Elements Game System

Introduction

This system is still under construction and, among other things, seriously needs playtesting. If you do playtest this system, please post your thoughts on the discussion page.

Goals

This system is being designed with the following goals in mind. Regardless of anything else, these goals should take top priority in design decisions.

• This system should be able to handle quick games easilly. Time spent on anything other than telling the story is wasted in a quick game and should be kept to a minimum.
  • The time required to make a playable character should be as short as possible. The ideal would be to start with a completely blank character sheet, but anything that can be covered within about 30 minutes or less is acceptable.
  • The game mechanincs should, as much as possible, keep from slowing the game down.
    • There should be as few seperate mechanics as possible so that there's less to remember and less to look up.
    • Tables are useful, as long as they can all be fit on one or two pages. Cross-referencing tables takes longer and longer with each reference and should be kept to a minimum.
    • All contested actions should be resolved through a single mechanic. This applies to combat and magic too, at least for the most part.
• This should not (necessarilly) be a universal game system. A more focused system can better satisfy the main goal than a more generic system, at least within its specified genres.

Limitations

Based on the goals above, there will be some limitations to this system.

• While it can be adapted to other genres, it is focussed on the fantasy genre, although the time period is left undefined.
• The system is also focussed on mainly humanoid PCs and NPCs. Other races can be represented, but they may not be balanced as PCs.
• It doesn't aim to represent anything more accurately than it needs to. Some tradeoffs have been made for speed and playability over accuracy.

The Elements

Much of this game is built around the idea that everything relates to one of a few elements. This system was built using a set of six elements, arranged in a circle: Light, Air, Water, Dark, Earth, Fire. Elements opposite each other on the circle are antagonistic to each other, and elements adjacent to each other on the circle are allied. Six elements is convenient in that each element can be placed on one face of a standard d6, but, if you want, choosing a different set of elements is easy. The mechanic that most heavily relies on the choice of elements is magic.

Any other system of elements needs to specify two things. First, and most obviously, is the set of elements. Second, is how the elements relate to each other. In general, all elements should be symmetrical. That is, if one element has one opposing element and two allied elements, so should all other elements. Also, if one element relates to another in a certain way, the other should relate to the first in the same way. This symmetry isn't always necessary, but it is one way to help ensure that things remain balanced. If you feel that you can balance the game with a non-symmetric set of elements, don't let this paragraph stop you.

Some examples of other sets of elements:

• The four classical elements arranged into two opposing pairs with no other relationships: Earth/Air and Fire/Water.
• A version of the five Chinese elements arranged in a circle: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water. Neighboring elements are allied while the remaining two are opposed.
• The three elements Creation, Equilibrium and Destruction, with no special relationships between the three.

The Dice

The dice mechanic used for this system is based on a d6-d6 roll. When a roll is called for, the player will roll a number of d6s and add the total to their skill, then roll the same number and subtract this from the previous total. (Or, if you have two colors of dice available, you can roll both at once.) Unlike most, if not all, other games, the player chooses how many dice they want to roll (before rolling, of course). This is basically choosing how much risk they're willing to take in their current action. Fewer dice mean the worst they can do is higher, but the best is lower. Under most circumstances, there will be a minimum number of dice they must roll. This represents a minimum amount of risk and uncertainty that the character has no control over. Depending on the group playing, there may also be a maximum number of dice that can be rolled, although this would have more to do with keeping the game moving than with any in-game reasons.

Though the game is designed around the d6-d6 roll, it's easy to adapt to other methods of randomization. There are two important properties any such method should have though. First, and most important, is that any number of rolls (or draws for cards) should have an average of 0. The reason for this is simple; if the average was above 0, players would always roll as many dice as possible, and if it were below 0, they'd roll as few as possible. (If you enforce a small enough maximum number of dice, an average of slightly more than 0 may be acceptable.)

The second property the dice mechanism should have is that the minimum and maximum result of a single roll should be close to one degree of success (5 by default). The minimum and maximum of a d6-d6 is -5 and +5. It's possible to circumvent this by changing the value of a degree of success to match the dice mechanism, but this would also require changing how skill points are assigned.

