Mechanics (Gold and Phase System)

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Post Post #15 (isolation #0) » Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:30 pm

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

IMHO, I think the number of phases should be a set number to avoid a massive balancing issue.
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Post Post #19 (isolation #1) » Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:09 pm

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

So what kind of negatives would age give you?

Also, further phases could have diminishing returns where you get fewer skills for each individual phase. At a certain point, the negatives of aging (whatever they may be) would outweigh the positives of getting just one more skill point.
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Post Post #39 (isolation #2) » Fri May 11, 2012 10:17 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Maybe anybody who is over a certain age gains an "old"' aspect that the mod can check off. Greater age increases the level of this aspect. That's simple, and easy to implement within the system. If we put that with DN's system it could work. However, what age would start to proc the "old" aspect? What sort of benefits could we give to those who use fewer phases? Because otherwise power-gamers will make characters that are exactly at the limit, so they have maximum skills but no old age.

As for gold, I really don't think it should be tied to phases. It doesn't make any sense, really. I think everybody should start out with a set amount of gold that can be augmented by aspects. For instance, a person with a "noble" aspect might start out with twice as much gold, while a "pauper" would start out with half. Before the game begins, you can spend as much of your gold as you want on items, then when you actually get into the game you have those items and whatever gold you have left over. Gold can be gained in obvious ways. The tricky bit is determining how much gold is worth. For that we really need a list of all the types of items that are in the game. Then we can say something like "a sword will cost 100 gold" and then base everything else off of that.
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Post Post #40 (isolation #3) » Fri May 11, 2012 10:18 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Also: how does advancement work?
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Post Post #47 (isolation #4) » Mon May 14, 2012 11:05 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »


Suppose we say the basic needs of a middle class family cost about 1 gold/day and work from there?
A swordsmith that would earn about 500 gold a year in profits, say he has 2 apprentices that each earn 200 gold/year and they make 100 high quality swords, 50% of the cost is in materials and he also needs money for upkeep in his smithy which is around 1000 gold. A high quality sword would cost about 40 gold. A foundry might make a few thousand average swords in a year bringing the price down to maybe 1/10th of that.
A sword made by the best smith in the city and/or enchanted by a mage might cost 100-200 gold.


That's a good idea, but making an average day's wage equal to 1 gold could create some problems. For instance, how much would a loaf of bread or a glass of beer cost? Those would be less than one gold, and I don't think we want to get into half-golds and other coinage. What if we make an average daily salary 100 gold and multiply all your values by 100? That way we can also have mundane items, such as a loaf of bread and a glass a beer at around 5 gold.
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Post Post #50 (isolation #5) » Tue May 15, 2012 5:51 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

I don't see any gain from making money weighted, but I see a ton of negatives. It's just not worth it.
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Post Post #52 (isolation #6) » Tue May 15, 2012 11:34 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Okay, I've got an idea to balance people with different phases: potential.

The younger you start out, the more potential you have. That means that younger characters who start out with fewer/lower skills will gain more skills when they advance. For instance, a character that starts out as an adolescent might gain 6 skills per advancement, whereas an old coot might only gain 2 skills. This could act as a balancing mechanic to discourage people from making over-powered characters. It could look something like this:

<4 phases: 6 skills/advancement (NOT PER PHASE!)
5 phases: 5 skills
6 phases: 4 skills
7 phases: 3 skills
8 phases: 2 skills
>8 phases: 1 skill

For aging, if its 5 years per phase, then an 8 phase character would be 40 (or non-human equivalent), which is actually pretty old. We should probably hard-cap the number of starting phases at 10 or 12. If you character starts out 40 or older, then you must gain a negative, age-related attribute. For ever phase over 40, you have to either gain another attribute, or increase your existing one.

Another way to balance the phases is through fate points, young characters could start out with more fate points, whilst old characters won't start with any. Something like this:

4 or fewer phases: 3 points
5-6 phases: 2 points
7-8 phases: 1 point
>8 phases: 0 points

This way an old character could start out super-powerful, but wouldn't advance as fast and would have fewer fate points.
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Post Post #58 (isolation #7) » Wed May 16, 2012 7:47 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

In post 53, inspiratieloos wrote:(8*4-4*4)/(6-2)=4, I think you're overpowering young characters. I also don't think Fate points are able to compensate for less skills in the long term.
What's the problem with just doing as the rulebook suggests?

Magic does tend to make the average age higher for it's time (better facilities despite not having the technology to do such things without magic).


Obviously we'll need to tweak the exact numbers, I was mainly using that as an example. With that in mind, I don't think we'll need to change the number of fate points.
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Post Post #59 (isolation #8) » Wed May 16, 2012 7:49 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Also, what does the rulebook say about this?
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Post Post #62 (isolation #9) » Wed May 16, 2012 9:54 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

In post 60, inspiratieloos wrote:
In post 4, inspiratieloos wrote:
@mods: Did you consider just using potential? pdf page 36


Hmm, that isn't bad, but the problem is that there's no reason to make a younger character since all the younger character can do is catch up. With that, its better to make an old character. You get the same number of skills, but you get them sooner.

