Homebrew RPG System

Asok

Member since: 2007
Location
New Jersey, United States

In my downtime (since I don't have access to Edge of the Empire), I've been creating my own RPG system from the ground up. It's an elaboration based on this streamlined beginner's game I made for my nephew (my stepdad got really into it!). I playtest somewhat regularly with my girlfriend and my little brother, and I think I've gotten a solid core mechanic worked out. Yesterday, I ran smuggler-vs-stormtrooper scenarios with my brother, and I think it worked pretty well.

I'll be doing a sort of 'rules-lite' write-up sometime soon. I have a lot of the rules written up, and the document outlined. If anybody wants to take a look, I'll be glad to share it as soon as I have a draft. I'll be interested to know what people think, and take any suggestions and edits.

 

Asok

Alright, here's a rundown of the basic mechanics.

 

This system uses 5 dice - d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12. All your character's abilities/skills/powers/etc are rated in terms of these dice, with d4 being the lowest score and d12 being the highest score. 

Your character has a die value for each ability (Strength, Agility, Fortitude, Intellect, Awareness, and Presence). You also have a die value for each of your skills and special abilities. Many items (including weapons) also have a die value associated with them.

Wehnever you perform an action that requires a die roll (say, shooting a blaster), you roll your Ability Die, your Skill Die, and your Item Die (if applicable). In the case of shooting a blaster, you roll Agility, Ranged Combat, and the Item die for your blaster. Whichever die comes up highest represents your success. So, out of the pool of dice, you only keep one for resolving action.

For combat, your highest die goes against your opponent's defense - if it meets or exceeds, you hit your opponent. The next highest die in your pool represents damage. This gets added to your weapon's damage bonus, and then dealt to your opponent.

If you want to make a more powerful attack, you can switch your two highest dice - using the lower result for attack and the higher for damage. It's a tradeoff, but sometimes worthwhile.

If you want to combine actions for better accuracy or power, say by aiming your blaster shot, you can roll another action in addition and select the highest die from either pool. This increases your odds of a high number.

 

Example: My smuggler wants to shoot a stormtrooper, but he wants to make sure he gets a good hit. I roll Perception and Ranged Combat. I roll my Perception skill die, my Awareness die, my Ranged Combat die, my Agility die, and my blaster's Item die. I pick the highest result from this pool (it's an 8!), and that represents my attack. The stormtrooper only has a defense of 3, so it's a hit! My next highest die represents my damage (it's a 6! Rolling a pool of 5 dice greatly increased my odds!), and I add my blaster's damage (3) for a total of 9 damage. That's not enough to kill a stormtrooper, but enough to wound him quite a bit.

 

Obviously, there's still a lot that needs tweaking, and some mechanics that I haven't worked out at all yet. I've been trying to decide whether characters should have 2 or 3 actions per round. 2 had been my standard, but 3 could open up some more interesting combat options...