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7 months ago ::
Nov 23, 2012 - 5:55AM
#1
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A new version of d&d means a new opportunity to incorporate good ideas from other games. A lot of the forum has been looking at d&d past, which leads to edition wars, but lets look wider, at other games. To avoid this becoming a battleground, please only present your ideas - dont attack other people's. supporting other people's suggestion is fine. Since these are mechanics from other games, please credit the game and describe it.
Here's mine: the party creation from fate was very clever. Everyone writes an episode from their past down (a story). Then you randomly pass the papers around, and everyone writes a story about how they interacted with the person they got. Then you shuffle and pass again. At that point, you've written three stories, so you have some idea who you are. But you also have 2 people you've interacted with, and two people who have interacted with you. That makes the party feel coherent. (I recognize an inn is canon, so all these should be options)
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7 months ago ::
Nov 23, 2012 - 8:11AM
#2
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Weapons from Gamma World: they are creative, fun, and balanced
Initiative from Savage Worlds: I love visual initiative queues.
Lack of daily resources from every non D&D based game ever: Daily resources never made sense to me.
Simplified skill list from gamma world or savage worlds. I prefer clean and streamlined skills.
Clear sense of what each ability should be used for: Siege Engine from Castles and Crusades.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 3:42PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 16, 2010
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The current Gamma World weapon system is indeed fantastic.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 4:03PM
#4
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- 7E Gamma World's Reflavorable Weapons
- Ars Magica's Combat Mechanics (particularly static weapon damage)
- Era's 6-primary, 6-secondary Ability Score System (basically roll your primary ability scores to represent what you were born with, take two of them and average them out to produce six secondary ability scores which you can improve as you level to represent what you can improve with training)
- Era's hit point system
- translating this to D&D can easily be something like this: at character creation you have tempHP equal to a specific amount (let's say CON score x2 + class bonus per level), as well as real HP equal to a specific amount (let's say just CON score). Attacks normally whittle down your tempHP first before your actual HP, as it would represent stamina being drained as you block and parry desperately while attacking. If the damage goes beyond a specific threshold, the damage carries over to your real HP instead (perhaps this damage threshold could be AC bonus + CON mod).
- This would allow a more logical explanation for Second Wind, hit dice recovery, etc. while allowing for greater realism when it comes to events that are supposed to be life-threatening (e.g. falling off a cliff, no matter how heroic or legendary you might be, would go directly to your HP in damage, easily killing all but the luckiest of folks).
- FATE's Aspect + Fate Point + Stunt + Compulsion mechanics (we can translate Aspect + Compulsion = background + alignment, Fate Points = Action Points, then utilize APs in a way not too different from 3.5E Eberron + 4E -- especially if prestige classes come into play -- instead of, or in addition to, how Fate Points work in FATE)
- 13th Age's One Unique Thing
That's all I can think of for now.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 9:52PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2012
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I think we should look a lot at Pathfinder, not least because of how it ended up outperforming D&D, but also because Paizo had a lot of great ideas for class features. Every class feels unique, and there are very few dead levels.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 24, 2012 - 10:05PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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The item creation rules from tephra, especially in regards to consumables and item customization. This magic items are special silliness will only go so far until they hit Realms or Eberron where magic items are not only not special, but something people are expected to be able to create, I mean a huge portion of the Red Wizard operations was at one point based on magic item creation and distribution.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 29, 2012 - 4:19PM
#7
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Cinematic Unisystem (the BtVS and Army of Darkness rpgs) has broad skills that use different key attributes depending on what you're trying to do with them. The best example is the Crime Skill. You can use Dex and Crime to move around stealthily, or to pick a lock. You could use Int and Crime to disable electronic security. You could even use Perception and Crime to notice a crime in progress. D&D could learn a lot from that, especially since they're moving back into the trap of long skill lists. The longer your skil list is, the more default skill training you'll have to include, but they haven't made that adjustment yet.
BESM d20. During 3.5 e, GOO released a fully 3.5 compatible version of the BESM rpg. This rpg also included an optional classless version of 3.5 e play where you gained 10 character points when you levelled and could purchase your HD, skill, points, BAB increase, etc from those points. While D&D still can't escape the tradition of classes without being too much of a departure from traditional D&D, there's no good reason why an equal classless system can't exist in parallel for people who either want to go classless or want to slightly modify the classes.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
Show
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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