codewringer / ambersteel-ruleset

This is the ruleset of the STRIVE TTRPG

STRIVE TTRPG

STRIVE is a table-top role-playing game (TTRPG), requiring a game master (GM) and at least one player to play.

Core

The core rules-document presents the system's core rules that both players and GM must know. There is also a reminder/reference sheet: core-rules reminder sheet

The gm-guide-document provides guidance and hints solely directed at the GM. There is also a reminder/reference sheet: gm reminder sheet

Modules

Modules extend or alter the core rules, to fit a specific theme or setting. They are designed to be as light-weight as possible and only serve as supplements to the core rules. They can not be used for play on their own.

Currently officially supported modules are:

• Medieval fantasy - Low to medium fantasy in a medieval world.

ambersteel-ruleset's Issues

More damage types and damage type specific injuries

It may not in fact be necessary to introduce dozens of damage type specific injuries. Instead, one "flat"-injury per specific type may be sufficient.
The advantage would be keeping a variety for the specific types. The disadvantage may of course be, that variety is reduced.

Ranged combat lacking

Requires rules for

• cover
• aimed shots
• reloading?
• difficulty to hit at distance
• How to determine where missed shots/throws impact?

Throwing

• Bulk affects distance to throw.
• How much damage does a thrown weapon do?

Take out specific other role playing system names

While inspiration for game mechanics is taken from other systems, they're neither direct copies, nor is any concession of reference made "safe".

As things stand now, the system is growing out of its infancy and is about to find its own identity amongst the sea of role playing game systems. Even with the inspiration from other systems, a unique twist to them is applied almost all throughout and no reference to copyrightable material should be made.

This also implies making sure the names of mechanics are sufficiently "objective" and "functional" descriptors, requiring no cross-reference to a piece of writing with the same name from another system.

Acting past magic stamina causes +1 exhaustion

Without this, a mage could potentially keep casting non-hurtful magic forever. E. g. Illusion.

Spell-backfire probably too likely

Magic is supposed to be powerful. To that end, spell-backfire shouldn't be as likely as it is.

What Ob to choose for a death's door toughness test?

Multiple Single Target (MST) paragraph incorrect

Multiple Single Target (MST)

A single-target (ST) action affects up to a maximum number of targets.

should be

Multiple Single Target (MST)

A multiple-single-target (MST) action affects at least one and up to a maximum number of targets.

Asset slot refinements

Asset slots should be restricted to holding only assets up to a maximum allowed bulk. There is a set default for how much bulk a slot can hold and this limit can be raised through strength.

Perhaps for every 3 points in strength, all asset slots can hold +1 maximum bulk. This would allow very strong characters to hold more larger assets.

Assuming a kite shield has a bulk of 3, and there are two slots - one for each hand - which each can hold 2 bulk, then the character will need both hands to hold this one asset. Even though 1 bulk would be "free", the slot it's tied to, isn't. Only if the character raises their strength enough to reach the next threshold, for example 6, will they be able to hold the shield in one hand and something else in the other.

How to roll magic?

It isn't quite clear, how many dice are available to a magic roll and how magic stamina factors into that, if at all.

"State" section mistakes

• "A state can have positive or negative effects on them[...]" -> "A character can have positive or negative effects on them[...]"
• "Unconscious" - the last part doesn't make sense. It should say "[...]or the character is helped back to consciousness. "

"Procedures" - rules that suggest game flow structures

In recent RPG design discourse "procedures" refers to those rules that structure how the game is meant to be played. The most common example of procedures is tactical combat. Rules like "players take turns in initiative order declaring what they want to do", and "on each character's turn they can move up to their speed and perform one main action" are procedures.

OSR games, despite usually being light on rules, tend to have a lot of procedures. Things like travel turns, dungeon turns, faction turns, downtime, random encounter procedures, etc. are very common in OSRs and provide a lot of structure to the flow of the game.

As a non-OSR example OP mentioned Blades in the Dark which is also pretty light on rules but has a lot of procedures around downtime, jobs, players having initiative, crew advancement, etc. PbtA games have a lot of procedures baked into the player and GM moves, since those define the situations when the GM should call for rolls, and what kinds of results the GM should put forth from those rolls.

Having a lot of procedures makes things easier on the GM because it guides the gameplay loop and helps determine what aspects of the game should be focused on and considered important. If you want an example of how it's useful, try this thought experiment. Imagine how much harder it would be on the GM to run a combat in D&D (or another similar game) if there were still rules for attacking, casting spells, etc but no procedures for turns, initiative, action economy, times, etc. Because in a lot of systems that's what the majority of non-combat gameplay is like.

