Відео

Also, one of my experiments which solved one of the problems was a skirmish game (small squad based tabletop combat system without a full RPG built around it), which actually worked similar - in some ways - to how you described this early iteration of your game. The game had movement as one of your available actions, and you couldn't do other things while moving, *except* that's not true because of the way I was tracking your previous round's actions... It takes a bit of explaining (especially when doing it just in text instead of having the pieces available to show a round of the game being played), but bear with me while I try: Setting up the fight works normally, you place miniatures on the board to show where each character starts. Things change when you decide you're going to move a character, though. In order to move, you don't just pick your mini up and put it in a new location that's within range of where you started. You place a token touching the model base, then move to a location which is within range of the token, and that token remains to show your *current movement path* - and certain attacks can target you anywhere along that path, so while dashing from cover to cover is still sensible, it's not a guarantee that you'll always have a bonus for being in cover just because you ended your movement in cover. There are restrictions on how a character can interact with your movement path, though, so the enemy might not always have that option available to them. On your next turn, the part which makes it so you *CAN* move and attack at the same time comes into play - you can use your own movement path from the previous turn as a location from which to perform an attack (or other action), so you and an enemy can run past each other while trying to duck from cover to cover, and one of you (or both) can attack the other as you cross paths.

yep, another good way of doing it. at the moment I am sticking with 1, 1.5,2 as then the smallest step is 1, which I think is intuitive but everything is still WIP so we'll see.

the last two paragraphs are definitely interesting, non dice and non-random systems for resolution are interesting to think about. I would recommend the channel "Three Bears RPGs" they have done a couple videos about using things other than dice and I think its really cool. with regard to conflict vs actions... I am not sure what the difference is. To me to resolve a conflict requires resolving the action which initiated the conflict or perhaps the two (or more) actions which are opposing each other. I see the damage roll as just part of the action resolution mechanic of D&D, but its easy to get lost in semantic arguments.

I recommend the blog Anyway, specially the older posts that talk about Conflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution, but the gust might be this: If you try to resolve conflict, without assessing if the task was or not successful, you might defeat your enemy by accident (instead of as a result of your attack). If you try to resolve the task without assessing if the conflict was resolved or not, you might hit your target but not defeat them. That might seem silly, but consider things outside combat (we should return there afterwards). If I want to escape jail, Task Resolution (TS, from now on) won't provide an answer, it depends solely on GM fiat (i.e. the GM must judge if my successful stealthiness is enough to escape or not; he may use the TR to gauge his judgement, but nothing requires them to do so). In a social situation, my eloquence might be very well done (i.e. I succeeded my TR) but that might not have the effect I wanted (instead of persuading them with only logic, the GM rules that my success means I seduced them with my fair words). In Conflict Resolution (CR), usually a successful conflict implies a successful task in most games, and a failed conflict implies a failed task (although I see a comedy or tragedy oriented game changing that). So in most CR systems, the resolution technique (i.e. dice, cards, key phrases, jenga sticks, etc.) really resolves both the Conflict and the Task. I tend to think that CR is usually better for most games (with the exceptions of comedy or tragedy oriented games, maybe). TR certainly requires someone (usually a GM) to judge how this task make the conflict resolve, and it may require a Resolution Technique even if there is no conflict at all (like most perception rolls), thus making some "rolls" (or whatever) weirdly inconsequential. In my mind, CR is just cleaner and easier to implement, once you get the gist of both.

Also, consider games that don't care about either, and the Resolution Technique resolved who gets to describe what happened. Games like Houses of the Blooded, OctaNe, and I'm sure a lot more, use this paradigm: they don't resolve tasks or conflicts, they just determine who gets to narrate the outcome (and whoever gets to do it gets also to decide if the Task or Conflict was resolved, and how). Some games are a bit hybrid: in Dust Devils, the better card-play (if I recall correctly, the one with the most hearts) wins conflicts, but the highest numbered card gets to narrate how that wins. Sometimes, the loser plays the highest card, and gets to narrate exactly how the winner got what they wanted (and it might make them look corrupt, sadistic, stupid, messy, etc., as they get what they want). In Trollbabe (CR), the GM describes all successful rolls, and the player describes all failed rolls (the player has some resources to re-roll and mostly ensure their success, but the GM gets to describe how those resources are used, and since most of them are relationships with NPCs, if you want to win you will lose control of what happens with them! But if you accept failure, you get to narrate the failure!).

that's a fair point, I think I will keep the name but explaining it in reference to "level of success" in other systems is a good way of doing it. Thanks.

