Races: If A player wants to create a new race, He will send us (I mean me and couple others. and no, we arent a gestapo secretly in charge group, were just the people that do most of the work for this RPG) some lore on that race. the more detailed and well thought out, the better it will be recieved (if you dont want to write allot, simply tell one of us what you want, and we'll fill in details if its logical) And WE will assign attributes to that race. this prevents power playing. everything goes from 1 to 10. I'm proposing that racial attributes really hard to change but since it represents only whats innate in the charecter/race, dont feel as if it limits you too much. Everything from Bartering to Stealth to Leadership in Battle is Represented by skills, which can be trained up and learned, and are just as important to a given actions result as the attribute corrosponding to it. Agree... Strength/Stamina: As before, Ranges from one to 10, Except now, more Simply, and more logically, Strength and stamina are one. I propose though, that its something totally race determined. Any given Characters Strength will be almost always exactly his racial stat for it. Sometimes, through truley, for lack of a better word, awesome circumstances, it can be increased 1 to 3 points above the racial stat, the three almost never happening, and, when it does, almost surely because of Magical or Devine Intervention. Agree... Constitution: Represents Straight Racial Resistance to Damage. Armor can lessen/totally avert damage, agility/fighting skills can keep you from getting hit at all, but when someone is trying to hack your head off with his greatsword and neither of those things save you, its your constitution that determines if you survive. Like strength, it takes something seriously special to raise it, and even then not by more then 1-3. Sounds good. Perception: As before, its useing all 6 senses (the 6th being that funny feeling). It can almost never be raised. short of devine blessing, your hearing/sight/other stuff will always stay the same, or become worse. Agreed. Agility: As before Ranging from one to 10. it, in characters, can only be increased about 3 points above racial Attribute, This is to make sure The Rock Troll will never do a spinny round house kick or walk on a tight rope, ever. Hehe..good analogy..but agreed. Intelligence: Represents Raw Brain power and mental compacity, not actual Knowledge or Learning in anything which will be represented by Skills (not even the smartest people magically have natural Knowledge). it can only be raised 1-6 Points, the 5-6 points would be the God of Being Absurdly Smart coming down unto you and making you his mortal avatar. Agreed.. Magick: or rather, the lack of as a racial stat: I think its better not to have magic as a racial stat, As I dont particalarily like a given race pulling magical deathrays out of their arses because they have bit of special blood in their vains. instead, it would be something that requires skill, method, learning, and study. Erm...agree, but perhaps some races could have more magicka(like the High elves in Skyrim) or something..maybe a resistance to some form of it? The Races will be (by will I mean if you all agree) balanced on a slightly more complicated level then I before proposed, that is, giving them all a straight amount of points to spend on the racial traits. Like, lets say, their are a race of Elves, I mean of the generic fantasy varaity. They are superior to humans in almost every way. They have eyes like eagles, ears like deer, stamina thats almost stupid, their akin to magic, they all look way too good, and they live, depending on weather they die in battle and the fantasy you take from, either a very freaking long time or forever. Humans, well, you are one, so you know how they are like. Now, lets put average Joe Playercharecter NotChuckNorris Human Low Rank Soldier VS Average Legolas NotOrlandoBloom Playercharecter Elf Soldier. In a mono-e-mono deathmatch to the death, Legolas Kills Poor Joe almost every time. SO why would anyone want to be poor joe? its simple. Joe is from The Human Empargh of Geneyrai. You, see, at the age of 60, having served the Millitary/Trade Guild/Whatever for 40-odd years or more, Joe will have had opportunity, as a well played player char, to advance in power and rank. he has money, he has respect, he has children and grandchildren, and if he fights Legolas, he will probably bring a few dozen Human Soldgiers, sent by The Emphargh, because they are rather annoyed the pretty elf boy attacking a respected and high ranking person in their culture/society/nation. at the age of 50 Poor Legolas is considered barely Potty Trained by the Gazillion year old Snobby Elf OlderandwiserArchy. Sure the elves have awesome stuff to give legolas to fight joe with, but because the elves live in a freaking tree, they have the production compactiy of a small basement, and so dont give weapons to anyone not worthy to wield them, and by worth to wield them, I mean doing stuff harder then any human could probably do for longer then any human could live. So, although the player wants allot of power/riches, he had better not depend on getting it in elvish society, or at least, he had better be very, very pacient if he does. does this type of balance sound good? Agree. This is great..seems balanced and all.
