Advice on Workshop Ideas?

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RachelTheSeeker
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Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by RachelTheSeeker »

Hey folks. As I'd first signed onto this site's forum a long time ago, figure I may as well provide an introduction to myself. I'm a 25-year-old transgirl (pre-transition, sadly) who's been into D&D since middle school. In recent years I'd become interested in the roots of D&D, after reading through some 1e AD&D books an old friend had in his collection.

Eventually I discovered Basic Fantasy RPG, and fell in love with the game ever since. Atop my printer-scanner right now is my copy of the core book, Adventure Anthology, and a printout of select monsters from the Field Guide, to say nothing of the eight blank character sheets. I've been getting my cousins into the game as well, over time, with my youngest of 13 years loving this as his first official tabletop RPG.

With that intro out of the way, I wanted to ask a couple of things about Workshop documents. I'd just gotten the style guide DL'd, but was curious to ask for opinions on some of the things I wanted to make.

First off, I was tempted to create a couple of warrior-mage-hybrid classes of my own design, but they also a) aren't based off anything from older D&D games and b) are partly inspired by console RPGs I've played before. Second, I was curious if there was much demand for a supplement containing house rules for a specific setting's ideas, a la the Sword and Board one from the Workshop. Third, has anyone else ever thought of condensing some ability scores together like I have, and what would be the opinion on such?

I'm very much a newb about being active in these forums, but I hope I've played enough d20-related games to know what's not game-breaking or underwhelming. Cheers, folks.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by Solomoriah »

1) Classes are really, really hard to get right. I pretty much won't publish any more class supplements on the Downloads page. They are welcome in the Workshop, and in the Showcase if you qualify for access, but not on the Downloads page.

2) Ditto for house rules compilations. They are rarely of interest outside the author's own campaign.
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ArtemisEntreri
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by ArtemisEntreri »

Hi!

Just submit your ideas and let 'em flow :) I'm creating a basically system-free setting for old school gaming and adding new class options every day. I'll submit them one day or another.

I wanna give you a solid base to start. It might work or not for you, but did for me and it's an easy way to speed things up.

The d6 Mechanic
Instead of putting in incoherent and difficult sub-system, I translated special skills into a "d6" table (I translated thief abilities too). You start with 1 or 1-2 on a d6 as good results and then the interval increases as you go up in level. Less flexible than percentage increments, but a lot more manageable and easy to learn, IMHO.

INTRO
What I can say is: instead of building up fighter-mages heavy classes, try to figure out limited access to spells and spell like stuff. A concrete example would be a "Witch Hunter" (a concept I'm developing for this project. I won't mention the native system I used, take it as a starting point).

Note: I like video-RPGs too and most of my inspiration comes from them. ;)

At first, I star

THE WITCH HUNTER
- Hid dice: d6
- +1 to hit Demons, Undead and another type of creature tied to the setting (in my setting they're called "Tainted").
- Cast Cure Light Wounds and Detect Evil once per day.
- You have an increasing chance to know something about monsters (Monster Knowledge) and the innate ability to understand monstruous languages (Comprehend Monster Languages). I.E., at 5th level you have a 1-3 chance to get monster knowledge and a 1-2 chance to get the meaning of a language.
- Progresses a little more slower than thieves.
- Can wear any armor up to chainmail, uses shileds and weapon up to 1d6 damage.
- Gets the same attack bonus as clerics.


What did i do?
I created an easy to play class, probably it's not balanced. It uses a "witcher-like" abilities without adding complex stuff to the game. You can create lots of other hybrids using this basic method (apply a base attack progression; choose the right amount of equipement so that the fighter don't seem dumb in comparison; give it 2-3 spell-like abilities on d6s; add a couple of static skills, like the +1 to hit certain creatures or the ability to cast a spell a limited amount of time).

Hope this helps. :)
If you need feedback for your ideas, let me know!

