How Bastards killed my Homebrew

[nemedeus]

Hello everyone. Let me begin by saying i'm not good at Introductions, so I'll skip that for now.

I have been at writing a roleplaying system for a few years now. The process has had the general characteristics of changes in personal taste, leading to annual rewrites, and generally a complete lack of testing.

Now the latest iteration was indeed based on TRoS, of which i only had read the rulebook and never had played a session, as gaming groups had proven unfeasable to assemble (I live in Germany, and the only roleplaying game anyone ever plays here is The Dark Eye, which if you know about it, you know it to be an utter turd of a roleplaying game system.)

So, the last few years, most of my roleplaying game related activity was largely limited to myself. I quietly wrote my rules and setting info, more as a hobby than to ever present them to anyone.

Then I heard of TRoS Revival Projects, first Song of Swords, and later Bastards. That was around summer last year.

From the teasers, it quickly became very clear to me that Bastards was doing a lot of the things i wanted my rule system to do, and also doing it a lot better than me.

Needless to say I have not spent a lot of time on my system since.

[Agamemnon]

You've got my most sincere condolences, friend. I have been in that exact situation before. On the bright side, welcome to 'Bastards! Feel free to poke around. We're putting the last stitches in the Beta now, so it won't be much longer.

[higgins]

Oh maaan... That sounds both terrible and uplifting at the same time. Terrible because of your game getting killed, but also uplifting, since you discovered that you're not completely alone out there with your gaming tastes. We're fully aware that 'Bastards is essentially aimed at a minority audience of a very specific RPG niche and as such, it's always good to hear that our ideas just click for someone else. Makes us feel like as if we aren't chasing the wind after all.

P.S.
And also uplifting since you don't have to research any prices.

[nemedeus]

Terrible because of your game getting killed,

Not quite dead yet, the thread title is hyperbole...
I have a few concepts in my game that are different, particularly my game has a bigger focus on character stats/"feats" and such things.
Just, it has become a bit clustered and chaotic, so i felt like doing yet another rewrite, like i always do when that happens...


I actually even tried to implement a dynamic weapon system ("choose weapon type, choose hilt, choose pointy end, add everything together") before i heard about you guys, heh.

but also uplifting, since you discovered that you're not completely alone out there with your gaming tastes. We're fully aware that 'Bastards is essentially aimed at a minority audience of a very specific RPG niche and as such, it's always good to hear that our ideas just click for someone else. Makes us feel like as if we aren't chasing the wind after all.

Yeah, you guys rock! I'm on the edge of my swat for your beta release.

What i found particularly impressive from the teasers:
- the wound table, i have to admit, i was doing something very similar in my system; and the wound tracker, which i promptly stole* from you guys. no regrets.
- the initiative/chaos mechanic is just pure genius. i was actually mindblown when i first read it.

what i'm really looking forward to seeing:
- the maneuver implementation
- how you do armour, actually; armour against cuts and blunt attacks are straitforward enough, but i've been trying to wrap my mind around how thrusting attacks interact with certain armour and didn't quite arrive at a satisfying result.
- lots of other stuff

And also uplifting since you don't have to research any prices.

Prices as in historically accurate market prices?


*difference is, my system uses d6, so it looks like this
0[4,5,6]; 1[4,5,6]; 2[5,6]; 3[6]; 4[knocked out]; 5[dead]

[Agamemnon]

Just, it has become a bit clustered and chaotic, so i felt like doing yet another rewrite, like i always do when that happens...

...Yeah.. I don't even want to talk about that. Higgins will just get mad at me. That's literally how every rewrite and major revision of this game has happened.

[higgins]

I actually even tried to implement a dynamic weapon system ("choose weapon type, choose hilt, choose pointy end, add everything together") before i heard about you guys, heh.

Weapon customization in games isn't something radically new. Computer games have done it for a while, especially as far as modern firearms are concerned. Some games even do it with swords -- I think War of the Roses did that (tried the free demo, didn't like it much), and Mount & Blade II will have that feature as well. And of course, D&D has an insane amount of weapon customization, albeit all magical.

I'm not entirely sure if any other pen & paper RPG has had the same level of "mundane" weapon customization than we do though. If they have, I definitely haven't seen it.

What i found particularly impressive from the teasers:
- the wound table, i have to admit, i was doing something very similar in my system; and the wound tracker, which i promptly stole* from you guys. no regrets.

By wound tracker, you mean the shifting Base TN? That is indeed a one of the mechanics that has paid MASSIVE simplification dividends. Looking back and tracing wound penalties with diminishing dice pools seems such a nightmare now.

- the initiative/chaos mechanic is just pure genius. i was actually mindblown when i first read it.

Thank you for the kind words!

We do believe it is completely innovative. If anyone has come up with anything even remotely similar, we're not aware of it. Can't wait to hand it over to you guys for further playtesting and feedback!

And also uplifting since you don't have to research any prices.

Prices as in historically accurate market prices?

