Crafting: Simplified Crafting System

Actually, the source post is a bit
interesting too.

So I was thinking of crafting systems recently, and that shows because I was working on the food and scrounging posts for a bit, and I had a thought on a simplified type of crafting system with no frills, no thrills, but basic and generic enough to work anywhere, and probably extend it in ways to make it more interesting. This focuses on a fantasy and not-so-serious world, kinda like Dungeon Fantasy if it didn't preach against the tedium of long term down-time tasks so often. Let's take a look.

Rules: Survival And Food Gathering Applied

Let's Making Food.

Yesterday, I wrote about scrounging or foraging for special food that gives bonuses and the like, and today, I decided to test this system, and eat my own dog food. Let's see if the random numbers I pulled out of "feel's ok to me," produce satisfying results.

Mechanics: Level Up System

Blah blah, Google tags and analytics.

This is just a thought I had the other day: some people enjoy level ups because getting a substantial power increase all in one fell swoop is fun because it's obvious that you improved. You are absolutely doing more damage, you are absolutely more athletic, you are absolutely more convincing, so stitching together two ideas from different Pyramid articles, I came up with a level up and experience point system. Whether it is too much bookkeeping or comes out more annoying than it's worth, here it is.

Ability: Elemental Rock Scissors Paper - Worked Example and download

My last post was a bit long, and I referred to how it might be possible to use a formula to automatically calculate the costs of the advantages, so for giggles, I mocked it up quickly against the 15 types in generation 1 of Pokemon. Weirdly, in a perfect world, Ghost would have been the strongest type. Psychic, completely overpowered, is interestingly number two on the list. Got these numbers from here. Ice is technically the worst element apparently, and this is interesting because it was one of my favorite. OH WELL. A link to the spreadsheet for your own pleasure and profit is here.

Ability: Elemental Rock Scissors Paper

Something Like This.

In a lot of Video Game RPGs, and presumably table top games, characters typically have elemental strengths and weaknesses. At a minimum, there are usually 4 elements for European themed games and 5 for Asian flair. Games like Pokemon that have a bajillion elements have several cycles built into the system. Final Fantasy has multiple levels of injury tolerance and resistance. Several systems have a neutral "null" element that doesn't interact with the elemental system, and thus has neither strengths nor weaknesses. GURPS has something like this in the form of Injury Tolerances and Crushing, Cutting, and Impaling damage types, but no intrinsic system for "fire beats plant, beats water, beats fire." Let's play around with how to put an elemental weakness system together, and see if we can come up with a quick way of evaluating the fair value of a particular elemental typing in GURPS.

Alternative Mechanics: Alternative Distributions

Interact with results

Yesterday, I looked at changing the spread of values in GURPS by using differently shaped dice. Today, I'll look at different distributions along the series of integers 3:18.