ShatteredPrism:Mechanics Eval

Shattered Prism RPG

Introduction

Here I will post a listing of mechanics from my notes and current working system which I feel are 'unique' in some way. From here I'll have to decide if these mechanics are actually supporting the kind of gameplay I want.

Time Chain

Continous time tracking. All combat scenes start on turn zero, moving upwards infinitely until resolution. Each second of in-game time is a seperate turn. A printed mat or board can show 10-20 seconds/turns at a time, markers can be used to represent individual characters, and moved around as needed to indicate their turn.

Action Costs

Performing actions in combat requires the expenditure of two resources, Energy and Time. Time cost determines how long the actions takes to perform, and affects when your next turn comes. Energy is a shared resource pool used to make Actions, activate Abilities, and Move in combat.

Blackjack Percentiles

A description for a dice mechanic using percentile die throws. After determining a Target Number (TN), success comes when rolling a percentile die (1D%) and getting a result as close to the TN without going over. Like the card game blackjack.

Physical/Mental Attribs

Attributes are split evenly among Mental and Physical aspects. With both aspects divided into Strength, Coordination, and Endurance.

Skill Templates

Instead of taking time to select individual skills from a long list at chargen, slowing things down as the player looks back and forth; players instead choose a set of Templates from a much smaller list. These templates have associated skill and ability lists, along with necessary values.

Nested SKills

The concept where the skill list is divided into nested heirarchies, with sub-skills simply being more focused variants of the parent skill. An example would be Firearms > Handguns > Semi-Automatics > Glock 9mm.

Armor Rules

The mechanics by which armor is defined and handled. The Armor Threshold and Armor Capacity traits define a system whereby armor is capable of fully negating a portion of any attack, but the armor gradually degrades with each successive attack until the armor eventually becomes useless. Armor can also be stacked to provide multiple layers of defense, each of which must be broken through or bypassed in turn.

Growth by Use

This describes a system which allows the growth of skill proficiency through in-game use. The system provides four methods for characters to improve their capabilities during gameplay

by chance, through practice, by training, and by teaching. Each method provides successively better results, at increased mechanical costs.

Skill Attrition

A system whereby the total number of skills or skill points a character may possess is fixed at some upper limit. This limit is a derivation of one or more attributes. When this 'cap' has been reached, a character may 'forget' less useful skills to free up space within the cap.

Damage Types

Specialized sub-rules for damage resolution which allow varying types and degrees of wounding to occur. A chart lists types of damage, and possible types of wounding.

Degree of Success

A chart which can be referenced during a dice roll to determine a degree of success. Three to seven levels of success can impose bonuses or penalties to the outcome of any action check using the DoS rules. Anything from extra damage on an attack, to a catastrophic outcome on a skill check.

Skill Specialties

A skill specialty (Spec) can be taken for virtually any circumstance, and are purely descriptive in nature. As such, they can be applied to many different skills, and provide static boosts to skill checks.

Intent Cards

Intent cards are used during Time Chain sequence ties. Where two or more characters are scheduled to Act on the same turn. Using color coded cards, the players simultaneously declare the stance of their Action, either Aggressive, Defensive, or Neutral. By default, all Aggressive Actions are resolved first. This is to prevent players from retconning their intended action after learning the intent of another player.

Equipment Cards

The statistics of all weapons, and most equipment, is recorded on small cards (3x5 possible). These cards can be carried aorund like a deck, and limit much of the record-keeping associated with traditional character sheets. Weapons which require ammunition will have seperate ammo cards, which can be further seperated by clips, bursts, or individual rounds.

Unit Cards

Instead of traditional character sheets, most if not all the important statistics for describing an in-game character are recorded on small cards. This applies to both PCs and NPCs, though NPC cards may contain less data, and thus may be smaller in physical size.

Quality of Success

Quality of Success is a mechanic intended to allow Attributes and Skills to directly affect the quality of the outcome of an action. The primary use of this is in combat, where the result of a die roll becomes part of the formula to determine damage, with the other component of this formula being a modifier from the weapon itself. Usually the modifier on the Gear will be a multiplier for the value derived from the die roll.

Defender Debuff

Many games resolve a defense check in such a way that the attacker first rolls, then the defender attempts to cancel/mitigate the attack. This mechanic removes one die roll by integrating the defender's score as a penalty to the attacker's initial roll.

3-Tier Health

Health is represented by three tiers of resource pools, each of which can be depleted seperately or successively. The first tier is Stamina, which is used in conjunction with an optional Stamina Threshold, and represents inherent armor or other abilities which can 'soak' damage or ignore pain. Not all characters will possess a Stamina Threshold rating, and so the first tier becomes optional. The second tier is Vitality, and is used to track incoming 'stun'-type damage. Injuries which cause no permanent damage to the body, but which are intended to cause pain or induce unconciousness will deplete Vitality first. The final tier is Trauma, and represents physical damage to the body and is analogous to Hit Points in traditional RPGs. Incoming damage must first deplete Stamina (if Stamina Threshold is greater than zero), then deplete Vitality (if of a stun type), and finally deplete Trauma before the character becomes incapacitated.

Dual-type Chargen

This describes part of the chargen system whereby starting attributes are assigned by one of two alternate rules. The first rule uses a random distribution of points, and is intended for players who do not already have a character concept and want to craft the concept around the random stats. The second method has players allocating points as they wish from a central pool, and is intended for those who already have a concept in mind and want to tailor their stats to match.

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