Yep true I haven't played shadowrun, I am very open about my influences and it certainly means there are ideas I haven't heard of. If there's something specific about shadowrun which you think would be interesting I'd be keen to know where to look! but for the record I have also played cypher, cyberpunk, fate, dread and a couple of one pagers, I have researched several more systems even If I haven't played them.

Maybe not, but it's working for me and it might work for viewers too, I've already had a few comments from people keen on trying this system. In my research I found no mention of 1.5 being discussed but must have missed that bit of history. I would be surprised if D&D and Pathfinder tried this because it would mean counting in 7.5ft steps... As you say, most D&D and Pathfinder players I know of just say Diagonals are 5ft, same as orthogonals, probably because most people don't care that much, which is fair. Maybe I am weird... No, I am weird. For those that do care, I think 1.5 is a much more rigorous and simpler system than alternating 1 and 2. Imo.

That's usually feedback actually. The names are something I have gone back and forth on.

No, that's completely fine and something I have considered, as you say it's much closer to reality. The only issue is I think generally people aren't so good at counting in 7s. There also is the potential that you end up needing just one extra foot. So if you wanted to move diagonally 3 times and straight twice that would 31feet and if you only have 30 that feels bad. Not the worst thing but worth considering.

I had a quick look and it definitely is interesting and suits the genre it's going for I don't think it is quite the system for me. I think the combination of dice and tokens is a little to much complexity, and having multiple actions per round is not something I wanted in the Verve. It looks like a fun system when you have really understood it but I imagine your first few combats would be very slow going as there are so many micro decisions to make and passive effects to keep in mind.

DO you have a name or place where we can see it

Yeah totally valid. I was very tempted to go for 2 and 3. It's a very good option.

I have played with a system like this, I think a variant rule for D&D or something and it played quite clunky. Limited experience, sure, but not something I wanted to go for in the Verve. I think I found in the declaration phase there was way to much back and forth. "Oh if your doing that, I'll do this" wait hang on if your going there I can't do my thing" etc. In the end it played much slower. I might need to look into OSRIC to see if they fixed that main issue. Also, just a personal thing, but as a player I like being able to describe my own actions rather than the DM describing what my character does.

@@TheVerveTTRPG I recognize this weakness of this simultaneous initiative system as potentially taking a player's opportunity to describe their own actions away, but I've seen an actual play where the players who wanted to describe their own actions still managed to describe what they did and how they did it, and also say what they wanted their character to say. For this simultaneous initiative system, I watched a 2-hour actual play of people playing AD&D. There were three combat encounters, each one was 15 minutes. That's my goal as a GM is being able to run through combats like that! Look up Bandit's Keep youtube channel. House rules for declaration phase are: 1. once you declare your action, you can't change it; it's metagaming for players to change their action based on someone else's declaration. 2. Keep your declaration simple, really simple, like "move" or "missile" or "magic" or "melee", and specify an object or character you want to interact with. If I say melee, and the opponent I choose is further than 5ft away, then movement is implied. A declaration of "Move" means you're running into cover, withdrawing from engagement, fleeing, or chasing someone. OSRIC also prescribes a priority for these types of actions. Movement is resolved first, then missile fire, then magic, then melee. I don't know if it's based on realism, but I don't think it needs to be. This gives structure to simultaneousness.

Most of my skills use more than one ability. Perception is typical 2 spirit 1 dexterity (I understand as a combination of instinct and physical/sensory precision) but the skill system is pretty flexible so it can change based on context. If your curious about the skill system it is talked about in this video: ua-cam.com/video/QFeB3Wt6Pmw/v-deo.html

Honestly it reminds me of a system I was messing with a few years back where each turn you had to roll (1d10 for every roll) your initiative to see if you could act, tallying your rolls until it beat your initiative, but you could do as many actions as you wanted but they added to your initiative preventing you from acting for a while if you went all out, an example I wrote many years ago was something like "Aaron is trained in combat, and has an initiative of 3. He rolls and gets a 3, he almost failed, but his combat readiness helped prevent that. He Readies his Rifle (+2) and fires 3 shots (+2 per shot for his rifle, +6) hitting one of the mooks enough to stop them. He stops and re-enters cover (+1) to prevent using too many points." in that example because Aaron's actions he probably wasn't going to be acting for a while as next round he'd have to beat a 9 on a d10 to be able to act

Interesting system, I think it risks slowing things down a little with the extra dice roll but not too much. sounds cool if a little crunchy. I'm not sure exactly what you are saying about interruptions and charge setup in your first comment. Can you explain a bit more what you mean? There are no reactions so there are no ways to really interrupt someone.

I'll have to have another look at Gurps, I have skimmed it but don't really know that much.

It is a work in progress game system so the answer is there is a draft pdf but at the moment it isn't public. I plan on publishing it in some form or another eventually but no idea when that will be. There is still lots to do.