Well, at least plausible ones. If we hadn't gone back to using real coins as opposed to abstract wealth, you guys would have had the beta by Christmas. Easily.

[EinBein]

(I live in Germany, and the only roleplaying game anyone ever plays here is The Dark Eye, which if you know about it, you know it to be an utter turd of a roleplaying game system.)

Accept my deep sympathy. The Dark Eye is in Germany what D&D is in America.

We created so many custom rulesystems trying to avoid The Dark Eye as far as possible but felt magically drawn to the unwieldy background at least.

Today we are playing Shadowrun, waiting for the Bastards beta...

Besides, where do you live in Germany?

[nemedeus]

I actually even tried to implement a dynamic weapon system ("choose weapon type, choose hilt, choose pointy end, add everything together") before i heard about you guys, heh.

Weapon customization in games isn't something radically new. Computer games have done it for a while, especially as far as modern firearms are concerned. Some games even do it with swords -- I think War of the Roses did that (tried the free demo, didn't like it much), and Mount & Blade II will have that feature as well. And of course, D&D has an insane amount of weapon customization, albeit all magical.

I'm not entirely sure if any other pen & paper RPG has had the same level of "mundane" weapon customization than we do though. If they have, I definitely haven't seen it.

Yes, i witnessed WotR's fall from grace through consistently bad supprt/patches and also lack of servers (duel servers always were the most fun to play on, because noone likes to be ganged up on).

I'm also extremely exited about M&B 2 (my steam review of M&B:Warband says "I wish Skyrim was more like this game").

If you haven't heard of them, check out the upcoming Ubisoft game, For Honor, as well as Kingdom Come, of which you probably heard already. Another personal favorite of mine is, of course, Dark Souls, despite not being very realistic, so i'm naturally mega hyped for DS III, especially as it's going to be more like DS I and less like II which was quite dissapointing for me...

Finally, i have to recommend you check out Exanima, another independently developed title, which despite being an isometric dungeon crawl game (being not quite my kind of RPG, really) has an extremely interesting Physics based animation system. personally i think the combat in that game looks more realistic than anything else before. Also, VERY realistic equipment.

Oh and D&D weapon costumization, that reminds me of that old video from the failed CLANG kickstarter project...

What i found particularly impressive from the teasers:
- the wound table, i have to admit, i was doing something very similar in my system; and the wound tracker, which i promptly stole* from you guys. no regrets.

By wound tracker, you mean the shifting Base TN? That is indeed a one of the mechanics that has paid MASSIVE simplification dividends. Looking back and tracing wound penalties with diminishing dice pools seems such a nightmare now.

I concur.

- the initiative/chaos mechanic is just pure genius. i was actually mindblown when i first read it.

Thank you for the kind words!

We do believe it is completely innovative. If anyone has come up with anything even remotely similar, we're not aware of it. Can't wait to hand it over to you guys for further playtesting and feedback!

YOu're welcome, although unfortunately I'm not sure how much (if any) playtesting i will be able to provide.

Accept my deep sympathy. The Dark Eye is in Germany what D&D is in America.

We created so many custom rulesystems trying to avoid The Dark Eye as far as possible but felt magically drawn to the unwieldy background at least.

Today we are playing Shadowrun, waiting for the Bastards beta...

Besides, where do you live in Germany?

TDE is cancer. I don't get why german players like it. mostly due to the needlessly complicated EVERYTHING. I heard, 5th edition actuallyy did some work to amend that, even, but i also heard the playerbase largely did not like it.

My personal main problem is the sheer amount of useless information, like how a decrease in 1 of almost any number in the game makes little to no difference (meaning an unreasonably small granularity - i prefer a +1 representing something of about a 10% difference in outcome chances, personally).


Shadowrun is cool if you like heavy and deep character costumization (like me) - i have seen it being called "the 'Stuff' RPG"; also of course, general low granulatrity, which i like.
Sadly, I'm not much into cyberpunk. I also often felt like the actual options end up a bit... same-y in action, particularly if you limit yourself to the base sourcebook (4e), and the stats of certain equipment seems arbitrarily higher or lower than other similar items. So nowadays, i'm on the fence about Shadowrun. can't comment on earlier editions.

Oh and, I'm in Bavaria.

[Siggi]

If we hadn't gone back to using real coins as opposed to abstract wealth, you guys would have had the beta by Christmas. Easily.

Now I feel kind of guilty for my own whining caused by your announcing of abstract wealth system back then. Why did you decide to go back to real coins anyway?

[Korbel]

YOu're welcome, although unfortunately I'm not sure how much (if any) playtesting i will be able to provide.

Problems finding players? Ich habe auch!
We can always try to play by forum or email, if you fancy? Maybe others (who have similar problems) will join? Though I must say I'm not really into DMing (but will, if I have to) and I will probably be quite busy this summer (July-September).

[EinBein]

Oh and, I'm in Bavaria.

