elementium, All Elementiums are harder than normal steel by 2 magnitudes, Plus they do Elemental based damage, they should cut through armour, like a knife through butter. Cool that's your end point, but now, you have to decide how long are they prepared to wait?

For simplicity, since we have 4 values to go with, 2x harder, knife through butter & fire damage, then we need our blacksmith to experiment with at least 4 variables, so we'll need to get him at least 4 sets of the Ore. Then you make skill checks for the Blacksmith, if he passes, he's made progress on 1 of those 4 areas, Or maybe you can't wait that long.. how about mixing it with normal steel, and halving the final properties.. halving the experimentation time.

See this is where I got bogged down in other systems, Because weapons don't typically have hardness values or sharpness values, or strength abilities, and weapons don't cut through armour, the player dodges & the armour deflects & the person cops some of the damage, but not as real damage, but as exhaustion & its all rolled into one roll or one saving throw.. it takes away the players, and the GMs ability to make cool stuff, unless you know the whole formula for THAC0, or such.

This is why I made my system, Because Elementium can easily have +2 damage, without needing to increase the Initiative costs, it can have a 'ignores 2 points of enemies metal armour' for the ABR and it can have 'flaming weapon if exposed to air' and 'is 80.c', so players know the blade is hot, it burns, flamable objects will ignite, water will slowly boil (or at least start to get hot) and each of these areas can be 'learnt' by the blacksmith as skills:
Active Skill: Manufacture - Elementium - Fire - +1 Damage, no Inititaive cost. 
Once learnt, then he can start to take on the next skill.

This all works for the HUB system of my game, where players have an NPC friend, back in town, that they get to level up and choose his skills between adventures, so that you have a plausible way for players to be getting much better weapons, without needing handwavium or bullsh*t Ecomonic systems. 

     

The Lit Streets Issue

I might come back and edit this, but for now:

Why would Fantasy Medieval Streets be unlit?

Or Trapped Fairies? - Art by Aimee Stewart

In a fantasy city, that includes some kind of magic using group of skilled or talented people, there would exist an early understanding of creating fire, through magic. Most, if not all decent systems of magic have a ways and means of casting a spell, so that it can become permanent.

So, given these two premises, there is no reason to not have street lamps, with permanent cast flames
or light sources. With a metal cage around it, to protect, both the flame and the user, maybe the inclusion of glass, some little engineering to provide reflection, flow of air (if need be) The idea is pretty much a stable concept, if not in every city, at least the higher ranking streets of the capital (or the main castle).

This is the concept that a lot of Games designers forget to think about when inventing spells, powers, magical artefacts and the like. The effect it has on society.

These little things are what makes a world real, alive, rich and interesting.

So you've probably gotten here from a link to this, where I brief on the subject or go further into how, this is not supposed to spoil the game, not supposed to have any negative effect, far from it, its the requirement of its inclusion. Without considering Lit Street Issues, you're just building a dull boring, unplanned, unthought-out generic world.

Spells, Spellcrafting and Components

This is more of an overview as Andreas raised some thoughts on the subject and I wanted to expand on my ideas, without cluttering his blog discussion.

For World-Builders

First, sorry for posting this in World-builders, not exactly the right group for this, but then I thought, ok, If we preface some points, its still pertinent. So:

Where I say 'you' the player, switch to 'mages in this world', if I'm talking about specific gaming stats, then think of instead as your notes for your characters in your world, I think its important to understand that in your world, that you created, its just as important that you follow your own rules, your canon, your defined reality, because if you break it, your readers (and for gaming, players) are going to break their sense of disbelief, and ruin the experience.

Introduction

My System is fairly robust, As you might know from reading the blog so far, I have included almost every single system that existed in the 90's and amalgamated, I've added all possible styles & types from books that I've read over the last 30 years, Every player who asks: Do you know X-system, or such and such style from this Author, and I say, ok.. describe it.. and the answer is always. Yes that very possible and doable.. So I think its rather robust because no-one has been able to break it yet.

Possibly after writing this, and you read it, you may find a way to break it, upon which the answer would most likely be: I must not have made it clear in my post.. I'll try and clear that up for you.