Take care
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artikid
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by artikid »

ArtemisEntreri wrote: The d6 Mechanic
Instead of putting in incoherent and difficult sub-system, I translated special skills into a "d6" table (I translated thief abilities too). You start with 1 or 1-2 on a d6 as good results and then the interval increases as you go up in level. Less flexible than percentage increments, but a lot more manageable and easy to learn, IMHO.
You might want to take a look here, the "x in 6 action checks" supplements: http://www.basicfantasy.org/showcase.cgi?sid=56
ArtemisEntreri
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by ArtemisEntreri »

Wow! I'm happy to see it's a common idea. Saw it around and wanted to develop around it.
I'd probably introduce the free points, even if I'm currently working on precompiled tables (only because I want my material to be easily accessible with almost no bookeeping). :)

I find the "1d6 special skills" thing a straightforward and playable way to introduce classes. I did the same for a "Skald class", which gets d6s intervals to Charm Person / Monsters and get Bardic Knowledge.
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Dimirag
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by Dimirag »

If you feel that your game will benefit from your alternative ideas and want some feedback or help feel free to post it.
If you feel somebody else will like it or benefit from it then upload it but knowing that not everyone cares for optional rules and classes, specially the later, they are hard to do.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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ArtemisEntreri
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by ArtemisEntreri »

Just a question... Why is there this "we don't care" attitude against classes/rules? A game like this should live mostly with home made stuff... Ok, it's difficult to reach perfect balance, but I don't see the reason why we should not let people with ideas to put their efforts in download or shared sections. :)
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SmootRK
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by SmootRK »

ArtemisEntreri wrote:Just a question... Why is there this "we don't care" attitude against classes/rules? A game like this should live mostly with home made stuff... Ok, it's difficult to reach perfect balance, but I don't see the reason why we should not let people with ideas to put their efforts in download or shared sections. :)
Oh, it is absolutely encouraged via the forums and possibly in the Showcase section of the site. Solo has kept the somewhat "official" areas sparse very much on purpose to avoid a sort of rules-creep where too much stuff becomes defacto standard fare or otherwise felt-like as official.

I agree to this, as I am never quite satisfied with many offerings made by others, so I would prefer to not have much become such "semi-official fare" that players might feel like they are entitled to utilize.

That all said, share away in the forums... we all love to see the ideas!
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Solomoriah
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by Solomoriah »

ArtemisEntreri wrote:Just a question... Why is there this "we don't care" attitude against classes/rules? A game like this should live mostly with home made stuff... Ok, it's difficult to reach perfect balance, but I don't see the reason why we should not let people with ideas to put their efforts in download or shared sections. :)
Balancing a new class is very, very hard. I mean, really hard. A bad class can ruin a game faster than anything else; if you create a magic item, or a spell, or some other "thing" that is too powerful or otherwise unbalanced, you can remove it in any number of ways. But the class IS the character, so if you have a player with one of your super awesome ranger/necromancer combos (using an example that has never actually appeared, thank the gods), and you discover that combo is a bad idea, you have to tell the player he or she can no longer play that character. I've had to do that once, and it sucks.

The Downloads page is reserved for things that I, in my imperfect wisdom, believe won't screw up someone's game. This means that any non-traditional classes are just not allowed at all, and even the ones I have there now bother me sometimes.

The Showcase is reserved for those who are the best creators of material. If your name appears as author, contributor, or editor of anything I've accepted for the Downloads page, you just have to ask and I'll upgrade your account so you can use the Showcase. Getting access otherwise requires you to submit an adventure or supplement that is good enough and professional enough in presentation to convince me and a quorum of my mods that you deserve to be in the Showcase.

ANYONE can post materials in the Workshop, and there is no limit (other than relevance and propriety) as to what can appear there.
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ArtemisEntreri
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Re: Advice on Workshop Ideas?

Post by ArtemisEntreri »

Hi!

Ok, you both explained it perfectly and makes sense.
I didn't mean to create a "case" tho, just get the ratio.

Thanks! Take care
AE
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