Dog Days of Summer (2023)

School's out for summer, as the saying goes!

Progress has been slow, since I've had my attention elsewhere as of late. As such, I'm going to use today's post to take stock of where we're at, and things I should focus on during the break.

One of the more minor priorities is ironing out the final form of the campaign generation / encounter building / skill challenge mechanics. The generalities are there, it's more a matter of streamlining and hammering out the details. I don't believe this'll be the top priority.

Second, is updating the final handful of classes: Cleric, Druid, Occultist, Spellbinder, and Warlord. For these classes, it's mostly a matter of updating the mechanics to the latest designs/layouts (and simplifying wherever possible.) However, the classes specifically in the Disciple category need to have their structure finalized. This means nailing down the subclasses, roles, category progression, and any category-specific features they're going to have; the skeletons of each class are already in place, its more a matter of formalizing them into the broader structures that have been established.

A couple of other minor tasks:

• ironing out the interception and tumbling mechanics / action econony / etc.
• writing additional feats (particularly combat-related feats)
• making a decision on advantage/disadvantage on base damage and initiative bonus, and mastery on the various types of damage rolls
• tweaking the reserves per day / adventuring day mechanics
• formalizing surprise and initiative mechanics

Anyways, whether the blog returns in late July or around the 2nd week of August, hopefully I will have some of this stuff cleared off of the to-do list. I really do want to focus on completing the classes, so that we can start playtesting with them and see what works and what doesn't.

Until then, enjoy your summer!

What comes after The Next Project?

I'd like to take a bit of a detour today, and discuss something I've been asked a few times in the past: 

"So what's your next game going to be?"

While I did work on a few homebrew TTRPG designs in the past, I've always sort of thought as 'The Next Project' as being my magnum opus within the genre; I've often answered the question with, "I'm not a game designer, I'm just a guy who designed a game."

Early on, what inspired me was the question, "what are the classes for the next Diablo game [after Diablo 2] going to be?" My penchant for playing niche builds in the game (such as archer Paladins, and staff-wielding Amazons) combined with the idea of remixing the different skill trees, ultimately to end up with 6 different classes.

Somewhere along the way, that morphed into the more generic, 1d10/1d6-based system that I generally referred to as "Unnamed RPG" -- the 6 classes I came up with were instead broken down into a combination of whether you were a spellcaster or a warrior, and whether you had light, medium, or heavy armor.

Anyways, getting back to the question: what would I like to do next?
Well, there's a couple ideas.

One of the games that I had the pleasure of playtesting a bit was sort of... a wargame miniatures-esque system with a fantasy theme to it, called 'Feint Wars.' The basic mechanic was that you had a deck of cards consisting of 3 suits, each numbered 1 through 6 (2 through 5? something like that...) Now, this deck was split between you and your opponent, so there was an element of card-counting involved. You could use a certain number of cards on your turn, either to move or attack; you could move a number of spaces equal to the card's value, or attack with that value vs. an opposed card from the defender. The twist was twofold: you would both select your cards and then reveal them at the same time, but also there was a "rock-paper-scissors" element, where each suit trumped one other suit, effectively granting the card a +3.

Now, the idea that this gave me was, "could you base a similar sort of game off of a deck of Italian cards?" Generally, these are pretty similar to a standard deck, with a few notable exceptions, the most pertinent in this instance being that the numbered cards only run 2 through 7. There are still 3 face cards in each suit (although the naming conventions are slightly different) as well as aces; the suits are also different, and there are no "black" or "red" suits. Translated, the four suits are swords, sticks (batons), cups, and coins. Anyways, it isn't really an idea I followed up beyond my brain making that initial connection (and perhaps the suits lending themselves more to an RPG setup.)

The other idea I had for a game is likewise somewhat nebulous; I always just think of it in one phrase:

Ability Scores, done right.

Now, what does that mean, exactly? Basically, in the vein of something like 13th Age, it'd use the conventional 6 ability scores (or something close) but do it in a more modern way. For example, one hack that I always thought would be handy in 4e (or a 3.x paragidm, without multiclassing) would be to have Knowledge skills from your class skill list use either your highest mental stat, or else get a flat bonus in place of an ability modifier if you weren't "trained" with the skill. 

I also like the ways that both 4e and 13th Age do defenses, namely by using the higher of two mods, or using the middle of three mods (respectively.) My basic thought was that each defense would have one or two default stats, but that the special perk of each class would be that they could substitute in their main stat for some (or all) of those defenses. (For example: using Charisma as effectively a sort of 'luck stat' when making Reflex saves, which would otherwise use Agility.)

Another idea in that vein came out of my experience with 4e; couldn't you just use your ability score for your defenses (rather than ability mod + class bonus + magic item bonus + half-level bonus + feat bonus, etc. etc.)? I think that'd be an interesting quality-of-life simplification... if you could make the math work, which is always the rub.

