Elements Game System

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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. Note that a trait either grants a bonus to a skill or grants access to that skill, but rarely both (though a combination of traits could do both).

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.

NPCs

There are two important types of NPCs, at least from the perspective of preparing for a game: those that could be PCs and those that can't. For the NPCs that could be built as if they were PCs, those with no races or powers unaccessible to the players, there is little to say. They can be built with a lesser or greater number of skill points and traits to tailor the level of challenge they'll provide the players.

NPCs like PCs

There may be little to say about how to build such an NPC, but there's plenty to say about how to build one [i]quickly and easily[/i]. Since the system as a whole is designed around playing characters with a minimum of start-up, take advantage of this for the NPCs too. One thing to be wary of though; the NPC is unlikely to use nearly as many skills as a PC. This means they can afford to speciallize much more heavily that a PC, so, generally, NPCs should have fewer skill points (try around 2/3 or 3/4 of what was given to the PCs).

This is only a guideline, but when building an NPC, think of what the primary challenge they'll provide the players is. For a guard, for example, this would usually be spotting the players (if it comes to a fight, the guard can usually call for backup). Whatever that challenge is, assign between 1/2 and 3/4 of their skill points to a profession appropriate to that skill. For the example guard, the profession Guardsman would certainly be appropriate. While you could probably stop there, it may speed things up to go ahead and spend around 2/3 of those points in the desired skill. As far a specialties go, it's probably best to spend most of the available points on a single specialty. After all, they aren't likely to get the chance to use more than one. This only applies, though, if they had fewer overall points than a player, otherwise, they might become too much for the players to handle. In the end, the best comparison will be with the players' skill levels.

NPCs unlike PCs

For NPCs that couldn't be played by a player, things are somewhat different. It becomes more important to know in more detail what they are capable of. The creature's race provides most of this information, but that is often a little to vague. It can be important to decide ahead of time what skills (in general terms, at least) are permitted or restricted by what traits. Inevitably, the question "would that creature be able to do that?" will arise. You should be able to point out what trait answers that question. The same should be true of any other creature with the same trait, or you should be able to point out which trait overrides the previous answer. (The question of how conflicting traits work can be tricky. My best advice would be to make a decision, but be consistent. If the same question comes up again, give the same answer.) Additionally, an NPC race isn't restricted to the -1 to +3 range of a player race, so there may be quite a few more traits to deal with.

An example may help clear up any confusion. A wolf is a fairly common enemy in many fantasy games, so we'll prepare one. First, the wolf race. Wolves have the traits Animalistic, Fangs (they may not have actual fangs, but this is as good a name as any), Quadruped and Pack Tactics. Animalistic prevents them from using or learning most mental and language skills (at least as far as most humanoid races understand them), but might provide a bonus when instinct would be better anyway. Fangs gives them a natural weapon (the stats of this will have to be decided which will be handled in the section on combat and weapons), allowing them to improve the skill to use it. Quadruped prevents them from using any skills that require hands, but means they get a bonus to tasks requiring balance. Pack Tactics gives them a bonus to any actions where they can work together. There are more traits that may be appropriate, like Endurance or Clawed, but this will do for now. How detailed you get with this process really only depends on how detailed you want to get.

With the race decided, the next question is skills. For most animals, it'll be hard to find more than one profession to give them. For our wolf, this would be Being a Wolf. Don't worry about this too much, but if you need to split it up for balance reasons, you could consider Being a Wolf Pup, Being a Wolf and Being a Tame Wolf (if appropriate) to be three different professions. We'll assume that a character with 20 points and some combat training will have an effective skill of approximately 15. A lone wolf vs. a lone fighter should be a close match, so we'll aim for an effective Bite skill of 15. (Note that if that was the only skill you wanted from your wolves, you could simply say that was their Bite skill and leave it at that.) The other skill we're interested in for this wolf is Tracking. Both fall under Being a Wolf, so, after considering the numbers, we'll give the wolf 10 ranks in that, 3 of which go to Natural Weapons and 3 more go to Tracking with 3 points in both the specialties Bite and Tracking by Scent. We'll leave the other 4 points unassigned in case these wolves need to do something we haven't anticipated. That gives them a final Bite of 16, which is fine.

Combat

Note: Combat needs a lot of work, and even more play testing.

