Erfworld: The Literal Roleplaying Game

[Konaa]

I've seen a bunch of rules for Erfworld games made in this section, it's pretty obviously the main point of it. And a lot of them are pretty good, from a gaming perspective! I have always wanted to try my own, but I realize that I have a very poor head for numbers. Then I remembered- besides the strategy mechanics, what's the other really distinctive thing about Erfworld? The characters, of course!

Here's my proposal, in laconic: A turn based strategy game that is ALSO an rp.

Sounds a bit crazy, don't it? I know that there has been rp in the Erfworld games played here before, but what I have in mind is a bit different. Most people have always been their own side, but this would change that. So, a person would rp a ruler...and if enough people were participating, another person would rp the Chief Warlord. Another person would be a caster...It could go all the way down to Commander, depending on the way it plays. The real way to capture Erfworld in game form, in my opinion, is to mix the intense character conflict in.

It would also make for interesting situations considering multiple engagements a Side could be in. If a Ruler is using his/her Natural Thinkamancy to command one battle, a second engagement that a player character was at would be directed by that PC's command. In addition, diplomacy and the conflicts become so much more interesting if there is true backstory and motivation behind it.

Like I said, I'm not good with numbers. What I'm posting here is just an idea. Really, I was wondering if anyone liked the looks of it, and wanted to give me a hand in designing it.

[tigerusthegreat]

Hmmm...I have an idea. Since levelling is based on battles and caster power seems to be reflected by level as well. We could turn the migh and magic hero system to this purpose.

Basically every level you character gains one or two traits. These traits increase their abilities, and trait combinations provide other bonuses. Ill work out a full list later but command comes to mind, as does each subschool of magic (since casters seem very specialized but still capable of learning others). The whole thing would be tree based, so you would need say basic croakamancy to learn intermedi7ate croakamancy etc to master class croakamancy. This would also make a longer game more interesting.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Sigh. I'll play the rain on your parade.

Having recently tried to GM something myself, I have this to say. If you want character interaction of any depth, some kind of physical, or at least real-time, interaction between the players is required. Play by forum games have a nasty habit of lingering in turn 1, because nobody finds either the urgency to pose an order, or lacks the gall to just go ahead and do something without consulting their allies.

[tigerusthegreat]

Time limits help. But it is the sort of. Thing where you will loose people. Having a reliable cw and leader would help, putting molst of the responsibility on them. Add in the ability to drop pcs into npc tatus when they don't post

[tigerusthegreat]

Okay, here's some rough theory on how you could make characters more interesting to play. It would require a massive rework of many systems that are in existence, but here's a shot (I'll be updating as I think more about this):

Traits are gained as units, warlords, and casters level. These traits can be improved over time, and combinations of traits can provide bonuses, and even alter the class of the unit/warlord/caster.

Units gain 1 trait per level, and have an extremely limited selection. Units that have "natural" traits can improve these traits as if they had access to them (so a natural thinkamancer like an archon can improve their thinkamancy trait).
Warlords and Casters gain 2 traits per level. Warlords typically cannot gain caster traits, and casters typically cannot gain leadership-related traits.
Heirs and Faction Leaders gain 3 traits per level (not retroactively, only when leveling while heir/leader). Typically they have access to warlord traits (though caster leaders/heirs are not unheard of). They can gain the Rulership and related trait.

NOTE: games utilizing these rules should not include level as a calculation for combat. Traits should give bonuses naturally to higher level units.

Each skill tree has one Primary and three Secondary skills. Secondary skills cannot be levelled past the level of their primary skill.

Skills have four levels: Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master.

Skill Trees:

General (available to everyone):

Hardiness (Primary): Increases Hits of a unit (10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Melee Attack (Secondary): Increases Melee Attack of a unit (10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Defense (Secondary): Increases Defense of a unit (10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Ranged Attack (Secondary): Increases Ranged Attack of a unit (10%/20%/30%/40%)

Scouting (Primary): Increases sight range of a unit (1 hex/2 hexes/3 hexes/ 4 hexes)
*Pathfinding (secondary): Decreases movement penalty of difficult terrain (0.25 point reduction/0.5 reduction/0.75 reduction/1 reduction)
*Stealth (secondary): Increases chance of remaining hidden from enemy scouts (invisible to units with scouting lower than your stealth)
*Maneuver (secondary): Increases Movement of a unit (0.5/1/1.5/2)

Warlord (available to warlords and leaders/heirs):

Leadership (Primary): Grants bonuses to all units in a stack (+20%/+40%/+60%/+80%)
*Offensive Tactics (secondary): Grants bonus to attack of a stack (+10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Defensive Tactics (secondary): Grants bonus to defense of a stack (+10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Mobility (secondary): Increases movement of a stack (+25%/50%/75%/100%)

Rulership (Available to leaders/heirs):

Rulership (Primary): Increases Schmukers per turn (10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Estates (secondary): Reduces upkeep costs of all units (10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Contracting (secondary): Reduces costs of hiring mercenaries/casters. Also reduces interest penalty of loans (10%/20%/30%/40%)
*Diplomacy (secondary): Increases recruitment rate of natural allies (10%/20%/30%/40%)

Magic (Available to Casters):
NOTES: All magic traits have a primary trait (the class of magic) that increases a caster's juice and potency of spells of that class. They then also have 3 secondary traits that have specific effects, as well as improving magic of that type.

This is also a major work in progress as I'm not sure how to handle magic just yet.