As you might guess from the attibutes used in TNP, I'd like to do something where Agility and Dexterity are split up, and maybe the functions of Constitution are governed by something separate from ability scores. I'd like it to include a Wisdom stat as well, if at all possible. Another thing I'd I like is the possibility of having a handful of basic classes, and mixing them together somehow to expand the roster (For example, Fighter crossed with Priest creates a Paladin character.)

In the broadest terms, I think if there were a new project on the horizon, I would want to revisit the 1d10/1d6 paradigm. The thing that I've realized in working on TNP is that there's a value proposition (and an ergonomic quality) in using percentile dice to model advantage/disadvantage (as TNP does with skills, as well as monster mechanics.) The d20 gaming zeitgeist seems to be shifting more and more towards the idea of bending the flat math into a bell curve, by modifying the roll with other dice rather than with flat modifiers -- something which has always been a cornerstone of TNP, but also pioneered by systems like 'Shadow of the Demon Lord' with its boons/banes mechanic.

In lieu of the "d20 + class die" mechanic of TNP, a more generic/universal system with something like this as its backbone would appeal to me greatly. In particular, I think it would work great for a system that is meant to be small in scope (say, 6 different playable classes, maximum) rather than the sort of "greatest hits" mentality that can be attributed to the size of the TNP roster.

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Anyway, those are my thoughts for the time being. There's batrely a week left in June, so expect the next post to be up on (or just before) Friday the 30th.

New Mechanics: Level Progression (2023)

As mentioned around the start of the year, the most recent complete(ish) version of the rules is the 2021 draft. This included a revamp of the leveling system that had been bolted on previously; basically, it had gotten too unwieldy and needed to be pared down.

Let's start with the leveling: why 6 levels (0-5)? The short answer is, I felt something a bit more compressed made sense for the general ethos of TNP, as it pertains to streamlining and simplicity. Ultimately, I kind of wanted there to be 5 levels, because that's a number that gets used a lot in the system:

• the 5 class dice
• the 5 class categories
• the 5 Skillsets
• the 5 Attributes
• the 5 Power Sources

I also wanted the progression to be an even number of levels, just for the purposes of symmetry and aesthetics; I ended up cheating a little bit by adding a "level 0" so that I could have it both ways. While there are 6 levels, you can only gain 5 levels, if you want to look at it that way. (It's also probably worth noting that in Warcraft 3, heroes got their ultimate abilities at level 6, so that may have subconsciously influenced my thinking at some point.)

With that being established, there are effectively 3 types of progression:

1. Core progression 
2. Knowledge progression
3. Class Category progression

Core progression is the "meat and potatoes" of progression, starting off with your trained skills at level 0, class specialization (such as a domain, or archetype) at level 1, with Attribute rank bonuses coming at 2nd & 4th levels, and feats being granted at 3rd & 5th levels. TNP doesn't really "do" attributes in the traditional sense, but I wanted to include something resembling that type of progression, nonetheless. Right now, most of the feats that I've written are various types of skill bonuses, but I also want to include some combat perks -- such as improvements to grappling, or ignoring disadvantage on ranged attack rolls when prone.

Knowledge progression is considered more "fluff" than "crunch" so it's siloed off from core progression, to keep the two from competing over the same level-up resources. You gain a power source at level 0, and can upgrade it or add another power source at level 3. At all other levels (1, 2, 4, and 5) you gain a knowledge rank in a skill of your choice; this can be chosen independent of your power sources and their affiliated knowledge skills, allowing players to upgrade their characters in ways that are thematically or narratively appropriate.

Since there are 5 class categories, there are also 5 different progressions for them. Each individual class within a category might not upgrade in exactly the same way (roles tend to be class-specific, as just one example) but the mechanism within a category will be essentially the same. Class category progression bestows benefits at odd-numbered levels (1, 3, and 5) regardless of category.

• Blade Master: 1 bonus knowledge rank, 1 bonus Attribute rank, 1 bonus Skillset rank (chosen in any order)
• Jack of All Trades: combat role, feat (for which you meet the requirements), or other feature from your class (such as Fighting Styles for the Fighter class)
• Skill Expert: bonus Skillset rank at each of the three levels; also gain a bonus power source at level 0
• Ideologue: bonus Knowledge rank at each of the three levels
• Disciple: [still TBD, although the intent is for these classes to have combat roles, so that will certainly be a part of it]

The progression for Blade Master was originally going to be used for Disciple, when that category included the Druid and the Paladin -- so those two categories are still a little bit in flux, but everything else is mostly nailed down. In the past, classes like Paladin, Barbarian, and Warlord have typically gotten a bonus to one of their attributes, so this is something that ended up being built into the ideas for class category progressions.

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Two more posts to go in June, before taking a break in July.
The initial plan for this year was to do one post in late July (meaning 2 posts in November and 1 in December.) If that changes, I'll be back with a post around the 2nd week of August.