Some examples of other randomization mechanisms (each is for one roll or draw, and the player can choose how many rolls to make):

• 2d6-7 (This is the same as a d6-d6, but some people may find the math easier this way.)
• 2d8-8, 2d10-11, etc. (The range on these will be significantly different than a d6-d6, so these may require other changes.)
• A single die marked with the six elements. Your element would be +5; your allied elements +1; your opposed element -5; the remaining two would be -1. (This is fairly similar to a d6-d6 and would require no other major changes. It could, though, make the magic system easier. These can be made by either putting stickers on a plain d6, or by buying small wooden cubes and drawing in the symbols.)
• A deck of playing cards, with reds counted as negative. (The face cards may need to be removed, counted as 0 or dealt with specially. Also, the minimum and maximum values are -10 and +10, so skill points and the range of a degree of success should be doubled.)
• A deck of tarot cards. (Again the face cards may need special treatment. The major arcana would definitely need special treatment, but may provide interesting results.)

The choice of a randomization mechanic should be made with consideration for the choice of elements. Something involving d6s is especially appropriate when there are six elements. Playing cards and tarot cards are appropriate when using a system of four elements.

The Character

Making a charater is very simple. Begin with a blank character sheet:

1. Briefly describe what the character had been doing with their life up to this point.
2. Choose an element appropriate to your character.
3. Fill in any appropriate traits, usually totalling 4 positive traits and 1 negative trait. The exact number is up to your GM.
4. Distribute some or all of your skill points, usually 15-25, on various professions. Again, the exact total and how many you are allowed to leave undecided is up to your GM.
5. Begin play.

NPCs are built in the same way as characters, although often with fewer points, but with access to more varied traits. The rest of this section describes how to use the sheet you now have to play the game.

Skills

Almost all dice rolls made in this game will be skill rolls. Skills are divided first into professions, then into individual skills, then into specialties. Professions should be considered a general term. Although they can often be actual professions, they could also be any other convenient label for a set of related skills. The important thing is for the player to think of a reason their character might have training or experience in that category of skills. A good rule-of-thumb would be to spend 1-2 points for each active year of your characters life before now on the profession the character was most active in during that year.

Generally, each profession should consist of at least 4 or 5 skills, and each skill should consist of at least 4 or 5 specialties. Don't worry too much though if you can't think of that many though and remember that, while most professions have one primary skill, there are often many other skills learned doing that job. A good example of this is a chef. At first it might seem like the only skill under chef would be cooking. Here are some example skills and specialties under chef.

Skill	Specialty	Notes
Cooking	French Foods	An example specialty
Cooking	Leftovers	An example of another specialty under cooking
Organization	Scheduling	For organizing when to begin cooking what so they all finish at once
Organization	Stocking	For organizing the pantries and refrigerators so that specific items can be found easily
Appraising	Seafood
Merchant	Auction
Merchant	Haggling
Driving	Volkswagen	Most modern jobs require some form of commute. See the section on difficulty levels to get an idea of how many points you'd have in such a skill.

Using Skill Points

When creating a character, the player assigns skill points only to their professions. For every point assigned to a profession, they can assign one skill point to any skill within that profession, and for every skill point assigned to a skill, they can assign one point to any specialty within that skill. These assignments can be made at any time, especially right before the player is about to make a roll involving that skill. The character always had these skills, but they are just now making use of them. This is kept balanced by the fact that the player can only do this until they run out of skill points, which cannot be reassigned.

To make a skill roll, the player needs to pick a profession that they might have learned that skill from. The GM should be lenient on this as long as the player has a good (or entertaining) excuse, but no one profession should cover all of a characters skills. Second they need to pick the appropriate skill. This will often be fairly obvious, but if not, make up anything that sounds reasonable. Finally they need to decide on an appropriate specialty. All skill rolls should allow for specialties. If the a specialty isn't entirely obvious, make something up. As long as a skill covers at most 1 of 5 things someone might do within the profession, and the specialty covers roughly 1/5 the uses of that skill, everything's fine. Finally, add the number of skill points spent on the profession, the skill and the specialty. This is your effective skill for this roll. Various things can further modify this number, especially traits (see below). Decide on how many dice you want to roll (the GM will let you know if there is a minimum, but it's usually at least 1), roll them, and add that to your effective skill. This is you skill roll.

