RPG Forum Game Suggestion / Compilation Thread

Unnamed RPG Idea Thread

I'm working on an RPG game to play on eagletime sometime in the (probably far) future.

The idea of the game is to essentially create a forum RPG that has major distinctions between playstyles that don't depend on maxing out your numbers as much as they depend on an application of skills based on creative combinations of classes, races, and weapons. The end goal is a game where any combination of those three should be viable, if not as equal as possible (unlikely, but still), while still vastly different in the way they play out in-game. A lot of the ideas for this game come from my abandoned "Experimental RPG" i never started way back forever ago.

So far, this post is mostly a placeholder, but I'm going to be slowly filling in information as things start getting more solidly fleshed out.

The purpose of this thread is to give everyone on eagletime a place to add in their voice and give suggestions to help shape this idea into something actually playable (because God knows I'd never be able to do something like that alone), so feel free to chime in and add your opinion to any aspect of the game.

It's currently just a bunch of categories with no explanation, but the explanations will come soonish (hopefully)

Information about the world / setting:

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Coming eventually

Classes:

Destineer

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Seers from the Augury City of _____________ oftentimes visit the outlying towns and cities in search of children gifted with the ability of second sight. Taking these children under their care, they bring them back to _____________ to hone their senses and teach them the ways of auguring. For years, these children, new apprentices in the art of prophecy, practice their ability to peer beyond the fabric of the reality into what the Seers call the Veil, a strange, ever-shifting landscape of realities yet to be.

By studying the Veil, Seers and their apprentices are capable of mapping out the course of events years in advance, though they take great care to handle this information as carefully as possible. The charts and formulae of Seers are kept hidden away from not only public eyes, but also the eyes of their peers. Every Seer reports to another of a higher rank, keeping all of their findings secret from everyone else. The temptation to change the course of fate runs strong in many Seers, and ________________ has taken measures to ensure the practice of changing the future is made as difficult as possible. Using foreknowledge to change outcomes is outright forbidden to all Seers.

Despite all the rites and restrictions, some Seers find reasons to defy their order, and there are plenty of children who were never taken by the Seers to _____________. Given the choice between upholding the integrity of the Veil and saving something dear to them, many of these undisciplined or untrained prophesiers break the great taboo of the Seers and take destiny into their own hands. Such individuals undergo a transformation and are reborn as something the general populace has taken to calling a “Destineer”.

Sunbearer

Blood Mage

Devourer

Glyphographer


Arcane Engineer


Magimancer

Dreamcursed


Races

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Human

Elementals

Fire
Earth
Metal
Water
Wood

Stats

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Combat:

Strength

Magic Potential

Everyone in world has the potential to manipulate reality through magic, but some manifest this in a more physical manner, conjuring spikes of elements and throwing matter with their minds. Abilities such as these are modified through their magical potential, a range representing the least powerful and most powerful their spells can be at any given time.

Manifested magic is wild and unpredictable, but easier to control for mages who focus on consistency. On the other hand, it isn’t unheard of for magic-users to recklessly attempt to overpower their spells with varied instances of success.

When improved:
Raise both minimum and maximum by 1
Raise maximum by 2
Raise minimum by 2

Defense

Agility

Regeneration

Mageneration

Accuracy


Non-Combat:

Stealth

Guile

Ingenuity

Luck

Knowledge

Willpower

Basic Weapons

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Swords


Axes

Lances

Bows

Crossbows

Staves

Shields (maybe)

Wands

Special Weapons

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Feast Mask

Tablet

Arcane Tools

Sunstone

Crystal Ball

Armor Types

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Light

Medium

Heavy

On Elementals:
Two racial mechanics have so far been discussed with regard to Elementals. Firstly, as beings animated by magic, they have no Health pool; rather, their Mana is both their source of power and their source of life. Secondly, Elementals can absorb external sources of their associated element to gain some statistical benefit. The actual absorption process is as-yet poorly defined to my knowledge, but the stat boosts will help elementals specialize into certain roles. Herein, I will detail my views on what benefits each elemental should receive. These will, at this stage, be based on the way the element acts rather than the role resultant, but it should all work out in the end.

These might not make much sense until more data on the stats comes out, but whatevs.


Fire: Agility and Magic Potential
An unpredictable and powerful fighter. The increased randomness introduced by the bonus Magic Potential is mitigated by the bonus Agility, and the boosted attack rate gives more opportunities to trigger max damage. Very vulnerable, however - Fire elementals tend to deplete their own health as quickly as their enemies, and can suffer from burnout if not kept in check.

Water: Mageneration and Agility
Weaker than fire but better at sustained damage. Mageneration makes up for the cost of additional attacks, while regen and dodge chance make them less vulnerable to all attacks, but not actually tanky.

Earth: Defense and Resistance
Pure tank. Hard to kill, but weaker than other elementals.

Metal: Strength and Defense
Melee skirmisher. Tanky-DPS. "Brawler." Good up close.

Wood: Resistance and Mageneration
Resilient and tanky. Regen for faster recovery.

I like the stats boosts you have for all the elementals, but it does bring up an important question. If strength determines the damage for melee attacks and magic potential determines the possible damage for magic attacks, what should determine the damage of ranged attacks? My answer would be "accuracy", but that means a ranged person only has one stat to focus on for dps, while a melee character has to worry about both accuracy and strength. Should it be inherently more difficult to hit a target at range in order to balance this? And, more related to the previous post, should accuracy be a stat that at least on elemental can boost by absorbing its associated element?

In retrospect, I'm not super-comfortable with the distinction between Magic and Physic damage via stats, but that's what I assumed those stats would be at the time. I've already said I like the concept behind Magic Potential (higher MP yields higher max damage but also makes damage more random), so... Strength could be Minimum Damage Up, maybe? Or something that essentially reduces the randomness of damage. I'm not sure, tbh.

But Physic/Magic dichotomy has its advantages too. Strength would affect physical damage ("weapon" damage, including ranged weapons), while MPot would affect magical damage. Different skills could draw on either or both of these stats by varying amounts.

But I think I'd rather Strength and MPot affect all damage just for ease of calculation. Besides, basically everyone is magic to some degree or another, right? "Magic Potential" in less-magical people could manifest as an adrenaline rush, or particularly lucky or unnaturally powerful strike, without intentionally or directly pulling on magic as a power source. I dunno, I don't think I'm phrasing it right.

Basically: Either Strength and MPot affect different types of damage, or they both affect all damage, but in different ways. I think I like the latter a bit better.

For everyone who I've asked to try out some stuff for this game, please put when you can play and your timezone below. Thanks.

I'm in East Coast, and usually available 6 PM to whenever like every night.

M-F 2PM or later, most weekends if I have advance notice we're going to be playing

Pacific time

I'm available every day from 6PM, EST. Earlier times are acceptable, given advance notice.

well for this summer i'm free like every day except thursday night after 6 and wednesday from morning until 6...
that's the usual schedule but sometimes things happen....

I'm "mucky" for the next couple weeks to a month; you'd best figure out what times work for other people and I can say if any work for me.

Available most nights and weekends right now (apart from Sunday night for obvious reasons)

Incoming employment changes may effect my availability, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I'm available all days except Tuesdays and Thursdays, barring things that happen. My timezone is EST (-5).

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dicerollerv20fo/

Someone from each campaign oughta download this so you can roll your dices.