You must have the primary skill to use any spell scrolls of the secondary skills type.

Any magic secondary that allows you to create units also provides you with the leadership skill for those unit types equal to its level (master croakamancy would act like master leadership towards uncroaked).

Hocus Pocus (Primary) Increases Juice (10/20/30/40)
*Findamancy (secondary)
*Predictamancy (secondary)
*Mathamancy (secondary)

Spookism (Primary)
*Turnamancy (secondary)
*Dollomancy (secondary) can create cloth golems at a cost of 1 juice per hit. Increases effectiveness of dollomancy spells (1 hit/1.3/1.6/2| 20%/40%/60%/80%)
*Weirdomancy (secondary)

Stuffamancy (Primary)
*Dirtamancy (secondary) can create rock/crap golems at a cost of 1 juice per hit. Increases effectiveness of dirtamancy spells (1 hit/1.3/1.6/2| 20%/40%/60%/80%)
*Changemancy (secondary)
*Dittomancy (secondary)

Eyemancy (Primary)
*Lookamancy (secondary)
*Thinkamancy (secondary)
*Foolamancy (secondary)

Hippiemancy (Primary)
*Flower Power (secondary): Can create flower creatures at a cost of 1 juice per hit, increases flower power spell effectiveness (1 hits/1.3/1.6/2| 20%/40%/60%/80%)
*Signamancy (secondary)
*Date-a-mancy (secondary)

Naughtymancy (Primary)
*Shockamancy (secondary)
*Croakamancy (secondary) Can raise corpses as uncroaked at a cost of 1 juice per hit, Increases croakamancy spell effectiveness (1 hit/1.3 hits/1.6 hits/2 hits| 20%/40%/60%/80%)
*Rectonjuration (secondary)

Stagemancy (Primary)
*Hat Magic (secondary)
*Carnymancy (secondary)
*Rhyme-o-mancy (secondary)

Clevermancy (Primary)
*Luckamancy (Secondary)
*Healomancy (Secondary) Can heal 1 hit of damage at the cost of 1 juice. Increases heal spell effectiveness (1 dam/1.3/1.6/2.0|20%/40%/60%/80%)
*Moneymancy (Secondary)

[LTDave]

because nobody finds either the urgency to pose an order, or lacks the gall to just go ahead and do something without consulting their allies.

Except me. I love acting without consulting my allies.

[tigerusthegreat]

If anyone has suggestions for spells or what the magic traits should do I am open to ideas.

[tigerusthegreat]

Would anyone be interested in playing such a game, where your onne caster/warlord that you directly control would be your primary concern.

[Konaa]

It's my opinion that magic really needs to have as little built in rules about it as possible.

Form what we've seen in the comics, the casters can utilize their powers in countless ways, and I want there to be no restrictions on what they can think of doing. So for more bizarre ways of utilizing magic, such as creating artifacts, they'd need to consult with the person running the game. Otherwise...I'd just use common sense.

Also, maybe a game like this wouldn't work for the reasons you stated, BLAND. No reason not to try anyway!

[tigerusthegreat]

Yeah I am thinking that as well. I want each magic trait to increase juice and provide a general use (such as making uncroaked or golems with the relevant skills). And maybe have a few generic spells or examples to provide guidelines.

[Azgrut]

The problem without a strickt system to magic is that you create a wild card that can solve everything. I have seen this on other forum RPG's a lot. Once mages enter play, the level of power playing increases.

Example. The player(s) enter a moment of ultimate desperation. They are cornered by an army with a high level commander. One of the players is a advanced thinkamancer so not real high level. He decides that his power should be adequate to mind probe the high level commander and effectively kills it. He makes an epic post about how he is barely able to withstand the ultimate powers he is wielding and in the end, he spends his juice for the turn and effectively destroys the commander.

some could say that he would not be able to destroy the commander. But why not? the caster has been given free reign over his powers didn't he? So the GM has to retcon the post of the caster, creating frustration and all other nastyness.

I have seen this kind of behaviour in forum games a lot. So I would say that magic should be limited to only a certain number of clearly defined spells.

Anyway, intrest is here . Though in case of magic I would stick only to casters we know about.

[tigerusthegreat]

Maybe I'm the evil sort of DM, but I would have (in that situation) allowed it to happen, but it would kill off the caster, and probably do something just as bad to every other allied character there. Then, of course, I'd have the real power behind the scenes show up and laugh at the pitiful attempt to stop him.

I think that a general set of guidelines (via trait descriptions and sample spells) should provide a framework for the magic system. A lot of it will be based on a Y juice to effect X hits mechanic, so you could influence a unit via thinkamancy, but it would cost you so much juice depending on its hits. It would be very easy to screw with the loyalty of a 5 hit creature, but a 50 hit monstrocity would be a difficult thing, that only a master class thinkamancer with a lot of juice could do. I think I'll have offensive magic actions work against effective hits and not base, to represent a unit's training and traits and how they impact its difficulty to be effected by magic.

I think I am going to use all the schools of magic, not just the ones introduced. Only one that would be weird is retconjuration, but I figured I would make it a sort of jack-of-all-trades. You could emulate another magic type, but at a higher cost and only one school per turn. It also could not be used to make or use items. Since you wouldn't get bonuses for magic traits for those schools, it would be weaker than having even the basic level of that school.

[Azgrut]

So there will be rules to casting .

If this game comes from the ground, I'll be most interested to join.