Difficulties

The difficulty is the number a character is attempting to beat with a skill roll. After all modifiers and dice rolls, if the skill roll is greater than, or equal to, the difficulty, the action succeeded.

The base difficulty should be set roughly as follows:

Difficulty	Description	Example
-5	Something no ordinary person is likely to fail	Writing an informal letter to a friend
0	An everyday activity, roughly 50/50 for someone with 0 experience with this	Everyday driving (though a crowded highway might be a bit harder)
5	Something someone with a little experience (a hobbyist for example) could handle 50/50	Playing a decent game of chess against (in an informal setting)
10	Something difficult without real training, but fairly easy for a professional	Example needed
15	Something 50/50 for a professional	Example needed
20	Something difficult for a professional; best left to an expert	Example needed
25	Tasks that are not guaranteed even for an expert	Example needed
30	Tasks that generally require a true master for a reasonable chance of success	Example needed

Note that if the effective skill plus modifiers is equal to the difficulty plus modifiers, the chances of success are somewhat better than 50/50 unless the player is allowed to roll 0 dice (for a very unstressful situation, for example), in which case success is guaranteed (with only the minimum degree of success though).

The above difficulties assume that the character is attempting the action with the proper tools and without any special limitations or hinderances, but without any special preparation. If one or more of these is untrue, modifiers should be applied to the difficulty. Better tools, careful preparation or a helping hand can reduce the difficulty where as distractions, shoddy equipment or rushing the job can raise it. In general, +/- 1 is a very small change (working with particularly unfamiliar, but still appropriate, tools; working under a tight, but reasonable, deadline), +/- 3 is a moderate change (working with poor or inappropriate tools; working under a somewhat unreasonable deadline), and +/- 5 is a major change (working with improvised tools; working under a very short deadline). Simply total all applicable modifiers and add the final total to the difficulty. Sometimes, in the interest of keeping the game moving, it may be more appropriate to simply guess at a final total. In that case, use these numbers as a guideline. Note that adding to the difficulty is the same as subtracting from the skill, so if the math is easier for you that way, use that instead.

You may notice that with 20 skill points, a character can get an effective skill of up to 60 in one specialty. Such a character would have a 40 in other specialties within that skill and 20 in other skills in that profession, but would have a 0 in skills from any other profession. Generally, no one is that focussed on that narrow of an activity. Still, with 20 points to spend, any character is likely to reach the expert level (around 25-30) in at least one specialty, which is, more or less, the point. For less skillful characters, the GM can enforce some maximum of points for professions during character creation, or simply give fewer points in the beginning. With a total of 15 points in the beginning, the maximum drops to 45 in one specialty. (For reference, if a player with 20 points spends about 2/3's of the available points in one profession, skill and specialty [about 14, 10 and 7 points] they would have a 31 total.)

Degrees of Success

When making a skill check, it is sometimes important to know more than whether or not an action succeeded. Sometimes it matters how well the action was done. For each 5 points the skill roll reaches above the difficulty, they have achieved another degree of success. Each such degree means the task was done better, faster, cheaper, etc. depending on the what's appropriate for the task. If it's important, the same applies to failures.

For some actions, it may be appropriate to set a low difficulty, but require a higher degree of success for complete success. This would be appropriate for something like a roll to gather information about someone. The base difficulty may be fairly low, in that anyone can attempt it without much chance of a real failure, but only someone either lucky or skilled would gain much useful information.

Contested Actions

There are two ways in which an action can be contested; either passively or actively. A passive contest is when one of the participants doesn't know the are in a contest, or when they can only react to the other contestant. An example would be sneaking past a guard. The sneak is actively trying to get past the guard, but the guard doesn't know the sneak's there (yet). Passive contests are simple. The active participant simply uses the effective skill of the passive participant as the difficulty of their roll. In the previous example, the sneak would roll his sneaking skill versus a difficulty equal to the guards perception skill. (This is one of the benefits of using a randomization system with a 0 average.)

