Jord's goal...

[danny]

On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Jordan Mercer <jmercer@graceland.edu> wrote:
Mostly I want to remove the sense of invulnerability that players get while playing. I want everyone to fear combat so that it requires actual risk for reward without having to make the threats outlandish. I dont want characters to ever overlook the city guard or the evil minions. however i dont want them to be big pussies either, combat should be quick and deadly, but require thought and skill to win. i want it to not be so much like a sturn based strategy and more like a combat engine where a sword wound is deadly, and will always be deadly. basically I want a system that runs quickly and doesnt get in the way of the story, and makes combat and magic scary, and brings the epic back into reality.
long winded.
i want to make minor adjustments to the system that i already believe in to bring it back to reality.

[danny]

Yep- those were my goals for combat as well. I wanted a realistic feeling within fighting so that players always took it seriously. The true badasses would still have good reason to be confident, but still never feel like Superman.

Ultimately this led me to the complexity that I had, which either had a steep learning curve, or (my preference) led to using a computer (which is doable nowadays, even with Excel if nothing else).

So I'd suggest looking at all elements which make people less god-like: combat, casters, magic items, skills... Take a global look at all of these elements, because if you just make combat more realistic/human, then the other elements in the game will make combat the runt of the bunch. (Magic is the major god-maker in DnD.)


Danny

[JordanMercer]

I liked the idea of the better you hit the more damage you do, but i think that using as much of the system in place as possible is going to be the most helpful. its already a modular system, so I think that the changes wont throw off the whole issue. mostly, when we play "ultra-real" as we have come to call it, usually there is no magic at all. however a magic system that was more akin to reality would be cool. again, I would want something that is difficult and requires more than just pulling the trigger, more about energy and research than buying bullets.
but a magic revamp is kind of secondary to a more realistic setting.

[danny]

I'll put up some combat sys ideas in the combat section which take some of the principles I used in my system for you to play with.

My goal with magic was not to be "realistic" but to be more restrained. We wanted to avoid the deification that occurred with high level casters... That had many side-effects too-- Primarily that when magic took over the world, the feeling of awe and mystery was gone.
It also made the cmpgns simply hectic.... Back when Eric & I were young and playing the "Giladrian" campgn, magic was so rampant and earth-shattering that it was insane keeping track of all of the spins and loops that magic had on the world. Ultimately having an army meant nothing, because we could just decimate them with spells.

Anyway, that may be a worthwhile goal for you.

[danny]

Crap!! Eric's here!! SHHHHHHHHHH

[JordanMercer]

He won't post, no worries.

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