The main problem with my system is that younger characters could become much more powerful than their older peers relatively quickly. 4 advancements until breaking even isn't that much, unless its takes a very long time to advance. Maybe we should make the gradient more gradual. If we do that, we could make fate points scale as well, because there still needs to be a non-roleplaying reason why I'd want a 4-phase character over a 5-phaser.

What do you feel is a reasonable break-even point? Tangential to that, how long will it take to advance?
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Post Post #63 (isolation #10) » Wed May 16, 2012 9:56 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

One other thing, I think we should only really try to balance 4-8 phase characters. <4 phase and >8 phase probably should be underpowered, because it would be a bitch to balance them and anybody playing a kid or an old dude is probably doing it for RP reasons in anyway.
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Post Post #72 (isolation #11) » Fri May 18, 2012 9:54 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Okay, about the potential, when are the extra skills of younger people applied? If they are applied during character creation then there's no real non RP difference between a 4-phase character and an 8-phaser, correct?
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Post Post #74 (isolation #12) » Fri May 18, 2012 10:07 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Okay, that sounds like the best plan. It's simple and effective.

As far as the gold is concerned. I think we should set the average working-class citizen's income at 125 gold per day. Figuring 5-day work weeks, that makes the yearly income 32,500, which is almost exactly the median individual's income in the United States. Essentially, this makes 1 gold = 1 US dollar. This will make it easy for the mods to come up with reasonable prices, especially since they're both from America.
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Post Post #77 (isolation #13) » Fri May 18, 2012 10:42 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Yeah, we shouldn't compare how much a sword costs today with how much it'll cost in Amstaad. A better product to compare it with would be the cost of a gun today. Also, the cost of a full suit of armour during the middle ages was comparable to the cost of a car today. So around 20,000 for a good set of armour, but that's a
good
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full
set of armour. An old, rusty set would cost the same as an old, rusty car. Light armour such as leather or fur would cost much less, maybe as much as a golf cart.
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Post Post #79 (isolation #14) » Sun May 20, 2012 8:20 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Um, so is the gold/phase system set? Next we can work on the combat system. After we do that, then we can make up a list of all the weapons/armours/items in the game. Then the magic system and magic items. After that, we just need a story and we're good to go.
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Post Post #88 (isolation #15) » Mon May 21, 2012 2:25 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

In post 82, Kcdaspot wrote:
In post 77, Bub Bidderskins wrote:Yeah, we shouldn't compare how much a sword costs today with how much it'll cost in Amstaad. A better product to compare it with would be the cost of a gun today. Also, the cost of a full suit of armour during the middle ages was comparable to the cost of a car today. So around 20,000 for a good set of armour, but that's a
good
,
full
set of armour. An old, rusty set would cost the same as an old, rusty car. Light armour such as leather or fur would cost much less, maybe as much as a golf cart.

This doesn't and shouldn't mean we are basing the gold system on or loosely around the USD.


I don't see any reason not to.
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Post Post #90 (isolation #16) » Mon May 21, 2012 4:46 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

I was thinking that there would be a set amount of money that every character starts with (modified by relevant attributes, of course). Before you enter the game you purchase any items you want with your money. When you actually get into the game, your character has all those items plus any extra money.

As to how much stuff costs, there are couple of things. Firstly, your character will probably not have an "average" income, unless you want to spend the whole game working on a farm or something. Secondly, you won't buy everything that you get, there's also this think called "loot" in the game ;-).
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Post Post #97 (isolation #17) » Mon May 21, 2012 6:30 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

That actually sounds more complicated than just having money.
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Post Post #102 (isolation #18) » Mon May 21, 2012 9:51 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

What about characters needing to spend money for sustenance? That could be a major pain in the ass, so we might just leave that out, unless the players want to buy beer or something for RP reasons.
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Post Post #110 (isolation #19) » Thu May 24, 2012 8:41 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Yes. Who are actually going to be the mods in anyway?
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Post Post #112 (isolation #20) » Sat May 26, 2012 9:17 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

Okay, so it'll basically be based off of insp's system, although I don't like the idea of having to roll to determine whether you can buy something or not. That just doesn't seem realistic. I say we make wealth a number from 0 to 5. Items and characters have a number for their wealth. If an item is below the character's wealth, then it's essentially free. If it's at the character's wealth, then it costs 1 point of wealth. If it's above the character's wealth, then the character can't buy it. 0 wealth represents the most mundane of mundane items. Bread and water. If you reach wealth 0, then you literally have no money and can't buy food.

Numerous items of lower wealth should add up to a higher wealth item. I was thinking about a base of 5. 5 level 0 items to reach level 1, 5 level 1 items to reach level 2, and so on.
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Post Post #114 (isolation #21) » Sat May 26, 2012 9:45 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

In post 113, DeathNote wrote:Thats fine Bub. I am just stating that items will not have a set cost and players will not have a set amount of gold.


Yeah, now that I think about it, it would be a pain for the mods to play accountant.
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