Quote from user youngoli on from this reddit thread.

• For downtime, travel, holdings management, etc.

Introduce "worn & equipped" assets

Currently, a weak character may not even be able to wear clothes or carry any non-essential things, because all "on person" possessions of a character end up occupying at least one inventory slot.

It is also a bit cumbersome to figure out which equipment is currently actually in use, vs. stored in a backpack or in pouches.

Therefore, it may be worthwhile to introduce another section to the character sheet: "Worn & Equipped", which can hold:

• One slot for clothing.
• One slot for armor.
• A slot for every hand. Two-handed weapons would occupy two slots.
  • This would allow creatures with more than two appendages to potentially hold a lot more things.
• One slot for a backpack or other back-strapped thing.
• Any number of jewelry or other worn ornaments.

If this new section is introduced, the old "Possessions (on person)" section should be renamed to "Luggage" and the amount of item slots that strength awards, should be reduced.

Add a procedure for generating appropriately challenging encounters

This should be a section in the GM guide, which helps GMs generate NPCs for use in social or combat encounters.

Procedures for macro-elements of a world

Often times, GMs need to come up with their own system to determine how any given faction in their world might act and react. Perhaps these behaviors could be found through defined procedures, that help with the decision-making process?

Such procedures could help with setting up and keeping track of the various factions. Even within a faction, there are certain interest groups. Once a GM has determined the variety and influence of these factions, dice rolls with respect to the weights of these different interests could ultimately determine the strategy of the faction.

There could even be rules for collaborative world-building. At least to an extent that is emergent through play.

Inconsistent skill tiering

In the "Advancing Skills" and "Skills" sections, the three tiers of skills are defined with different ranges. Consolidate these.

Fantasy Rules: Section must be noted as a limited replacement

In the fantasy rules, beneath "Determine Abilities", the following paragraph should be moved to the "Choosing Attributes" section, instead.

This section replaces the section of the same name from the core rules.

Individual initiative, instead of group initiative?

As it currently stands, time-critical - especially combat - encounters, wherein the PC group faces only a single opponent can be very one-sided and heavily in the PCs' favor, if they get to act first. This potentially weakens enemies in an unpredictable fashion.

Instead, individual initiative would prove more flexible and dynamic. Enemies can get a chance to fight back more often.

For example, a particularly nasty enemy could get their turn after every PC turn. This would allow balancing out the action economy, which is impossible with group initiative.

Of course, in proper RPG-fashion, a base initiative may be determined, based on the attributes and perhaps even skills of a character.

• Perhaps the sum of Perception, Intelligence and Empathy, divided by three and rounded up, could make the base number.
• Then, to determine the initiative for a time-critical encounter, a D10 is rolled and the base initiative added to it.
  • Higher numbers get their turn earlier while lower numbers get their turn later.
  • If two characters achieve the same number, they roll a D10 again, until one rolls a higher number than the other.

Rename Instincts to Troublemakers & Assurances

This may be a more intuitive naming scheme.

Fix references to a now non-existent "burn injuries table/list"

Since there no longer are type specific lists of injuries, the references to the burn injuries table that previously existed must be replaced.

Correct number of dice for skill test in `Tests` section

Currently, there is a discrepancy between what the "Tests" and the "Skills" section tell the reader about how many dice they are to add for a skill test, from the related attribute.

Therefore, in the "Tests" section correct this mistake, by copying the description from the "Skills" section over. Testing with half the related attribute is the current rule to be used.

New magic school: Electromancy

• Shoot arcs of lightning.
• Trigger electrical machines.
• Stun.

Ob for bludgeoning unconsciousness undefined

At what Ob should an endurance test be succeeded to avoid a bludgeoning attack causing unconsciousness?

Perhaps the degree of success of the attacker's attack test could be the Ob?

Rename "Possessions" -> "Property"

Reconsider what the "identity" of the system is

Currently, I find the system contradicts itself in places. There are promises made that are not kept, such as keeping a PC for a long time to play, but simultaneously making combat very deadly, reducing PC life expectancy drastically.

Figure out what precisely sets this system apart from the masses, if anything.

Boons for cultural backgrounds during character creation?

Characters could receive permanent boons for being born in a specific culture of the GM's world. A section in the core rules should clarify this. But groups should be mindful to keep the number and intensity of boons minimal, so as not to create a crass imbalance of fledgling characters.

