Firan RPG
From AdamWiki
This is a tabletop role-playing game based on FiranMUX. It is aimed mainly at existing FiranMUX players, though I think it'd be a lot of fun for people who know nothing about Firan, too.
It is meant as a loose translation of FiranMUX to the tabletop. Since FiranMUX is a code-heavy text game with hundreds of players, certain things just won't translate to the tabletop. First and foremost, this RPG is designed to be fun. That means a lot of ideas from FiranMUX get changed considerably for the tabletop.
The actual text will contain much in the way of setting material. This is adapted from FiranMUX, where we've written hundreds of thousands of words of original content about the world of Aerval and its people. These rules are a skeleton for my own purpose.
Contents |
Group
Determine as a group what your characters will do. This decision will guide character creation, situation development, and play. Ensure every player understands the group's focus so they don't create a character that is marginalized.
Characters
These instructions require you to make some basic decisions about who you want your character to be. If you've done the group exercise to determine what your game will be about, you may already have an idea who your character is. Make sure your character will fit in with the others! This is your responsibility, not the Game Master's and not the other players'.
The Basics
Follow these steps to create a basic Firan character. Take notes about what each choice means to you. You can use this for your back-story later.
Choose your race: Firan, Ticanee, Bonduin, Half-Shamibelian.
Choose your culture of origin: Gold Dragon Clan, Hydra Clan, Cockatrice Clan, Griffon Clan, Chimera Clan, Bear Clan, Eagle Clan, Ticanee Clan, Bonduin slave, Bonduin nomad, Ticanee nomad, Caldera City, Old City ganger.
Choose your clan affiliation, if any: Gold Dragon Clan, Hydra Clan, Cockatrice Clan, Griffon Clan, Chimera Clan, Bear Clan, Eagle Clan, Ticanee Clan.
Choose your gender. Note that in some clans and cultures, men have it easier or harder than women.
Choose your social status: royalty, greater nobility, lesser nobility, neo-nobility, middle class, commoner, outcast.
Choose your level: 0 through 20. At levels 0-5, characters are inexperienced. At levels 6-10, characters are competent. At levels 11-15, characters are expert and notable. At levels 16-20, characters are heroic and famous. In general, everyone in a group should start at about the same level.
Choose your scores for seven attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Spirit. Intelligence covers most everything in the "Mental" column of FiranMUX attributes. Wisdom covers most everything in the "Emotional" column of FiranMUX attributes. Charisma covers most everything in the "Social" column of FiranMUX attributes. Spirit is one's connection to the divine, and it covers most everything in the "Spiritual" column of FiranMUX attributes.
Attribute scores range from -5 to +5 with +0 being "normal." Characters at level 0 start with scores that total to +0. That is, if you want a +4 in Strength, you must offset it with a -4 in another score, or two -2's, or some other combination totaling -4.
At level 2 and every second (even-numbered) level after that, characters get a +1 to add to any attribute score. At level 20, a character's attribute scores should total +10.
Choose your character class(es): At level 0, you don't have a character class. At level 1, you can have only one class. At levels 2 and beyond, you can have many classes. Each class offers special abilities based on your level in that class. For example, if you are a 10th level character, you might take 10 levels of Guard and thus earn the bonuses that only a Guard 10 can earn. Or you might take 5 levels of Guard and 5 levels of Clan Proxy, earning only some of the benefits of the Guard class but also some Clan Proxy benefits. Your myriad class levels must total your character level. There is no limit on how many classes you can take.
Choose feats: A feat is a special ability that has special rules for your character. You get to choose one feat at level 1 and every second (odd-numbered) level after that. You must meet all the prerequisites for the feat you choose. Your class will make certain feats available at certain class levels.
Choose skills and allocate skill points: Reference the large list of skills. Skill scores are divided into five ranges: novice (1-5), trained (6-10), master (11-15), expert (16-20), and legendary (21+). Your choice of class will limit the kinds of skills you can take and how far you can advance them. You start with 25 skill points to distribute among as many skills as you like. You get an additional +2 skill points for each character level. The highest you can advance any skill is 3 + your character level (so +10 at level 7). Don't ignore your social skills!
