Science Fiction RPG (LibArc Setting?)

[Hotfoot]

Some thoughts:

I'll likely be getting rid of Education, as that fits under things like driving a car, using a computer, and playing video games that should be unspoken skills. Every character should be assumed to have something along the lines of a high school education, with Higher Ed type skills showing any further education beyond that point.

Additionally, a breakdown of Knowledge skills might not be out of order, just to help players understand what options are available to them.

Also, Navigation and Survival should be added, I forgot those. Any other suggestions I may have missed?

[Hotfoot]

On dice mechanics

Right now I'm looking at three basic systems:

Skill + Stat + Dice
Linear, familiar, made more predictable by using multiple dice for a better bell curve, but Stat + Skill can make it possible to become impossible to hit (or damn near) by less skilled opponents.

Dice Threshold
A variation on the Shadowrun and White Wolf systems, your skill equals the number of dice you throw down, and you only count the dice above a certain value. This allows for smaller success values and such, but I'm not sure how the spread acts, given that it's a straight percentage change on the mini-thresholds.

Dice Summative
Based on the West End Games system, skill level = dice thrown and the total value is the result. Much larger ranges of successes, but a very well rounded bell curve on average. I'm leaning most towards this end right now, but I could use some input.

Next up, combat basics.

[Cynical Cat]

I'm leaning to skill +stat +dice. Dice Summative has even worse problems with people being untouchable by low stat mooks. Dice Threshold isn't bad, but suffers from overly chaotic results.

[Hotfoot]

I'm leaning to skill +stat +dice. Dice Summative has even worse problems with people being untouchable by low stat mooks. Dice Threshold isn't bad, but suffers from overly chaotic results.

Well dice summative has an average increase of 3.5 for each die added, and the average is more common with more dice.

2d6 = 7 (2-12)
4d6 = 14 (4-24)
6d6 = 21 (6-36)
8d6 = 28 (8-48)

Now, clearly, someone with 8d6 has little to worry about from someone with 2d6, but the ranges are such that on a low roll, even a character with 8d6 can be hit by a rookie with 2d6. Unlikely, but possible.

With Skill + Stat + dice, if the stat + skill combo are higher than the dice range, it is possible to be 100% untouchable as long as the straight bonus is higher than the Dice + bonus.

Well, okay, not 100%, if you factor in critical successes or fumbles, but only if the critical successes add more somehow.

At some point I should crunch the numbers a little more seriously of course.

Let's see, a 2d6 system has a range of 2-12 (11), 3d6 has 3-18 (15).

3d6 + 1-10 + 1-10 might work. Thoughts?

A friend has also suggested taking the SilCore system and increasing the die type and thresholds, which may also be a possibility.

[General Havoc]

I actually quite like Dice Summative systems. I don't think it's a particularly bad thing that high powered players be nigh-untouchable by extremely low-powered mooks, particularly given that the alternative usually skews too far in the other direction.

[Hotfoot]

I lied. I'll get to combat shortly. I realized that I had my gun construction system already pretty well lined out, but I didn't have my ship construction system beyond an idea of how to do damage. Here we go. Still very basic, but that's how it is for now, I'm getting outlines done first. If there's anything anyone sees that is missing or that needs further outlining, by all means share it with me.

Starship Construction System:

1. Decide what you want your ship to do. Should it be large, small, fast, slow, tough, weak, hold lots of cargo, have lots of sensors and labs, or just be able to get from point A to point B in one piece.

2. Decide on crew, quarters, bridge, secondary bridge, and life support:

Components: Crew Quarters, Luxury Quarters, Brig, Bridge Modules, Life Support, Backup Life Support, Corridors/Bulkheads/Airlocks.

3. Decide on Sensors, Communications, ECM/ECCM

Components: Sensors, Sensor Booms, Communications, Hyper-Comms, ECM, ECCM

4. Decide on Ship Amenities

Components: Cargo Bay(w/options), Cargo Attachment Points, Space Doors, Recreation Areas, Labs, Weapons Lockers.

5. Decide on Weapons Systems

Components: Kinetic, Energy, Missile, Turrets, Spinal, Tubes

6. Decide on Defenses

Components: Armor (Options), Shield (Options), Point Defense

7. Decide on Power Supply (Remember that Engines are yet to come)

Components: Various Power Plants/Supplies

8. Decide on Engines

Components: Realspace, FTL, Maneuver Thrusters

9. Calculate final mass, cost, and other stats.

[Hotfoot]

Combat
I don’t want to get too detailed about this until a specific conflict resolution mechanic is chosen, but here are the main points I want to hit.

Personal Scale:
Here’s the general scale I want to work with:

*Light Pistols on a grazing hit should cause at least some level of damage to a baseline human without armor. A very good shot should auto-kill or near death an unarmored normal human.
*Medium Pistols should cause a noticeable wound on a decent hit, and should have a decent chance of killing an unarmored normal human.
*Heavy Pistols should cause a noticeable wound on even a light hit, and should have a very good chance of killing an unarmored normal human.

*Light Rifles should be a threat to anyone wearing light armor.
*Medium Rifles should be a threat to anyone wearing medium armor
*Heavy Rifles should be a threat to anyone wearing heavy armor, and a light threat to powered armor with AP rounds.

*Things like .50 caliber sniper rifles should be awe-inspiring weapons of doom, and for that reason rarely employed and hard to get/keep/use.

Damage is meted out by a threshold system, when the attack beats the defense by X amount, a certain amount of damage is done and a penalty is applied to the defender’s every action thereafter. Increased success in the attack roll will result increased damage to the target. Armor, naturally, makes it harder to inflict damage. Since you take a penalty to attack, defense, etc. with each wound that you take, you don’t want to stay in a situation where you keep taking damage for too long. I figure there should be between two and four wound types for the severity of the wounds, plus an instant death value, which is basically a big “oh shitâ€

[Cynical Cat]

Dice Summative systems lead to untouchability much more readily than stat+skill+dice.

A guy with 2d6 isn't going to beat a guy with 8d6, but if everyone's rolling say 3d6 then the 17 with no bonuses can still beat a 6 with a lot of bonuses. I've played a fair amount of dice summative in the form of West End's Star Wars and even with a wild dice thrown in the bell curve guarrantees sick levels of untouchability.

[General Havoc]

That is so, but I actually prefer more untouchability rather than less in those cases. Most systems that skew towards evening things out wind up making it far too easy to destroy supposedly "powerful" characters with a lucky shot or whatever. Realistic or not, it destroys some of the flavor of the game, I feel.

[Hotfoot]

On further review, I've decided to do away with the above options and instead opt for a variation of the SilCORE Mechanics, but using larger dice. I'm deciding now betwen D8 and D10. Maximum skill levels and attribute bonuses will increase accordingly, and the costs for each will go down.

The reasoning for this is that I was never very happy with basically making a somewhat more complex D20 system, and while it is functional, I'd rather have a system I'm comfortable with than one I'm always treating like a red headed stepchild.