Thank you so much! Hope you enjoy the older content. It's kind of funny given how fundamental some of my first few videos are to the rest of the Worldbuilding and TTRPG stuff how few people have done what you are doing. Hahah. I appreciate it ❤️

Grandia, I think. As I say never played it myself. I'll have to have a look at Atlas reactor, I always like games that try to do something different. In my game all 4 abilities are a score between 1 and 6 but 3 is the average score for a human and 2 would be a pretty low intelligence human. 5 would be the smartest a human in our world has ever been. So there isn't that much range in values in comparison to D&D or similar. Definitely no negatives. If you are playing a lower intelligence character with a score of 2 all it would mean is that you always better off taking the move action (+4 Flow) than waiting (also +4 Flow) which I actually think makes some sense narratively. You aren't the type to stop and think, but the type to run into action. On the other hand if you have a high INT and spend turns waiting to benefit, gaining lots of Flow, then you are going to be less mobile which could be a real disadvantage depending on the terrain, cover, any dangers on the battlefield etc. If waiting is being used too often, that may be a sign to the conductor that they need to make the battlefield more interesting. Encourage movement. I think it is balanced but more playtesting is always valuable.

Hiya! From the DM side it can be a little tricky but I recommend using a d10 to keep track of ones flow. So you can just have a d10 for each monster and rotate it to the new number after each action. Stamina and morale and wounds can be tracked on paper as you would with HP. Players declare their actions when their turn comes up. With the old system, yes weird simultaneous things could happen like that where both could die at the same time. With the new system, each round you start with whoever has the highest Flow, they do their action, then you move down until everyone has gone once. Each action being declared and resolved immediately. If two or more participants have the same Flow then I tend to allow the players to go first or to do some combo move if it applies, and then do the monsters. But I might narrate the consequences as simultaneous if it makes sense. This does give the players a slight edge but I think it's fine to favour the players generally. If you want to run a harder game you can always favour the monsters.

@@TheVerveTTRPG Thanks for the clarification! I'm excited for your next video. I'm working on my own TTRPG, and it's fun to follow along and see where you are in the process.

Hiya, long answer: 1. Martial users can be buffed with magic, there are whole classes designed around those ideas, but they are still attacking in melee if they want to benefit from the faster attack rate. Additional non-magical classes (of which there are really only 2/12) gain features roughly equivalent to many of the effects of magic just achieved through different means. For example there is a artificer like class who can craft different weapon modifications which cause there arrows to explode or strike lightning. The main thing I wanted to balance was, being at range (and therefore safer) should have some disadvantage to balance it out. And attack rate makes the most sense. 2. Dodge and block being the two physical defensive options is based around having two physical stats. Pierce as an attack style is intended to bypass block, the idea being that it is very precise. Similarly Swing is such a wide coverage that it is not by default dodgable. What you are talking about with a deflect or parry is much closer to blocking, and indeed there is a fencer subclass who gains parry-type abilities. 3. Your system for ranged attacks is similar to my old system and if it works for you that's great. Personally I never was able to make it feel good to play. 4. Yes in general if one player rushes in to melee while the other stands still, the one standing still will have more Flow and so have the advantage. However, many martial classes get “Charge” type attack modifiers which means that first attack after rushing in will be significantly more dangerous so it should balance out. 5. The timeline is a goal I had to slightly abandon. However by simply making the duration of a round 1 second as opposed to 6 seconds. Everything is much smoother narratively. It isn't that hard to understand how things happen when everyone only has one action. Moving gaining flow doesn't disrupt this understanding of the timeline at all. In my opinion. Turning around would be done as part of whatever action you took on that round. It doesn't cost extra. Picking a lock would probably not take 5 rounds worth of interacting, unless you were really unlucky with the rolls, but yes theoretically you could be caught out with no flow left if you were ambushed while trying to pick a lock. This feels pretty realistic. 6. Flow being a positive resource is kind of critical to the design. Also should be noted it can only be between 0 and 9. So you can't ever cast a spell multiple rounds in a row unless you have the ability to quicken your spellcasting in some way (make it cost less flow) 7. There are no reactions (other than defending this is also quite important to the narrative flow. I removed reactions when I went to the Flow point system as they didn't fit with the design ethos. If Defending costs flow it makes it too easy to shut down one target by everyone focusing them until they have no flow. While perhaps realistic this would break action economy. 8. Yes if you are chasing another player but you have more speed two things will happen. First eventually both of you will max out your Flow at 9. Then you will catch up with the fleeing person because of your greater speed. Then when you are in melee you can make an attack because you both have flow 9 and so your actions can be handled at the same time. So you could catch them. There are no reactions so no opportunity attacks. 10. Yes certainly this system is flexible to allow for exactly the kind of thing you talk about. Creatures and players can get features which make their attacks cost more flow to deal more damage or gain other benefits, or cost less flow to attack quicker. Generally at higher levels. I think that a many headed snake creature like a hydra would definitely have faster attacks due to having so many heads. I think that's everything responded to. :)

This is a variant rule that is presented in the 2014 dnd 5e core rulebooks.