Nations: This is not an alliance game but Nations will still be fairly important. Everything goes from one to 10, but can and will change in game, the 1-10 range is only for Starting purposes, and can change each attribute below what is normally thought of as one and above what is thought of as 10 In the course of the game. Territory: Goes from 1 to 10, game start wise. Now, it has yet to be decided exactly how territory for nations will be handled, but we do know it wont be 1-10, that’s far to simplistic. 1 will simply represent the minimum amount of Territory A given Nation can start with, and 10 will represent the most a given nation can start with. Not all territory is equal though, and having some extremely vast tracts of desert or rocky, unfertile hills and the like may be not as Good as having a small but well developed and strategically and or economically important and resource rich tract of land. Having more territory, especially at the beginning, can help allot, BUT, it’s also a double edged sword. With more territory comes longer borders to protect, more area to keep order in, and probably more enemies (the likeliness of an empire owning half the continent it’s on and not having pissed off most of the other half is pretty small) Population: Measures how large your population is. Much like Territory, the simple 1-10 stat only represents how much a nation can start with and how little. After the nation starts out, it can fluctuate, both above and below the Normal range. The Benefits of having more people are fairly obvious, (more workers for its industry, more recruits for its military, more consumers for its businesses, etc, etc). The disadvantages are equally obvious; a larger population takes more land to support adequately, is hit harder by shortages, especially of food, and is harder to keep in good order. Economy: Measures the wealth and economic prosperity of a given nation. Although one could put up multiple attributes to represent trade, or mining, or crop growth, for the purposes of this game, Economy will represent them all (note though, that these things will be in game, to explain why a nation has a low or high economy.) A strong economy is the most obviously required trait for a country to have if it wants to aggressively increase many attributes, because there are few things large amounts money cant buy if given time. During the course of the game, Economy will effect and be effected by every other attribute in ways great and small, so it’s the most likely to fluctuate often. Tech: Measures the Technological prowess of a given nation, it starts 1-10, as everything else. Of all the attributes, it’s the least likely to go down under any normal circumstances. Weapons and armor, as well as less warlike facets of avaible to a nation are governed by this attribute. Advancing Technology is usually a long process (becoming harder and longer with each level of tech, or else, it will turn steam punk before long, and I don’t want that to happen), requiring a good enough academic establishment to conduct productive research and experiments, and a strong enough economy to support said research and experiments. It can sometimes happen faster due to lots of contact and more importantly, trade, with another nation already on a higher tech level, especially, if for whatever reason (vassalage, good Samaritan spirit, whatever) that nation is actively trying to get the backward nation up to snuff. I would write more detail on it, but It has yet to be decided what the highest point of technology will be in the start, or, for that matter, what the lowest point will be, or even wither there will be a hard set cap on it. Academic Establishment: reflects the overall academic Educational level of a nation. A nation with a high academic establishment will be able to advance in tech easier, and academic knowledge will be on the whole more common. As everything else, can and will decrease and increase in game by various factors. Magical Establishment: Measures how much magic is part of a nations culture, and how much effort a nation puts out to make sure its Magic-capable people are well trained. Can be increased and decreased, but, much like academics, needs knowledgeable people and a good economy (note this only measures, as said, the magical establishment in the nation, not the frequency of magic-capable people popping up among the general population, as that is a racial thing, represented by the Magick attribute.) Army: Represents the land based military establishment in a given nation. A High Military can represent anything from an extremely well equipped elite force of Soldgiers with iron discipline and trained from a young age, or it could represent a nations ability to arm and train large swathes of its population far more decently then would be normally possible, or anything inbetween. (note, Army is dependant on many things, to have a large military, you need a large population in most cases. To have them very numerous and/or well equipped, you need the economy to pay for it, etc etc) The Army stat, after given, will be put into 4 different categories, Infantry, Cavalry, Archery, and Militia. The first three are obvious, though many units would be a mix and so their quality would be a mixture of more then one category, (for example, horse Archers, or Infantry Militia). The fourth, Militia, represents the quality and quantity of the civilian population that’s ready to be called forth in wartime. Note, Mages can be used in both land and sea warfare if a nation’s Magical establishment is large/strong/militaristic enough to be sending contingents to the military, but the power of those troops would be governed by the magical establishment attribute, not the army or maritime attribute. Maritime Power: Almost exactly like the Army Attribute, except it represents power on the ocean. PHEW! Anyway, here’s the thing about nations: Ok, this is not GSTK, this is Not an alliance game. So why all the detail on nations? Because, on as a true RPG at an individual level, that stuff matters, because how your grew up and have lived thus far will effect you. Lets say I make Bjorn Axecrazy Conanson from BarbarianVikinginanaria, where he was chosen to be part of their warrior elite when he was a wee lad. The Good news is, because he is from trained from birth by a psychotically violent warrior culture/nation, he’s almost sure so have some awesome skills when it comes to killing people, because if he didn’t, he probably would not have lived to be an adult male. The bad news is, because he’s from the academy of cutting people in half from head to groin and generally being freaking scary all the time, he had had little time to go all pansy and learn stuff like reading and writing and math, so his academic/intellectual skills are tiny, and, as his warrior culture is wahay to badass to use stealth or cunning or logical thought, his skill set is also lacking in subtitle charm. Because the economy of the warrior caste of his society is based off raiding the enemy and not getting paid by the state, and he’s just finished elite warrior training, his wealth and equipment is probably just the minimum for warriors in his class, which is dark age/medieval. As a soldier in the elite caste of the barbarian army, Bjorn is effected directly by national politics, and if he ever gets higher in rank, especially if, by some long and badass series of events, becomes the ruling warlord in that nation, it will become very, very important to him. Even if Bjorn Opts to seek his fortune as an adventurer, smiting the crap out of evil wherever he may find it, and freeing princesses in tall towers from their lack of strong sons, National Politics will still effect him, as wherever he goes, events will be taking place.