Active contests are for when both participants are actively participating, or when two people are trying to do the same thing to see who does better. An example would be playing a game. In an active contest, all participants roll against the appropriate skill, and whoever has the highest total wins. If degree of success is important, it is usually based on how far above the lowest roll the other contestants rolled. (Each 5 points above is another degree of success.)

Extended Actions

Extended actions are an optional way of better modelling task resolution for tasks that would take a long time, giving room to make and then fix errors. In an extended action, the GM needs to decide four things:

• The difficulty each roll will be made against. This is how hard it is to make progress overall.
• The number of successes required to complete the action. This is how long the project is overall.
• How long one roll represents.
• The consequences of failing a roll.

When rolling, each degree of success above the first may count as an extra success, allowing a more skilled person to complete the project faster. The GM should also decide if this is appropriate, but it usually is. Also, in general, a failed roll does not ruin the project, but simply wastes a roll. Failure by 5 (or 10) though might ruin the project or cause setbacks (cancelling out a previous success). Extended rolls use a lot of play time on something that can sometimes play better with a role-playing, or even with a single skill check. It is up to the GM to determine which is the best option.

Other Actions

For the moment, I forgot what I was planning on putting here. :P

Traits

In addition to skills, characters have traits. This covers everything that isn't a skill and can't be learned. Traits can be positive or negative or, rarely, both. Traits simply provide a fixed bonus or penalty to skills that would benefit or be hindered by that trait. By default this would be either +3 or -3, although if the range of a degree of success was changed, this will need to be changed too.

Most characters will start with up to 3 positive traits plus one more if they take a negative trait. The simplest way of dealing with traits that can be both positive and negative is to split it into two traits, one positive and one negative. The GM needs to be wary of traits with too many applications. If a trait will affect most or all rolls within one profession, it should have little impact outside of that profession. Also, many traits will have implications beyond skill rolls. These should not be ignored when considering whether a trait is appropriate or not.

Some examples of positive traits: Strong, Smart, Government Contacts, Magically Sensitive

Some examples of negative traits: Weak, Illiterate, Sickly, Wanted, Ugly, Permenant Injury

An example of a trait that could be both positive and negative would be Thieves Guild Member. It would give you bonuses to most

If the GM is willing to deal with it, some traits might be bought in levels. Each level adds +3 to relevant rolls. Strong II, for example, would add +6 to most lifting or throwing rolls (among others).

In addition, some traits may grant access to skills (possibly combat or magic skills) that a normal character would have no chance of learning. These traits will be racial traits (see below). A good example of this would be Clawed. Any creature with this trait would take a penalty on tasks that require fine manual dexterity but would gain access to the weapon skill Claws. Finally, a few traits might imply the opposite of this; that some skill is off limits to a character with that trait.

Other Races

Being focussed on the fantasy genre, it is inevitable that many games will include beings of other races. What seperates one race from another usually falls into two categories: those things they can do better or worse than average and those things they can/can't do that a normal person can. Both of these things can be represented by a racial package of traits. Simply list out all of the traits that apply to an average member of that race and label the whole package as one trait. You should aim for these packages to total between -1 and +2 levels to keep things relatively simple. A player making a character of one of these races simply spends that many traits on race and the remainder on whatever else. In the case of a total of 0, the player simply says they are a member of that race. (For races totalling -1, it's up to the GM if this counts against the maximum number of negative traits.) In all cases, the package as a whole only counts as a single trait regardless of what it's composed of.

An example may be useful. I'll use the stereotypical fantasy elves. They are generally good at magic, and their long years of experience mean they know how to handle themselves in social situations, but they are physically frail. This translates into two positive traits (Magically Apt and Eloquent) and one negative trait (Frail), none of which are levelled. This means the package as a whole is worth one trait, so any elves will start with one less trait than a human would. (Depending on the prevalence of magic in your campaign, Magically Apt may be too broad. If so, elves are likely to have something along the lines of Nature Magic Focus instead.)

This all works best for races that are fairly similar to humans, but the basic idea still works for other races too; however, such races are unlikely to be suitable for PCs.

Combat

Work in progress

Magic

Work in progress