Thanks for your interest! - weak spot detection by assassin Esthesian is around sensing areas of pivot density or specific frequency of vibrations from different materials, for example arteries will have different material properties to muscle which can be detected with sufficient skill. The idea of a healer Esthesian is really good! One who finds where someone is hurt most and can apply healing in exactly the right spot to maximise its effect. Definitely an idea for a future subclass there. - the range of this kind of detection varies but is roughly 10m and does mostly require active effort by the Esthesian. think echolocation, it usually requires an initial probing pulse to reflect back. This can be done while moving but is easier and quicker if standing still. It can be done as single sensing pulse or continuously, as you say in a "receiver state" constantly sending out pulses over a large area. - Nerves emit vervic waves because pivots respond to changes in electromagnetic fields, as they are somewhat charged particles. But yes these waves are much more subtle than the waves given off by general movement. for most people these waves are too noisy to pick out from the general hum in the Verve at all times. Esthesians are better than most at blind sensing of nearby creatures but it is something everyone can do to some extent. For most it is not that much more useful than hearing or physical sensing of e.g. footsteps, wind from a door opening.

Amazing! I'd be interested in your takes on: - Armor in general. Different armor types. Consequences or handling of "incomplete armor sets", for example someone not wearing their helmet or damaged armor. - reloading mechanics of bows & crossbows / firing speeds - What do you think about the issue that a character that gets attacked and can then defend themselves, has more "time" or atleast "active time" then a character that can't use reactive actions because they didn't get targeted and then idles. In your case it would be block or dodge, in other system it is parry or opportunity attacks, that allow a character to take a second action outside of their turn, given specific circumstances.

@@SurinamElephant this is a classic philosophical question for TTRPG s. In order to role play as an intelligent character, should you require the player themselves to be intelligent? We don't make the same requirements for playing a strong character. But as you say is it fun to max your INT score and then say "I rolled a 28, give me the answer" For the Verve I have made the skill system pretty flexible so a conductor (DM) can more or less run things as to their preference. And players are explicitly told to think about how they can use their best skills to solve the situation. E.g. climbing a wall can be a strength thing or a dexterity thing or an intelligence thing or a spirit (will power) thing depending on how the player describes their characters approach to the wall. To answer your initial question, My personal recommendation is you allow players to try and solve the puzzle or make a persuasive argument or tell a good lie, either in roleplay or through description, and the conductor can adjust the DC based on their judgement. That way even if a player isn't themselves smart or charismatic or whatever they can still have a go irl but if they have built their character to be good at those kinds of things they still have a chance.

​@@TheVerveTTRPG The issue that i can see here, is a character roleplaying well AND having high intelligence or charisma scores, can result in either the bonuses provided by the roleplay to not feel meaningful or the character being to strong in those areas, winning every argument. It's like allowing the player behind to lower the DC on his strength check by doing 20 push-ups in IRL :D (funny idea tho) You're argument is obviously valid in that regard, that if one would keep it consistent a player would only be allowed to create a character that shares the physical attributes of its player, which would result in many combat incapable characters. I'm also not fully locked in on either direction, but for now i'm going with the characters attributes only describing their physical capabilities.

@@SurinamElephant running out of stamina causes you to go unconscious, which doesn't mean dying like it does in e.g. D&D. You are just knocked out. Obviously if you are unconscious and attacked, you can't actively defend and the attacker has a much easier time finishing you off. As you guess, you die when you take up to you wound limit in wounds (starts at 2 at level 1, increases to 3 at level 2, to 4 at 7 and increases to 5 by level 11, 12 is max level) You can normally only take one wound from an attack unless they have a special feature. So an exceedance of more than or equal to twice your wound limit causes 1 wound. Stamina is very easy to recover, wounds are much harder, typically one wound per long rest in a safe place.

@@SurinamElephant It's a fair comment, I have gone back and forth on names for similar things. There are pros and cons to whatever words you use as they have slightly different associations.

@@TheVerveTTRPG yeah, sounds familiar. There's always compromise between different things pretty much in every aspect of game design. Was just trying go give feedback, but i'm also not a native speaker, so maybe it is more intuitive for others

TTRPG = Table Top Roleplaying Game, think D&D or Pathfinder