At this point, you should have all the tools needed to run some types of games. There is still two major pieces missing though. The first such piece is combat. While almost everything comes down to a skill roll, there is at least one thing that can't be described as such: injury. There is no skill to withstanding injury, although equipment and certain traits might can affect the results.

Injury

Note: I'm not at all sure about the limits for a human in this system.

There are two types of injuries in this system: stunning and lethal. All attacks potentially cause both types of injury, although many attacks might cause 0 lethal, or occasionally 0 stun. A normal human can withstand 10 stun damage before passing out and 10 lethal damage before dieing. Certain traits can raise or lower these numbers. Stubborness, pain tolerance, willpower, etc. can raise how much stun a creature can withstand, while increased size can raise both.

Combat Sequence

  1. The attacker picks a combat skill to attack with, based on what they're trying to do. This should be obvious for most weapons, but such skills also include Improvised Weapons and Martial Arts.
  2. The defender picks a combat skill to defend with, based on what's appropriate for the attack. Most attacks can be dodged if you know it's coming. Many attacks can also be blocked or parried if you have something to block or parry with.
  3. The two players make a contested roll of the attackers skill vs. the defenders skill.
    • If the attacker wins, the attack hit and deals damage (see Weapons and Damage below).
    • If the defender wins, they were successful in dodging, blocking, parrying or whatever and take no damage.

Combat Skills

Most ordinary people don't know much about combat. A few professions cover combat skills though. (Things like Knight, Thief, Soldier, etc.) Even if a character begins with no combat skills, they are likely to pick up a few during their adventures. After all, the profession Adventurer covers a good number of otherwise hard to obtain skills (just don't let it cover everything).

There are two ways to handle combat skills, as far as grouping them goes. Either things like Sword and Block are skills or they are specialties. I think it's best for them to be specialties under the two skills Offense and Defense, but there are many more possibilities (such as having each weapon type be a skill, and specific weapons be a specialty, or having weapon categories be skills and weapon types be specialties). Which choice you make will change the feel of combat, but shouldn't have a large impact on the mechanics of it. Most players will focus on a single attack and single defense specialty in any case. The biggest difference will be in the range of other weapons they'll also gain proficiency in.

Weapons and Damage

If you can attack someone with something, it's a weapon. All weapons have three important stats, their power, their lethality and their range. Optionally, each weapon could also have an associated element. Power determines the base damage a weapon deals. Each degree of success on the attack roll adds 1 to this basic damage. This is how much stun damage the opponent takes. If stun damage is 0 or less, the base lethal damage is 2 less than the stun damage. If the stun damage is greater than 0, use the 101/3 exponential table, in Numerical Tables below, to find the base lethal damage. Look up the largest number smaller than the stun damage in the 101/3 column; the same row in the Linear column gives the base lethal damage. For small numbers this works out to: 1 stun -> 0 lethal, 2-4 stun -> 1 lethal, 5-9 stun -> 2 lethal and 10-19 stun -> 3 lethal. Finally, add the weapons lethality to the base lethal damage.

An example would be helpful at this point. If Alice attacks Bob with a 3 power, -1 lethality melee weapon (maybe something like a baseball bat; more on range in a minute) and succeeds on the attack roll with 1 degree of success, the base stun damage would be 4. This then gives a base lethal damage of 1 and a final lethal damage of 0, so Bob takes 4 stun damage and no lethal damage. If Bob then attacks Alice with a 1 power, 2 lethality melee weapon (something like a dagger) and gets no extra degrees of success the stun damage is 1 and the base lethal damage is 0. With the weapon's lethality, the final lethal damage is 2.

In addition to the damage, weapons also have a range.

Healing

Magic

Work in progress

Specific Situations

Work in progress

Chases

Poisons

Diseases

Exhaustion

Suffocation

Starvation

Assisted Healing

Useful Tables

Sometimes it's important to be able to approximate certain formulas without a calculator. For that, see the Numerical Tables.

Tarot Tables

Tables for the 22 major arcana when using tarot cards for task resolution

  Arcana Overview Safe Skills Dangerous Skills Attacks Defences Magic
  The Fool
I The Magician
II The Priestess
III The Empress
IIII The Emperor
V The High Priest
VI The Lovers
VII The Chariot
VIII Justice
VIIII The Hermit
X The Wheel of Fortune
XI Strength
XII The Hanged Man
XIII Death
XIIII Temperance
XV The Devil
XVI The Tower
XVII The Star
XVIII The Moon
XVIIII The Sun
XX Judgement
XXII The World