Assign Reputation and Health: A character's Reputation is their social strength and stamina. Your Reputation score is equal to your Charisma + 10. A character's Health is their physical strength and stamina. Your Health score is equal to your Constitution + 10. Divide a number of additional points equal to your level among your Reputation and Health.
Example: Josila, Lady-in-Waiting
Race: Firan Gender: Female Culture: Bear Clan Clan: Gold Dragon Clan Status: Lesser Nobility Level: 7 Classes: Noble 5, Healer 2
Str -1, Dex +0, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +2, Cha -1, Spi +1
Feats: Gossip Network, Propriety, Cutting Tongue, Poisons
Skills (39 points):
Novice: craft(tailoring) +5, manipulation +5, negotiation +4,
combat/dagger +3, knowledge(nobility) +2, dancing +2
Trained: gossip +10, etiquette +8
Reputation: 10 - 1 Cha + 5 = 14 Health: 10 + 1 Con + 2 = 13
Fleshing Out the Character
The basic steps above create the faintest spectre of a character. You'll need to breathe life into your character to have something worth playing! You can do a lot of this during play but some of it you should do before you start.
Choose your primary affiliation: Affiliations are ties you have to organizations or groups of people. Your primary affiliation can be true loyalty or it can be a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" arrangement. Your primary affiliation is the name of a group of people (like a clan, a military unit, a secret society, a noble family, or a religious order) and a score representing your influence over that group. Characters start with a +5 score for their primary affiliation.
Choose satellite affiliations: It wouldn't be a Firan game without conflicting loyalties! Choose 2 to 4 groups of people who also demand your attention and write down their names. Distribute +5 points among them (each group must have at least +1).
Write down a secret: Good characters have secrets! Make yours juicy. Include notes on how it would affect the character if the secret got out!
Write down a friend and an enemy: You can make people up, use people from the setting guide, or ask the Game Master for suggestions. Explain why they're your friend or enemy.
Doing Stuff
Basically, whenever you want your character to do something, follow this conflict resolution procedure:
1. Role-play freely. "Be" your character. Explain what your character is doing. At a certain point, someone (maybe you, maybe the GM, maybe another player) will stop you and ask you to make a roll. Don't roll for every little thing. The default is "yes, you can do that!"
2. Agree on what happens if you succeed or fail. Whatever happens, try to advance the story and make things fun and awesome. The GM has final say.
3. Roll dice. Roll a d20 and add a relevant attribute's score and a relevant skill's score, plus any situational modifiers that the GM says applies. Whoever controls your opponent will do the same. Whoever rolls highest wins.
4. Describe what happens. The winner gets to describe what happens, in line with the agreement from step 2. After that, the loser gets to describe anything else that happens, so long as it does not conflict with the spirit of what the winner described. After that, other participants may chime in with their own narrative, as long as they don't contradict anything that was already said in spirit. The GM settles disputes about the spirit of the narration.
Multiple Participants
One-on-one conflicts are common but sometimes conflicts will involve three or more participants.
When the participants are divided into two "sides" -- that is, the people on each side are of like mind and purpose regarding the goal and results -- use the rules above but everyone gets their own roll. The highest roll per side is used and all other rolls are ignored. When it's time to narrate, everyone who rolled narrates in the order of their rolls, highest to lowest.
When the participants have diverse purposes (this is called orthogonal conflict), use the rules above with some adjustment. Everyone describes and negotiates individually what happens if they win or lose. Everyone rolls separately. The player with the highest roll describes the outcome first, then the next highest roll, and so on. Since a higher rolling player can invalidate actions of lower rolling players, players have to be ready to describe outright failure, even though they may have rolled well (but not well enough!).
Social Combat
Sometimes people want to control each other socially without physical force. This can be done in the Firan RPG with social skills that let a character do social violence to one another. These include methods of gossip, intimidation, manipulation, and seduction.