Characters sharing a "deep" moment, could receive boons

Two player characters sharing an emotional moment, could allow them to "recover" from mental strains. But first, mental strains would need to be codified.

Refine magic school skills

The magic school skills often don't follow a common format. This should be corrected with a unified way format.

Procedure for figuring out the local market

It should reasonably take some time to get a feeling for the local market. How much time is not currently formally described.
Perhaps this could also rely on the PC's merchant reputation?

Reconsider the attribute advancement numbers

Currently, the numbers are very high and possibly quite unreasonable. Even assuming a player uses one of the higher level attributes a lot, it's still unlikely they'll ever see one of their attributes advance.

Perhaps a tiering system like it exists for skills could help solve the problem?

Formalize reputation

Usually, the PCs' reputation as a group and as individuals is handled informally. The GM may have notes on who the PCs may have wronged or done a favor for, but whether that actually factors into play is up to the GM.

Perhaps reputation could be formalized, instead? Reputation could be tracked, somehow. Perhaps as a number or perhaps as a state, like "good friends with ___" or "wronged ___".

Alternatively, not what the PCs did might be tracked, but how they're perceived. Perhaps as a number or as a state, like "known to be arrogant", "known to be blood-thirsty", "known to be kind and benevolent", "known to be fair" and so on.

A good reputation could install boons to the PCs, while a bad reputation may cause them trouble. Of course, this would have to be tied to the people on whom and location where they made an impression.

Boons might be things like allies during battle, easier access to assets, much easier negotiations with people from that faction, easier trade and so on.

Trouble could be things like people being more suspicious and guarded, resulting in more difficult negotiations and trade, restricted access to assets, more frequent and more severe conflicts, even mercenaries and assassins being sent after them.

Re-brand the rule system

Originally, the system was founded with the intent to write a highly flexible fantasy system, which honed into the idea of a supernatural element called "ambersteel" or in its raw form "amberite". By now, the system has evolved into something far more broad and unspecific than that. The entire rule system no longer revolves around this magical material. In fact, it barely matters and can be seen as a world specific, which the system should not dictate.

So, a more broad name is needed. This will require a re-branding of the repository, as well.

The new name should represent the system as a whole, as concisely as possible. The key aspects are:

• Ever evolving fictional characters. -> Evolution/Fluidity
• Driving players (and their characters) to action. -> Driving/Motion
• Long-term and large-scale goals. -> Ambitions
• Extensibility/Flexibility.

Ideas for names:

• Advance
• Advance & Aspire
• Driven!
• Drive!
• Ambition
• Ambitious
• STRIVE

Write up a "reminder" sheet for players and GM

This "reminder" sheet should be a very short and broad overview of the system's mechanics to keep in mind during play. Hopefully, this will help with remembering to constantly pay attention to pc personality changes, fate points earned, aspirations pursued, injuries and illnesses to handle and so on.

Extract all medieval-fantasy things to a "module"

To pave the way for a more flexible and "universal" system, the system must become theme and setting agnostic. It would probably make sense to have the original document relabeled as the "core rules" of the system.

Any module should preferably only add rules. Modifying the core material too much might detach the module from its foundation, at worst causing great confusion among players and GM, when confronted with conflicting rules.

Skill increase requirements are too steep, tone the numbers down!

The early levels should be much easier to acquire. In turn, the later levels should remain harder to learn.

Thus, an exponential requirements increase may be required.

Consider an alternative to "more dice" at higher levels

When at higher levels and forking several other skills into a test, a player can easily get a lot of dice to roll. This may potentially slow down the game a lot and also requires having a lot of dice on hand. At least for analog play, this can be a bother.

Perhaps an alternative to higher levels granting more dice could be found?

• Perhaps the numbers that make a face a positive could change as levels are gained? Usually, a 5 or a 6 count as a positive. But what if at higher levels, the number of dice to roll is reduced, but the 4 and even 3 are also considered a positive?
• Or perhaps dice with a higher face count could be used. Like migrating to a D8 and then a D10. And any number above 4 is considered a positive?

Make it clear that all combatants in a combat round start with their 3 AP

When combatants begin combat, they all start with 3 AP. Once it is their turn, they retain those 3 and do not accumulate any more, until the start of their second turn (the next combat round).

Threshold in semi-random attribute assignment too low?

With semi-random attribute assignment, the threshold is currently defined as 23, while for manual assignment it is defined as 26. Should there be this discrepancy? If not, both thresholds should be 26.

Combat probably too deadly

Combat and failure may be too deadly and thus disincentivize experimentation and roleplaying.