That's quite far away from Düsseldorf. Even though Tim Burton tries to show it quite close to each other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHKOkVVyAVM

[Agamemnon]

If we hadn't gone back to using real coins as opposed to abstract wealth, you guys would have had the beta by Christmas. Easily.

Now I feel kind of guilty for my own whining caused by your announcing of abstract wealth system back then. Why did you decide to go back to real coins anyway?

There was a handful of reasons. Some of these were quite practical. Coins allowed more granularity in costs of things compared to the abstract method, which is closer to "orders of magnitude" increases in price. This is useful in a bunch of different ways, but the armor lists are a strong example. In the period we're playing and even the century or two before, armor configurations vary wildly depending on a number of things — mobility, technology, cost, personal preference, cost to repair — but with a less granular wealth system, we'd lose a lot of that as the differences in prices would be lost in many cases. You'd basically wind up buying armor exclusively as "suits" in the way that D&D does - i.e. "im wearing maille," "I'm wearing half-plate," "I'm wearing brigandine," etc.

You see this a bit in the weapon codices as well. In the polearms codex, the "Default" weapon is actually just a quarterstaff. As you add heads and things the price goes up.. So the effective difference between a quarterstaff, a bardiche, and a glaive is what you put on it. If we're dealing with coin, you can list specific costs to add different parts. If we're dealing with a more abstract solution, the best you can do is loosely group weapons together based on tiers of pricing - but this starts relying on an uncomfortable level of GM interpretation when combined with the fact that the codices allow for a huge number of different possibilities.

On the less practical side - we liked the system. The specific tiered wealth system we use is one I haven't really seen elsewhere, and we thought it was a neat concept. It also fit the slightly more simulationist and gritty nature of other parts of our game more readily than a more abstract system. Getting specifically into coins also allows us to talk about the nature of wealth in a way that's usually glossed over by games — namely, how inconvenient it actually is to carry wealth around.

[higgins]

Plus one of you guys posted that tragic hamster.

[thirtythr33]

Speaking of Bastards killing homebrew...

I was digging through an old hard drive I had and I found this gem. It's what teenaged 33 was looking for in an RPG but was never able to find:

Hit points
* Body parts damaged and armored separately
* Attacker can influence location hit
* Higher penalty for ranged called shots
* Damage results in status effects and/or skill penalties
* Doesn't take FOREVER to recover
* Easy to be incapacitated, difficult to die outright
* Can have semi-permanent penalties

Spells
* Variable spell requirements
* ie Cast time, Components, Focus, Vocal, Hands, Concentration
* Most spells can be interrupted
* Medium to Low bookkeeping
* Skill and mana based
* Spells broken down by School/Skill

Advancement
* Skill based system. Percentage based
* life story character creation
* Aging buys skill points but costs stats and FATE
* Increase skills by trying to do things
* Training and Schooling increase skills in downtime
* Wealth and Status are "bought" through lifepaths

FATE
* A way for players to influence critical dice rolls
* Earned from roleplaying (including creating "weak" characters)
* An OPT IN system. If you don't like luck points, can play an old guy

Traits/Characteristics
* If/then, When, Never, Always, Instincts
* Positive to get bonuses
* Negative to earn FATE, NOT to buy more positives

Weapons/Fighting
* Rock Paper Scissors fighting system. (tactically, not literally)
* Positioning system instead of initiative
* Actions are chosen from bad positioning to good and resolve simultaneously
* Tactical; about accruing incremental advantages instead of dealing damage
* moves like Knockdown/Disarm/Broken Shield/Disabled Arm or Leg/Stunned/Position etc
* Weapon types matter.
* ie, weapon length, special abilities, Damage type vs armors
* some weapons more dependent on skill than others
* Shields treated identical to weapons (but have bad damage and good defense)
* block, parry, dodge, strike, haymaker, feint, riposte, disarm, grapple, push etc
* Multiple actions allowed in 1 round with cumulative penalty to all actions
* Initiative and realistic choices should give best results
* Armor types matter.
* FULL PLATE IS NOT STRICTLY BETTER THAN MAILLE

System
* Rules heavy and balanced by "counters"
* Cover defeated by "holding actions"
* Armor reduces dodge (but not parry) and lowers damage taken
* Stealth/dexterity tied to encumbrance instead of armor
* Diplomacy/Combat escalation system a la Dogs in Vinyard
* Characters have Diplomacy stats/skills and fight a la SOIAF
* A horseback/Naval/Warfare system
* can roll to hit and "hold" the damage to offer terms (blade to throat)

Magic Items
* Focuses are powerful and (spiritually) costly but "common". Usually only usable by creator
* Magic items don't give +1s. They add new capabilities instead
* Limited to # magic items created. Can be exchanged later. Rare

It's kind of ridiculous how much of this wishlist BoB fulfills.

[Korbel]

It's kind of ridiculous how much of this wishlist BoB fulfills.

You got hacked many years ago and this is how it all has started...

* FULL PLATE IS NOT STRICTLY BETTER THAN MAILLE

And what do you mean?