The game includes the idea of "social imperatives" -- social abilities that a character can use to make another character do something. For example, you can "intimidate" someone and if you roll well, they have to do what you told them to do. Not all social skills can force another character to behave a certain way and some "encourage" the character (really, the player) to cave before one's Reputation is destroyed.
All of these can cause Social Damage. Some can potentially destroy a character's Reputation permanently. Some cause damage to Reputation directly.
These work like any other conflict resolution (see above) with one exception: the loser takes Social Damage or reduces his Reputation, depending on the ability used. The "attacker" should declare which social ability he is using and describe the effects. The "defender" should declare which social defense he is using. Both parties roll dice. The winner will do some kind of social damage to the loser (see the rules for each social skill).
When Social Damage exceeds Reputation, the character is socially incapacitated. For whatever reason (perhaps an internal one like lack of confidence), he has no social standing on which to launch additional social attacks. He may still roll dice in social conflicts but he cannot cause Social Damage or reduce Reputation even if he wins.
A player may reset his Social Damage to 0 by voluntarily taking a permanent 2d6 reduction to Reputation.
If, at any time, a character's Reputation is less than 1, he is shamed and shunned by other members of his social status and treated by them (and above) as two social classes lower. For these purposes, all nobility are one class. For example, a member of the greater nobility is dissed into oblivion and her Reputation goes to -3. She is shunned by royalty and all other nobles (even lesser nobles and neo-nobles) and they treat him as a commoner (not even middle class). A player can voluntarily step down into the next lower social status to gain 10+level Reputation. So our shunned noble woman (level 7) could become a middle classer with 10+7-3 = 14 Reputation.
Physical Combat
Physical fights are not the main focus of the Firan RPG but when they occur they are dramatic and life-threatening. The physical combat rules are very similar to the social combat rules. That is, use the basic conflict resolution system with some additional rules. In this section, we'll just say "combat" to mean physical combat.
Each successful roll during combat can cause Physical Damage or reduce Health. There is no rule regarding who goes first or who is attack or defending. Everyone is trying to "attack" everyone else, though one person's attack action may be to run away.
When Physical Damage exceeds Health, the character is incapacitated. He can do anything that doesn't require rolling the dice.
A player may reset his Physical Damage to 0 by voluntarily taking a permanent Injury. Roll on the appropriate injury table to see what happens. Injuries usually permanently reduce attribute scores or Health.
If, at any time, a character's Health is less than 1, he dies. There is no return from death, save divine intervention, which is extremely rare. Live well and die heroically.
Modifiers
The Game Master is encouraged to apply modifiers to the rolls of his and the players' characters to match the situation in the fiction. As a rule of thumb, grant modifiers in multiples of 2: +2, +4, +6, +8, -2, -4, -6, -8, etc. Modifiers under -10 or over +10 are extremely rare.
When in doubt, a +2 or -2 modifier is sufficient.
"Unopposed" Rolls
What do you do when a situation seems to be without an opponent to roll against? For example, Mary wants her character Josila to make a fancy silk stola and palla for the gala her noble family is hosting. Who is her opponent?
The answer is that all rolls have an opponent, even if the opponent is just "Luck." In the case of Josila, the opponent is the silk outfit, which is stubborn and prone to tears. If it wanted to be made, it wouldn't be making Mary roll the dice, right? So the GM rolls for the silk outfit and adds its difficulty modifier from the crafting tables (let's say it's a +5). Mary rolls and adds her Dexterity +0 and Craft(Tailoring) +5. Whoever rolls highest wins.
Classes
More details to come. Here are the quick and dirty descriptions.
- Guard
- combat training with street savvy
- Soldier
- focused battle expertise
- Noble
- social power and education
- Artisan
- expertise in a trade skill
- Servant
- social skills and sneaking
- Scholar
- advanced education and knowledge
- Priest
- divine power
- Thug
- dirty fighting and street smarts
- Hunter
- skills in nature