• Troublemakers shouldn't be able to "kill" a character or get them into trouble too seriously.
• The system assumes players will be playing characters for a long time. As such, the risk of losing them should be manageable. Therefore, combat mustn't be too unpredictable or too easy to lose. On the other hand, combat shouldn't take too long because of combatants taking too long to lose. A balance must be struck.
• Perhaps special assets could be used to prolong life expectancy. A "laudanum" potion might stave off all ill-effects of injuries for a while. Or perhaps it could set an injury to "treated" status for 24 hours.

Movement too easy and free?

Currently, being able to move for 6m/18' per AP spent allows a character to very quickly move a very great distance, in just a single combat round.

Consider lowering this number and making it variable, perhaps even tied to an attribute?

Skills dependent on other skills?

To allow for further specialization and more unique skill-sets, some skills could be made to depend on others.

That means, in order for a character to learn skill A, they must first have learned skill B and at a given minimum level. It could even be made so that a skill requires multiple other skills at certain levels.

Magic schools in particular could benefit from more specialized variants. For example, alteration could allow for a shape-shifter specialization, which might allow a character to more easily transform their own body. Another option would be interdisciplinary magic schools. Like being able to combine pyromancy with telepathy for the ability to teleport with an explosion or teleport a fire ball somewhere.

• A consideration is how advancement might work for such skills. Do both the skill and its dependent skills improve, or only the skill that was exercised?
• Another consideration is why a character might use the more basic variant of a skill, when they could instead use the more specialized version?
  • A solution might be to make it so that a chosen specialization replaces the more basic skill.
  • Another solution might be to not define specialized skills, at all but instead define certain "boons" that unlock or can be chosen at specific skill levels.

Sprinting?

A character may choose to run faster - in a sprint - for a time. For example, each use of "sprint" may extend the movement range within the same turn/time frame by double, but cost 1 point of exhaustion.

Telepathy should allow conferring knowledge

It should be a high level skill ability to confer knowledge telepathically. Perhaps this could immediately boost someone else's level in a given skill that the mage knows, up to the mage's level in the skill.

Rename and relabel "belief system" to "driver system"

• As a further step to cement the system's uniqueness and to better serve the underlying concept, instead of referring to it as "belief system", it should be "driver system".
• A driver drives a character to an action. Their ambition, aspirations and reactions all drive them to action. Drivers prevent inaction - and thus stagnation of a character's development.

Fate points could be made downwards-convertible

Like a MaFP -> 3 MiFP
AFP might be too difficult to balance against

Character Traits

Pendragon has traits and passions, essentially stats for personality traits! Traits can help codify a character’s personality and are usually a background thing that fluctuate sometimes as you role play. They are split between opposing character traits and (usually) add up to 20. So if one side has 12, the other has 8. Some examples are Energetic/Lazy and Prudent/Reckless. But, when they reach a certain threshold, 16, they become signature traits. Your character is known for them! At that point, you have to roll to NOT act that way, which leads to your character sometimes doing things that you, as a player, wouldn’t necessarily choose. But the traits change based on how you role play, so you led your character to that point by playing them that way.

Quote from user BeakyDoctor in this reddit thread.

Traits could be added as a further means of codifying a player character and making their personality bend to their actions.

Practice cycle for attributes is too long.

Perhaps the practice cycle might be 1 month instead of 2, or even more frequent than that.

More early tactical choices

Currently, many of the co-operatively or tactically interesting skill abilities are gated behind specialization. While specialization should still award desirable unique abilities, more basic tactical choices should be made available. Fledgling characters currently cannot make enough meaningful choices in combat.

Perhaps more choices could be made available more broadly. Perhaps all characters could even be given a basic combat skill ("fighting"?), which gives them a base line of options to work with.

"Beliefs" - "Goals" relationship

Ideally, the immediate goals are directly based on and related to a character's beliefs. Therefore, following one's goals should still always play to a belief.

A consideration is whether the immediate goals should replace or supplement the beliefs section.

Goals that aren't founded in a belief should be discouraged, although not downright disallowed. After all, the goals and beliefs of a character are what informs a GM and other players what the player hopes and expects to see happen to their character.

Turn modified level into modifier

The current system of having to also track the modified level as the "de facto level" is confusing. It should be changed to that the modifier turns into a value that is added onto the raw level to yield the de facto level.

Defense might be too easy/strong

Especially considering that defense is 'free', since it doesn't cost any action points, defense might be too easy or effective.

Also consider fledgling characters vs. experienced veterans. Perhaps once more dice come into play, defense actually ends up much less effective?