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[Kabrinski]

Alright-what i've decided to do combat wise-but I'd like your guy's takes-is if you are fighting someone-another player-you simply roll a twenty sided die against each other-higher rollwins-armor wise I'm borrowing our beloved colonel's DoomRL system-armor just simple subtracts damage, nothing more.

As for the skills/traits system-I'm going to do a point based system-you get 50 points to customize-play with you char. The more points you put into something-the more expensive it gets to use it. I'm debating wether or not to put a level system in

So far I have a few Ideas

Basic Firearms Training-You know how to handle a gun, and you don't fumble when you reload, or flinch when it goes off
Medical Training-You have extensive medical knowledge
Cyborg-You have been enhanced with nanotechnology and machinery-parts will cost points-this is you building your character
Psionic-You possess psionic abilities-this is nesccary to play an Eldraen character.

Any one else got any ideas?

[Silhar]

A few questions before I start giving out tips.
1) What do I do with points? How do I spend them and what does it give?
2) How skills relate with anything?
3) What are you trying to achieve, what is the goal and stuff?

[Sylith]

you simply roll a twenty sided die against each other - higher roll wins

I'm a SUPER SOLDIER TRAINED TO KILL and I'm fighting against... a fatty lawyer. We have an equal chance of winning.
Just like that?
Life is based on skills. If you're more skilled in something, you have a higher chance to success. Rolls are just luck and coincidence. They can't simply be everything.
Making mechanics balanced is a hard, long work. Even those published for years now can have some balance issues. Don't try to make your own if you're starting, you'll either make something unplayable or become discouraged. Or both.
Just find something that can suit you and implement it. For example - Savage Worlds can be good to some action, but nWoD with all its Vice/Virtue/Morality/Sanity will do for more psychological play.

[Kabrinski]

That gives me an Idea-perhaps depending on what you skills are, your roll is penalized or enhanced-I think I've got something lying around here somewhere in regaurds to cybernetics and psionics I can use and I've also got a system I can possibly used-provided I can adapt it.

This RP is somewhat post apoctolyptic-I mean pollution has made life pretty shitty.

[Klear]

You should really make the basics of your system work before you start on implementing cybernetics and psionics and stuff like that. In any case, if you really must design the system yourself, you should keep it simple. Otherwise you'll just get lost in it and it will be too confusing for you and (which is worse) your players.

[Kabrinski]

A few questions before I start giving out tips.
1) What do I do with points? How do I spend them and what does it give?
2) How skills relate with anything?
3) What are you trying to achieve, what is the goal and stuff?

Answer to 1) THe points are used to build your character. The skills you use will determine just what you are capable of in this world.
Answer to 2) The skills help to define your character-their experiences in the world and like. I guess this bleeds into question 1.
Answer to 3) Your goal in wasteland is simple: to survive-there is a conflict going on over the pollutanite and for humanity's survival-I mean who wouldn't want this stuff. Another goal, and this will emerge once the story is moved along far enough-is to investigate the rumors of the possible reemergeance of the Alliance. If you have your own faction-you basically strive for whatever goal your faction is trying to obtain. Just bear in mind-if it becomes too ambitious someone's liable to take notice.

As for the whole system thing-I've actually designed these things my self-I've actually got a simple one ready: it has four stats-Strength, Vitality, Intelligence and Dexterity. I think its pretty obvious what they are all meant for. I orignally had just the three but added dex about two, three months ago-helped make things less confusing.

Strength Determines how much weight you can handle, what kind of positive/negative modifiers you got to your die roll in melee combat
Vitality helped or penalized resistance rolls and added/subtratced to base HP
Inteeligence is to use knowledge-ie mechanical or medica, it also was used as a resitance roll vs. psi. Was also a modifier in ranged combat
Dexterity is used in missle combat and agility rolls(new)

This work? Reisistances are as follows-Electrical, Poison, Fire, Plasma, Psi.

[Reef Blastbody]

I think what people are trying to get at are what kind of guidelines and limitations do these mechanics follow.

For example. If I put 10 points into Medical Training, what exactly does this correlate to in-game? Do I get a +10 bonus on my roll, ie, roll 1d20, add 10 to my result? Do I get a +1 for every 2 points in a skill? Do you need to beat a certain "score" when rolling to achieve success, or is it against an opposed roll?

Can I just put 50 points into Medical Training and become Blackjack and House rolled into one? Is there a hard cap? etc.

It's all well and good to make mechanics, because it helps future homebrew, but no one knows exactly how things are interacting yet.

We have 50 points for 5 Skills, and we have Strength, Vitality, Intelligence and Dexterity, but how are those determined? Do we spend part of the 50 points on the stats too?

You did state that the more points you put into something, the more expensive it becomes to use, which I take to mean that each additional "level" of said skill or stat costs more points than the one that came before it, which makes sense too, however there is a clear point where the extra cost is not worth the +1 gain, and it would be fairly easy to determine an optimal build.

No one is trying to bust your chops or anything, but I believe Silhar was looking for more concrete mathematical answers to his questions instead of abstracts. It is my personal experience that play by post games work a lot better with very rules light systems / point based resolution or something like Amber Diceless. It is entirely possible to do a mechanically full bodied campaign but it is very, very slow and will take a long time, especially if confirming dice rolls, and having players roll, wait to find out if they succeeded or not, and then post their success or failure accordingly.

Just my two cents!

[Kabrinski]

Hmm...good point.

As for the skill points-I've been debating on just how much the points it costs to put into goes up-one idea is that the level you have, that's the amount it costs.

As for the skill medical training-let's put it this way-you can save people's lives. A lv. 10 skill-which is extremely expesnive mind you-would enable you to do a triple heart bypass transplant with common household tools. You roll against a difficulty check-here's an example-if your trying to bring someone back from the dead-tha't be a difficulty check of about 50-you are not allowed to take a ten or twenty-you'd have to make an intelligence ceck of at least 30-you add the average of your medical skill and your intelligence-or perhaps just half-and you'd better hope you'd succeed.

I'm trying here dude, I'm trying.

[Reef Blastbody]

I'm not trying to discourage you; homebrew and mechanics are one of my most frequently indulged in hobbies. I love getting into the nitty gritty and figuring out averages, what works best, etc.

I just caution against trying to start a game and inviting players in when you don't have the mechanics ready yet!

Usually you build the mechanics and "acid test" them; this is rolling them out yourself to make sure they work and make sense. Doing some mock combat examples, skill checks, etc, by yourself. Then you do a playtest with some people to work out the kinks, then you layer your story and background on top, and then you open chargen to potential players.

It's a lot of work, which is why I'll usually just crib someone else's system if doing a PBF, instead of a new engine each time.

Lesser of Two Heresies, for example, is run off of a modified version of the Dark Heresy table-top game's mechanics; they didn't need to invent a plausible method of resolution for combat and skills because one already existed.

As it stands, your system most closely resembles the Open SRD for d20, so don't stress yourself out trying to re-invent the wheel! You might want to take a look at it :

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd

They already have mechanics for Modern and Future as well. I willl say that d20 is good at being easy to learn and pick up, but the resolutions can be a little wonky in terms of "stability"; for a lot of prior and current gamers, d20 was the first engine they learned (unless they're old school and started out on 1e or 2e, or possibly Traveller), but not the one they stuck with. Tabletop RPGs are a lot like programming languages apparently; once you learn one, it's easier to understand the other ones!

[Kabrinski]

New news everyone-system is nearing completion and is currently undergoing testing. Also story revised and tech limit will bem removed-rules for devlopent. Sorry for the long wait-the RP will be up soon.