Spell Casting

When you cast a spell, Depending on how you learnt it, you wave your arms, and/or use ingrediants and/or speak special words and/or commune with nature, demons, elements or 

such and invoke the powers to make the magic happen. 

In Game terms, I use Magic Points.. but I also have sub points called Exhaustion, Persistence, Torpor, Regeneration Rate and Burnout. All Spells have a value assigned to them, typically a Magic Point cost, but any spell can include E, P, T or even Reg as cost too. On top of that, or instead of it, Points can be reduced in their costs, based on external factors, such as gestures, words, components, lost knowledges or gifted aspects from nature, demons, elements or other.. (more on these points later)

Confused? Lets Look at some examples:

Dweguri, Dark Elf Mage, was taught to cast Cave Lights using glow mushrooms, but, if need be, he can summon the inner strength to cast the spell from his magic alone.
Cave Lights, Lvl 1: Magic Points: 3, Component: Glow Mushrooms: Mp reduction 3mp, increases the glow of all cave mould and surfaces by 2 light levels.

NiWalke, Fire Mage, uses fireball as his go-to spell.. he learnt it in the college of fire, and understands its intricate workings, to the point where he can cast small, medium or large fireballs, and throw them great distances on occasion. NiWalke finds himself drained of much of his magic, but facing off against an Ogre, he spots some sulphur on the ground, remembering back to his college years, he manages to scrape together two handfuls of the powder, just in time to throw a great flame into the beast, enough to aid his companions to escape

Fireball (College of Fire, lvl 4: 10 Magic Points Base + 1 Exhaustion: Component: Sulphur -4mp per handful, Coaldust - 3mp per handful) NiWalke, studied Fireball x3 times, reducing base MP to 8 and -2 exhaustion & -2 Torpor) 

While in both cases, I'm using material components, dependant on the school, the culture, the style of your game, any one of these could be replaced with other 'cost reducers'

Spell Crafting

In All Spells, There are basic structures of logic, Whats the basis of the spell, what does it do, outside the normal physical world, then all the nitty gritty: how far will the spell go, whats it do, who/what does it do it to, how fast is it, how hard is it to dodge/resist/unweave.

Then look at Who is crafting this spell. If its a college of magic who have the resources to study this spell and its types, groups, styles, schools, effects, over and over to improve it, get the components right, or more effective, vs if its a Hermit in the woods, who devoted their life to one single spell in one direction.

This usually results in a specific spell value.

Except from my Excel Character Sheet

The Magic Points are related to how much of the physics of the world are being bent to make it happen. Exhaustion is how much power drain the caster is going to feel, (persistance is how much Exhaustion this particular player/character has in store, before it begins to affect him), Torpor is his limit to any given spells power.. a maximum level if you will, and Regeneration, relates to how many magic points he'll gain back after a full nights rest.

Components in Play

So, while you can and probably should use components in some form, it can be time consuming, both for the character, in terms of actions and initiative to get out the components, or prepare them or make them happen, and in battle, you only ever care about MP & time.. Most spells are 'built' with the concept of casting in 1 combat round.. well.. Battle magic is, 

Spells which are far less likely to be used in the heat of battle, will be cast over minutes or even hours.. the better spells, costing hundreds or even thousands of magic points to cast correctly.. impossible in a single round... But.. in a ritualistic manner, reducing the cost to cast (each Combat round is considered a 'component' to reduce MP costs), using candles, materials, and/or including other magi or natively magical creatures, such as fey, demon, elementals or other.. can reduce this 'cost' to a realistic level.. explaining 90% of fantasy authors usage.

I won't go into it deeply, but, using someone elses magic, freely or against their will, your or their blood, or life essence as a component to spell casting, and sacrifice, either willing or otherwise are other aspects of 'components'

So, At the end of the day.. A player decides during character creation, did he get his/her magic from a school, some cult or group, a hermit or is self taught.. (from left to right, with increasing difficulty to create your character, but more freedom of choice) which obviously affects which spells they start with, how they have access to new spells as play progresses but most importantly.. were they taught to cast spells with components.. or just plain magic.